"You should avoid following anyone on Twitter who has a pinned tweet at the top of their profile which is more than three months old. They're unwittingly telling you that they've not had anything of note to say in the intervening period and instead are clinging onto the one thing they did write that was deemed marginally clever or memorable in the hope anyone visiting their page for the first time will instantly think this is representative of that person. It's the same reason people arrange their bookshelves with titles that visitors will think well they must be intelligent if they've read all these impressively named books by distinguished academics and authors. Pick a book off the shelf, read the blurb to familiarise yourself with its contents and ask them what they thought of the book. Chances are the books they have actually read from cover to cover are all hidden behind."
Emily made a mental note to unpin her last tweet when the train pulled back into civilisation and the land of phone signals, to make a visit to the charity shop to donate some books and to stop ear wigging into other people's conversations when she's travelling. She resisted the urge to turn around and see what the man talking looked like. Emily was smart enough to reason that she could find out when either they, or her departed the train depending on whose stop was first, or maybe they'd all get off together. Unzipping her holdall sat between her legs she fishes her hand inside and rummages until she finds her headphones and pulls them out. Mentally she curses the invisible gremlin that inhabits not only her bag but also her pockets and occupies their spare time by tying the wires into an seemingly never ending set of knots. It's the same gremlin who'd been with her most of her working career and had dabbled in paper clip linking on the side before offices moved to a paperless model and attachments to emails became the weapon of choice and you didn't need to hold bits of loose paper together anymore. Somewhere in the world there are millions of paperclips sat in boxes in a giant warehouse like orphans in a home, all desperately hoping someone will pick them and lead them to a better life.
Emily turns her body towards the window so she can see what she's doing better in the light. Holding up the headphones her mouth opens slightly and like an automatic reflex her tongue traps her top lip in a pincer movement with her teeth as she starts to untangle the web that she did not weave in total concentration mode.
Finally after many false starts she's cracked the code and the wire is one straight line again. "Yessss," she says triumphantly under her breath and turns her body back so its once more facing forward, only to then jump out of her skin making a noise you won't find the spelling of in the Oxford English dictionary but you can hear on any episode of Scooby Doo when they're being chased by a mummy who turns out to really be the school janitor in disguise. In the moment she let go of the headphones which fortunately for Emily only went as far as to fall on the fold out table in front of her.
"I am so sorry," comes the words of the incredibly apologetic passenger who was perched on the edge of the seat beside her now and who had caused the momentary panic in her previously calm demeanor. "I stood here for about 45 seconds waiting to ask if I could sit down and you were so engrossed that I didn't want to ruin your concentration or ironically make you jump so I thought I'll just perch on the edge thinking she looks kind I'm sure she won't mind."
Kill em with kindness. It's a winner every time.
Emily puts her right hand on her heart just to check it's in the place it should be. Check completed, raising it up now she tells the stranger "Don't worry, my fault entirely," in that unique way that all British people accept responsibility even when it's not their fault at all that something occurred.
"Oh no it was entirely my fault," he says again in that British way of claiming all the burden and relieving the other person of any responsibility whatsoever. Had they been Scottish she might have called him a fucking prick and told him where to go and he might have replied it's a free country but in fairness he'd have just plonked himself down beside her anyway without even thinking to have asked her permission first.
"Look," he says and gestures to the large gap between them as if to validate the point that he was trying to be respectful.
Emily wobbles her head from side to indicate yeah, fair enough without having to say the words. "Is it OK if I?" He adds again in the way Brits ask questions without the need to finish the rest of the question off.
"Oh my God yes of course, please," and with permission granted he swings his legs from out the aisle and into the confined space and immediately thinks to himself actually I wish I'd have just kept them where they were. Who designs these things with zero leg room? "Thank you that's very kind. It's been a long day stood on my feet and I just needed to take a weight off you know?"
"Ohhh totally," she says lying having sat on her arse all day in the office, walking the short distance to the station, sitting down on a bench waiting for the train, walking the short distance to find a seat on the train and then sitting down again. She makes another mental note stand up more.
"So what do you do?" She asks out of the British need for politeness and then regrets it instantaneously thinking he's going to know you're lying about the standing up if he asks you what you do. Just tell him the firm you work for and hope he doesn't ask in what role.
"Oh nothing exciting I'm afraid. I'm currently volunteering at an animal rescue shelter. She shuffles a little in her seat as her uterus grabs her internal organs closest to it and shakes them in excitement and it screams this could be the one!!!
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