Martedì, 09 Marzo, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 08:30

I had seen her every day for months. She caught the same train. The 8.10am Monday to Friday, direct to the city. She always sat next to the tap dancer that was dressed as a huge halapeno pepper.

That man was hot. The way he moved his feet was amazing. But it wouldn't have been all that hard as we occupied the same carriage as the rythym section of the local Cuban band. The drums beat, the trumpets rang out and the maracas shoosed their way through the morning ride.

The first time I saw Silvia the band was playing a beautiful rendition of "Stranger in Paradise". The first thing I saw were her eyes. They were black like night. Her skin as smooth as silk and tinged in the dark earthy hues of an olive grove. I remember approaching her as the train stopped and I had risen to get out.

She was the smell of freedom. At first I thought it may have been the halapeno tap dancer, but he had already departed.

This was something different. She smelled of emerald lakes, sheltered pathways and lush, open meadows. She looked up at me as I waited for her to pass on her way to the exit. She smiled with a reserved warmness.

There was a depth in her eyes where a man could happily drown.

Her gaze launched an arrow that pierced my chest with a violence I had never felt before. It took all my strength and presence to hide the blood that was dripping on to the new shoes I had recently purchased for a song at Kmart.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. I could hear it in my ears as I leaned over to her. I asked her to dance. She coyly declined and walked away.

Men like me never end up with women like Silvia.

Damn, they were playing one of my favourite songs, "Strangers in the Night". Who could blame her, it was too early in the morning.

I loved how the band had accentuated the rhythmic rhumba beat of the song Frank Sinatra had made famous. I sat and listened for a while.

There was a handful of men, looking solemn and far too sober. We sang along at the best words in the song: "Dooby-dooby-doo, Doo-doo-doo-dah-dah, Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-yah-yah-yah."