Muse

You look like you write.

As you sit in front of me, two seats away, I stare at the thick swipe of kohl under your eyes, smudged at the corners, paired with the bare eyelids.

Your face, it blends in with the rest. It's not extraordinary. But at the same time, it somehow subtly stands out. Or perhaps, it's just my eyes that have been programmed to find you amidst a crowd.

You look like the person who's idea of the best birthday gift is a Polaroid camera, or an old musty typewriter.

Someone who's favourite festival is Christmas.

Someone who can quote Shakespeare for her replies, with meticulously correct punctuation.

You have a second piercing in your ear, but both of them exhibit a mutual lack of accessories; while the little silver chain makes its way through your longest brown tresses and falls softly on your collar bones.

Your earphones peep out of the corner of your transparent pencil bag, and somehow it convinces me that your favourite band would be one nobody's ever heard the name of.

You look like the kind of person, who uses semi-colons a lot.

You look like you would sit on the armrest on a Sunday afternoon, listening to your dad's favourite tracks from his college days.

You look like that one person whom you can often find staring out of a window.

You scribble in your spiral binding notebook with your left hand, biting your lip every now and then.

Black rubber band on your right wrist, as you struggle to confine your locks behind your ear, I struggle to choose between a, an and the; and I absolutely make a mess of my spellings.

This is a tough job.

The sound of the lecturer's voice travels tangentially past my head while the occasional screech of chalk on the board is enough to make you look around to make sure no one's looking, and I quickly turn my eyes the other way.

The rest of the time, you are too lost in your own parallel universe to even feel my glance.

Too lost, to feel your universe colliding with mine.

The bell goes, marking the end of the two hour class. Amidst the shuffling of feet and intensifying chit chat, your eyes fall on me.

I notice the half done black and white doodle on your notebook, and I try to make a face which portrays my appreciation.

She looks at me and-

You could call that a smile. I could feel that she's smiling through her eyes, but the corners of her mouth, they don't move an inch. It's the exact opposite of what you do for pictures.

It is absurd. But it suits her.

She closes her notebook, turns around and walks away.

I realise.

I don't even know her name.