A Train Ride (17 minutes)

17 minutes. That’s exactly how long it takes for you to commute from Bülowstr to Dahlem Dorf. Two minutes to go to Wittenberg Platz then fifteen minutes to go to Dahlem Dorf. Usually you spend the first two minutes staring outside the window or keeping your eyes on a meaningless ad, studying it so closely as if it is the most interesting object in the world. Don’t feel like eye contacts. Hate to be spoken to, hate it even more it should be people you actually know. Can’t we just pretend we don’t know each other? Don’t all Asian girls look the same to you?

You spend the following 15 minutes' ride staring at your iPod. That’s what you downloaded all the novels from the eBooks app for. The ride would be excruciatingly long if you happen to forget your iPod home. What should you do then? As much as you like observing people you prefer doing it in the dark. Sitting in the U Bahn you’ve got no vantage point to observe. They WILL feel your stare. Better scenario, they avoid eye contacts as well by looking into (not reading) this book they are holding at hands— like reading Verlaine in the U Bahn? What blasphemy! Worse scenario, they—oftentimes slightly flirtatious young guys who feel too good about themselves—think you are interested and wink at you with the most charming smile they have. So what do you do then? Smiling back? But you are not that friendly a person, not with strangers. Maybe that’s why Berlin’s the perfect city for you. No hi to strangers. Of course sometimes you miss the “You are beautiful” coming from total strangers. Won’t happen in Berlin. But your anxiety takes over and of course you can do without such ego-boost.

So you keep on reading, sitting as still as a marble statue. One Platz comes after another and you always mix up the station names. Doesn’t matter. All you have to know is that the sunlight will suddenly bursts in one station before Dahlem Dorf and it would be time for you to put your iPod back to your purse, put on your scarf, check the time, getting ready to stand up and rush to the elevator before everybody else gets there.

And so it goes a perfect train ride. No eye contacts. No acquaintances and thereby no meaningless chitchat. Just you, and this perfect city of indifference, and the dirty melting snow on the pavement.