If you don’t already know, the Paris metro is an amazing transportation system to have access to. Not only is it efficient, fast, and reliable, but it is an equalizing institution in Parisian society. In the city, everyone uses the metro - no matter how important or rich you are. It is simply the best way to get around in most situations.

The metro is also a place where interesting and whimsical things seem to happen out of thin air. Street music, singing, impromptu puppet shows and dance performances are just some of the many exciting things that can happen on the metro. However, after seeing these same events over and over again, the metro does begin to lose a little bit of its novelty.

Perhaps I felt that way about it a couple of nights ago when I boarded that train at the Concorde metro station, but by the time I had gotten home, I had experienced something new on the metro that added back a little bit of the spark, the liveliness and the freshness of the metro as it exists for me.

I follow the people in front of me through the doors and slide into my seat, flipping it down with my hand as I sit. There are people sitting on the bench facing me and their backs are up against another bench facing the same direction as mine. Facing me in the third row of seats there is a girl sitting, leaning up against the window.

She has a normal-looking face: brown eyes with long eyelashes. She looks pensive with her cheek up against the glass. Almost all the seats in the car are filled with people, and as the train starts to move, I start thinking about the play I just saw, what I need to pack for Normandy tomorrow, about my summer and other things that are on my mind. While I’m zoning out, the girl stops looking out the window and her eyes turn to meet mine. The unexpected spark of the contact yanks me out of my daydreaming. I return her glance and feel my stomach leap into my chest. She quickly looks away. I can see the blood rising in her cheeks and feel my cheeks growing warm too. My heart beating fast, I look to the left. She looks to my right so that both of us are now looking out windows on opposite sides of the train.

Two stops more and out of the corner of my eye, I see her glance back at me. I turn my head to look back but she has already looked away. She notices I’ve looked and looks back, but this time I’ve looked away like she did the first time. We choose instead to continue staring out of our respective windows which is much less awkward than waiting for one of us to make eye contact again. The train is still moving along and people are getting on and off the metro, but the two of us are sitting there frozen, as the people, lights and stations blur by. I realize that I can see her in the reflection of my window and notice that she has been looking at me in hers as well. The windows are reflective because of the contrast between the dark tunnel and the lights inside the train.  As I watch her reflection I notice how beautiful she really is. She has long, wavy golden brown hair, a slender nose and a reassuring face with soft brown eyes that shine with little twinkling stars of light from the florescent bulbs lining sections of the tunnel.

A few more stops pass by and I’ve built up the courage to try making eye contact again. This time she returns the glance immediately and I smile. It feels warmer this time, not like the sudden jolt from before. This meeting has a softer, cozier, sitting by the fireplace kind of feeling. She smiles too and we stay like that for a minute or so silently enjoying one another’s company, and somehow fully knowing one another, not where the other comes from, or even what the other’s name is, but something deeper and more real, as if for a second I can see the depths of her soul and she mine. After a while though, the intimacy fades away and we each slip back to the company of our own consciences.

I now only have a few stops left before I have to get off the train, and I start wondering if she will get off at the same one by chance. What would I say to her? Bonsoir, comment vous appelez-vous? I start playing out the potential scenarios in my mind as a pair of old ladies step up into the car and hover over my seat. I give it up because I have to, plus I am getting off in a few stops. I can’t see the girl anymore except for a few bits of her wavy hair bouncing up and down as the train jostles back and forth, but for some reason I still hope that she will coincidentally exit at the same station as me.

Then, it’s my stop. I pardon my way past the people and old ladies, roll back the door to exit, and take one step off the train. The door she would have come through hasn’t opened yet, and I turn my head farther until I can see her looking out her window staring at me, hoping I would look back for her. When my line of sight connects with hers, the ends of her lips turn slightly upwards and mine follow. Her eyes sparkle when they make contact with mine, and for a second, the foot I am stepping with seems to freeze in midair.

Then someone hit the play button and I walked up the stairs into the cold night air, away from someone whose name I did not know, whose voice I had never heard and whose personality I had never experienced, someone I would probably never see again. As I continued on to my apartment, I was surprised at how this wordless encounter stuck with me and somehow filled me with the type of contentment that makes you want to throw your fist into the air. When I got back to my room, I decided to write it down to share my new experience that adds a unique aspect to my perception of the transportation system that is the Paris metro.

 

Reach Columnist Matthew Woo here. Read and see more photos of his travels in France here.