Daily Zone 1 & 2 Confession

Goodbye (for now, not forever)

2006-09-11T16:53:00.002+10:00

It has come time for Melbourne Train Girl to hang up her red shoes, for the moment at least. Melbourne Train Girl runs her own business. Did you know that? And it is high time she actually got to work. She will return, this is certain, but perhaps not in the same way that she exists now. She is sad about leaving, and feeling very guilty towards all those who have been reading her stories and waiting for more, but Melbourne Train Girl really needs a career. She leaves those dedicated readers safe in the knowledge that she and the Short Boy are living happily ever after (or at least happily as long as it will last).

Perfect Things

2006-08-09T15:52:00.000+10:00

Shy hello at his gate. His face more freckled. Her face unchanged. A kiss. A smile. Red wine in large glasses. A tour of his house and a gift from Germany. Paintings, and art, and culture, and beautiful things. Chopsticks and plastic containers. A movie they can't remember, and two more never even watched. Dessert. One bowl. Two spoons. Shoes, then shirts, then pants, then...

Empty Houses

2006-08-04T12:30:00.001+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl waited for after dinner with restless impatience; for that was when the Short Boy had said he would call. Once she had eaten she walked one lap of her house and decided she would not let the waiting game get the better of her. She cleaned her room. Then she vaccuumed. And after that she rearranged her shoes in her wardrobe.

It was after she had given up on tidying, and sat down with her guitar and her sister for a sing-a-long that the sound of her phone violently stirred the butterflies inside her.

His voice was just as she remembered it. And really, how could she ever have thought to have forgotten it? He had read every one of her emails - even the parts about finding mushrooms growing in her lounge room and about her day trip to the country.

Melbourne Train Girl stood outside in the middle of the road, talking to him while the cold of the damp ground seeped rapidly through her socks and numbed her toes. He asked if she were free the next night, which of course she was. She had made no plans for this weekend hoping that he would want to see her at least one of the days. It was settled. They would meet the next night for a meal or a coffee. Melbourne Train Girl said goodbye and danced back into her house where her sister was waiting with an affectionate head shake and a smile.

It was then that Melbourne Train Girl realised under her excitement was a tiny fear. He had told her his parents were leaving the next morning to take some visiting relatives on a weekend away, and that his sister was deserting him as well. Before he left, Melbourne Train Girl had spent their last few evenings together with a small silent hope he would invite her back to his house, but now that it was much more likely, the prospect scared her just a little more than it should have. It made her nervous and anxious, even more so that she was very certain his intentions were pure. There was no rational explaination for these feelings. Except, perhaps, simply that such a possibility was arisen on only their very first meeting after five weeks parted.

Melbourne Train Girl is almost certain, however, that the moment she sees his face she will accept any invitation that extends her time with him, and that the moment he kisses her she will be very thankful indeed at the promise of an empty house.

Smiling

2006-08-03T15:31:00.000+10:00

She stood waiting for the train that was already seven minutes late and smiled.

The train arrived another three minutes later, its windows clouded with fog and raindrops, and still she smiled.

She walked from the station in the cold, grey rain and she smiled.

The puddles that dampened her canvas shoes soaked through to her socks too but she still smiled.

She lost a second button from her jacket some time around morning tea and still she was smiling.

She took her sunglasses from her bag to discover an arm had fallen off and simply smiled.

Even when she passed a large pile of horse droppings on the tram tracks as she crossed the road she smiled.

She walked through the market between the rows of vibrant vegetables and fragrant preserves and grinned from ear to ear while her stomach growled.

She purchased a tub of honey that she really couldn't afford but that she had developed a taste for and smiled.

And then all the way home on the train she sat doing nothing but looking out of the window, smiling at the grey trunks and evergreen leaves as they passed by.

The Short Boy is home and he is calling Melbourne Train Girl tonight.

Melbourne Train Girl cannot seem to finish anything...

2006-07-26T15:23:00.000+10:00

"That was the first time she had me the Short Boy. The first time she met the Late Boy she was only fifteen. It was summer, and she remembers the white pants that came just below her knee and the cheerful aqua of her lace top. She would never wear those colours now, but they suited her sixteen year old personality perfectly."

***

"Melbourne Train Girl sat in the State Library near the magazines. Her red shoes lay in front of her chair, and she curled her stockinged feet up underneath her. Sitting some way across from her was a boy in a black jumper. Melbourne Train Girl watched him from where she sat."

***

"Melbourne Train Girl and one of the loveliest girls she knows parted ways on the corner of Exhibition and Little Collins Streets. Melbourne Train Girl turned left, the Lovely Girl right. Three lively forty-something women bustled through the doors of a large hotel foyer in a cloud of forty-something chiffon and forty-something perfume. they laughed and exclaimed their way into a waiting taxi, one giving Melbourne Train Girl's stockinged legs a disapproving glance as she passed."

***

"Tonight Melbourne Train Girl had banana in her fruit salad. Bananas are very expensive and therefore very sparse at her house. One night, after a very bad day some weeks ago she burst into tears at the sight of two tiny bananas sitting in the fruit bowl."

Sisters

2006-07-26T00:25:00.000+10:00

"Will you be watching the final episode of The OC?" Melbourne Train Girl's middle sister asked with a smile and raise of her eyebrow.

Melbourne Train Girl knew the look. She and her two sisters shared very few physical features. But mannerisms: all three were perfect reflections of each other.

"No, I can't say I was planning on it," Melbourne Train Girl returned the jocular smile. The Middle Sister knew very well that she didn't watch any of the episodes, let alone make plans in advance to do so.

"Well, if you change your mind, the Baby Sister and I will be downstairs. You can join the party."

Melbourne Train Girl laughed and went back to her work and red wine. She sat at the kitchen table for three minutes before deciding upstairs alone was much too quiet. She collected up her work, and her wine, and joined the two of them on the floor of the Middle Sister's bedroom.

"So, she decides to watch too," said the Baby Sister to the Middle Sister. She too ended her observation with the droll smile.

"Upstairs was too boring," replied Melbourne Train Girl, placing her wine carefully on the floor where she would not knock it over. The last glass of red wine she had taken into the Middle Sister's bedroom had ended up on the carpet.

"Oh no!" Melbourne Train Girl had cried that night, as the red stain had spread rapidly.

"Oh no...quick, clean it!" the Middle Sister had said from her bed.

Unable to find any carpet shampoo, Melbourne Train Girl had poured a very liberal amount of baking soda onto the dark red circle. The white baking soda had instantly turned an inky black that reminded Melbourne Train Girl of gangrenous flesh.

"That colour looks so foul..." the Middle Sister had observed, peering at the baking soda as she knelt beside Melbourne Train Girl.

"Maybe it needs more..." the two had watched as the black seeped up to colour Melbourne Train Girl's second pouring of baking soda.

"That didn't work so well..." the Middle Sister had said after Melbourne Train Girl had vaccuumed it up.

"No it didn't...I will buy carpet shampoo tomorrow."

Melbourne Train Girl never had bought carpet shampoo. Tonight she sat next to the pale pink stain still on the carpet.

"How long has she got?" the Baby Sister asked.

"Twenty five minutes," replied the Middle Sister.

The only thing Melbourne Train Girl knew about the show was that Marissa would die that episode. Her sisters were counting down the minutes she had left alive.

"Where is she supposed to be going?" Melbourne Train Girl asked, as they watched her say goodbye to her mother.

"To die," replied the Baby Sister. She was very matter of fact.

"I know she's going to die, but where is she supposed to be going?"

"It doesn't matter. She's going to die," the Middle Sister was just as matter of fact.

"If I didn't know she was going to die, where would I think she was going?"

"Sailing. On her dad's boat."

"Yes, she will be part of the crew."

The last time Melbourne Train Girl had seen an episode of The OC Marissa's father had not had a boat. In fact, she vaguely remembered him owning a restaurant. Melbourne Train Girl does not watch a lot of television.

"How long?" the Baby Sister asked as her mobile phone vibrated for the third time in five minutes.

"Only ten minutes left..." the Middle Sister replied.

Three collective cringes, two collective laughs, and one collective eyebrow raise later, it happened.

Melbourne Train Girl looked over at the Baby Sister's face, "was it really that distressing? Your face looks very distraught..."

"It's not distraught. It was more like this:" the Baby Sister pulled an odd confused face that looked nothing like that she had made when Marissa had died.

Melbourne Train Girl frowned, and then laughed.

The Middle Sister got up from her bed and left her bedroom. The Baby Sister followed suit, and Melbourne Train Girl thought she should do the same. The Middle Sister went to her computer, the Baby Sister to call her boyfriend who had been sending SMS's all through the episode. Melbourne Train Girl sat at her own computer to finish her work and her wine, wondering how exactly Marissa had actually died. There had not been any blood. Not even a scratch on her perfect face. And her lips had been in the most perfect shape. Melbourne Train Girl was quite positive that no one died that perfectly in a car accident.

It was several hours later, while her sisters talked to their boyfriends online and on the phone, that her phone beeped from upstairs. She couldn't think who would send an SMS at 11pm on a Tuesday.

The Short Boy, that is who.

Melbourne Train Girl, on her second glass of wine, skipped to tell her sisters, not minding one bit that they wouldn't be so interested.

Bananas

2006-07-24T22:10:00.000+10:00

Tonight Melbourne Train Girl had banana in her fruit salad. Bananas are very expensive and therefore very sparse at her house. One night, after a very bad day some weeks ago she burst into tears at the sight of two tiny bananas sitting in the fruit bowl.

"There are bananas..." she said through the sobs and cradled one as though it were the finest and rarest of all delicacies, before peeling it and eating it very very slowly. The taste was comfort. As each mouthful was chewed and swallowed, so too were the bad events of that day removed from where they had been sitting heavy and squat at the bottom of her stomach.

Emails

2006-07-22T15:54:00.000+10:00

Just past 8am. Melbourne's sky was a fresh clear blue, Melbourne Train Girl's hair freshly red. She dyes it herself with henna, spreading the thick green mud onto her hair and then sitting for five hours, her head wrapped in cling wrap, a shower cap and a thick towel. Her new fringe covers the orange stain in her hairline.

She has not slept since the night before last, and her stomach churns with too much chocolate and nowhere near enough substantial food. At just past 9am she will arrive home, but she will not go to bed. Instead she will email the Short Boy. She lets the sentences she will write meander and form in her mind as she sits watching the neglected backs of brick buildings go by the train window.

It has been more than three weeks. And less than two until he is back. In that time he has sent two SMS messages, one exlusively to her, and two emails, one exclusively to her. She: three SMS's and two emails. He is always playful and funny with his words, and Melbourne Train Girl uses too many and makes jokes in her replies.

On Tuesday the friend who introduced Melbourne Train Girl to the Short Boy had returned from overseas. On Thursday fancy coffees and pots of tea were spread on a table in a local café to welcome her home.

"You have nothing to worry about," Long Legged Friend said to Melbourne Train Girl with a smile as she added milk to her tea, "the Short Boy is really into you."

She had met up with him in Berlin, where they had apparently talked of Melbourne Train Girl quite a bit.

By the time Melbourne Train Girl reached her stop, clouds had begun to gather in the west to sprinkle themselves across the sky. Melbourne Train Girl predicted that before 11 it would be grey and like winter again. The weather never setlles in Melbourne. She sat on the train distracted by her thoughts, and it wasn't until she saw the sign of her station disappearing into the distance that she realised she had missed it. She caught the train back from the next stop and was at her car, after that short detour.

Things and places and people and names no longer remind Melbourne Train Girl of the Short Boy. Instead he sits perched constantly in the back of her mind, smiling the silly way he does. Melbourne Train Girl can never recall faces, but his dances like a photograph.

The first time they had met was on Friday the 24th of March. Melbourne Train Girl had liked his lego shirt, and he had liked her red shoes and the matching red lace she had safety-pinned around her wrist. Those tipsily exchanged compliments at the start of the night and about ten minutes of conversation at the end were the only words that they had spoke.

"My friend the Short Boy really liked you Melbourne Train Girl!" Long Legged friend had said several days after that night.

"The Short Boy...which one was he?" Melbourne Train Girl never remembers names.

Long Legged Friend had described him, and Melbourne Train Girl had remembered him by his T-Shirt.

That was the first time they had met. All Melbourne Train Girl's friends now know that story. Some have possibly heard it more than once.

Finally, Melbourne Train Girl arrived home and opened her email.

Luck

2006-07-18T20:36:00.000+10:00

"Quick, run!" Melbourne Train Girl's friend cried as he looked at the screen and saw that the last train was leaving in one minute. She fumbled for her ticket before realising the barrier was open and she didn't need it to get through.

"Bye!" she shouted as she ran towards the escalators. Down and down and down she ran. She thought it would never end, and when it finally did she started on the second.

Down and down and down again.

As she reached the final step the beep of the doors closing gave her legs speed she never knew they had. She was too late. The last train began to move just as her hand grasped the handle. Dropping her arms to her sides she stepped back from the edge of the platform and began to turn back, shoulders dropped, to return up the imposing escalators to the top of Parliament Station. Up to where her friend was most probably still waiting to see if she had made the train.

As she turned, she heard the brakes of the train hiss, and the soft yet familiar thud of the doors releasing. Waving in the air, to whoever was responsible for the train stopping, she ran inside and sat down.

Up at the top of the escalators she was told, another man had not been blessed with Melbourne Train Girl's luck. he had looked at the screen to see the word "now" staring defiantly back at him. His shoulders slumped with what was obviously the realisation of no place to go.

Melbourne Train Girl has always had surprisingly good luck. Although she admitted to feeling just the slightest bit disappointed the train had stopped for her. She had been having fun playing cards with her friend, and could have taken the escalators back up to continue.

Bettie Page

2006-07-14T14:07:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl's hair has not been cut in over a year. It used to be rather cropped, but now twelve months' growth sees it reaching almost past her shoulders.

She sat in the half darkness of her bedroom and folded the front section of her hair across her forehead. Standing back from the mirror, she tried to imagine that tucked under piece of hair as a fringe. With a sudden snap her mind clicked and locked itself into decision. She stood. Determinedly. And walked to the bathroom.

Turning on the tap, she ran her hands first under the cold water and then through her hair. With delicate precision she took a black comb with six missing teeth and sectioned off a perfectly symmetrical portion of hair at the front of her head, tying the rest back.

Finally, with the only sharp pair of scissors she owned; a pair of stainless steel dressmakers' scissors; she made one defiant cut exactly level with her nose. She then took her comb and two fingers, and began to snip along the width of the fringe until it sat just above her eyebrows. Once satisfied it was as even as she could make it with the cumbersome scissors, she dried it with her sister's hairdryer and then stood back to look.

She thinks she liked it.

With a slightly hysterical laugh, Melbourne Train Girl stared at herself, turning left and then right, combing the new fringe with her fingers. Then, realising the haircut had made her late, she hastily threw on her red coat and left for the train station.

"We thought you weren't coming! And you've brought a fringe!" she was greeted at the bar.

The first time she went to the bathroom that evening she shocked herself when she looked up into the mirror from washing her hands.

The second time she was more prepared, and smiled at her reflection.

Later, as she walked towards Cookie with a friend she mused aloud "I've never been here before, but I've heard about it. And from what I've heard I think my new fringe will fit in quite well."

On the train home a shifty looking man with a shaved head and large red bag at his feet sat opposite Melbourne Train Girl and stared at her with red, swollen eyes. The door between the carriages opened with a dull thunk and three Connex officers walked through. The man began to shift nervously in his seat, moving is head from left to right whilst covering his forehead and eyes with his hand. Melbourne Train Girl decided he either had no ticket or was worried about something entirely different and much more serious and exciting.

She waited for the officers to ask passengers for their tickets, but they never did. Instead they chatted to each other before one decided he would try and fix the broken door closer on the door they had come through. One minute later the second male officer went to help, and in ten minutes time the three of them left the train, one carrying the now broken off piece of door hardware in his coat pocket.

The man opposite Melbourne Train Girl resumed his staring. She tried to ignore it and kept writing.

The train pulled into her station, and as she stood up to leave the man spoke. In a drawl, slow and thick like golden syrup, he said "Your hair is awesome man..."

"Thanks!" she replied as she smiled and jumped off the train. Once at her car she saw her reflection in the dark windows and decided he was right.

She wonders how the Short Boy feels about Bettie Page...

Chopsticks

2006-07-11T03:30:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl has always been scattered and somewhat disorganised. She lamented this as she searched through her handbag, purse, bedroom, studio, car and finally the pockets of all her coats, collecting up receipts. She sat on the floor amongst at least eight piles of papers and attempted to catch up on three months' record keeping before beginning her tax.

Really, Melbourne Train Girl has no idea what she is doing.

She sat, and sifted, and shifted papers from one pile to another until, frustrated almost to the point of tears, she stood abruptly and chose to leave her house.

She walked in the direction of the early setting sun, with no real destination in mind. When she arrived at the supermarket she went inside, intending to look for some inspiration as to what to cook for dinner. She began in search of ingredients for a stir fry, and left instead with those for wontons.

Melbourne Train Girl never uses plastic bags. Instead she fills her much too large handbag and then carries that which won't fit in her other hand.

She frowned at finding another crumpled, half faded receipt in the pocket of her jeans while looking for change. At least the ink of the date on this one had not yet completely disappeared. Unlike others...

Melbourne Train Girl had never made wontons before. They turned out better than expected, although she perhaps used a little too much ginger and not quite enough salt.

Lately Melbourne Train Girl has been practicing eating with chopsticks. She has never been very good, and is determined to master even the slipperiest of morsels. When she and the Short Boy had eaten at a bright and lively Vietnamese restaurant where there was a thermos of scalding green tea on each table, Melbourne Train Girl had not been able to pick up the slices of giant mushroom from one of the dishes they had shared. The Short Boy had laughed and showed off his own skills, although not without a piece of snow pea leaf missing his mouth and landing with a plop on the sky blue laminate table next to his plate. But apart from that spill he was very proficient. He had lived in Japan for a year, after all.

Melbourne Train Girl wrestled with a particularly stubborn wonton, re-adjusting the position of the cream plastic chopsticks in her hand. Her red wine fingernails were almost naked once again, except for small chipped portions of polish in the centre of six of them. She'd painted them on the train before her first real date with the Short Boy. She has to paint her right hand when the train is stopped at stations, as her left hand is too shaky.

She wonders whether there will still be fragments of polish left when the Short Boy returns. In her superstitious way she decrees she will not scratch it off with her fingernail. If the dark burgundy completely chips away, she decides that it means the Short Boy has forgotten her...

Suburbs

2006-07-09T00:39:00.000+10:00

There was a stilness in the air that only comes with late hours and quiet suburbs. Wrapped in her thick grey coat, Melbourne Train Girl walked up the hill toward the roundabout where she had plans to meet her Almost Best Friend at midnight. The mist of gauzy drizzle that hung in the air thickened as she walked, and she pulled her hood over her head and buttoned her coat to the top.

She remembered the day she had bought that coat. The Late Boy had given her an incredulous look as she bounded up to him, showing off her new purchase.

"You look like an eskimo!" he had said, laughing and shaking his head.

This has always been one of Melbourne Train Girl's favourite coats.

Passing one house she caught a faint hint of cigar smoke on the breeze. At another a laugh rose up to bubble in the air before bursting back into silience once again. As she neared the roundabout her Almost Best Friend appeared over the hill and waved. He pulled his own hood up and mocked Melbourne Train Girl's silly skipping strides.

They walked in the dark and the drizzle, their words and laughter cutting through the midnight stillness. After half an hour or so they wandered through a metal gate and into Melbourne Train Girl's old primary school. The wooden playground that used to stand out the back has long since been replaced by plastic, but the buildings are still the same. Melbourne Train Girl ran her hand along the curved stone wall, and let the long forgotten memories of lining up two by two and hand in hand when the bell sounded surface once again in her mind.

The wooden logs behind the portable were still in the same spot. If they weren't so slicked and slippery with rain she would have walked along them.

A sound like hasty footsteps stopped Melbourne Train Girl mid sentence, and she turned her eyes distractedly to the right.

"I think that was just rain," her Almost Best Friend said, but they both began to walk again. Just in case.

They sat at the side of the basketball court on a log that was only slightly damp until he said "do you think it is kind of creepy here?" Looking around at the deserted buildings with their big empty eyes as windows Melbourne Train Girl agreed, and they continued to walk.

Melbourne Train Girl and her Almost Best Friend live very close. In their suburb there is nothing to do except to walk. The supermarket had closed some hours ago, and there were no more trams to take them up the road to the one that stayed open all night. So they wandered, in the dark and the rain, laughing and talking of all manner of things until they both got too cold and decided to call it a night.

He walked Melbourne Train Girl back to her house (for safety of course - his just as much as her own), and then Melbourne Train Girl drove him the three minutes back up to his house. She thinks she managed to forget about thinking of the Short Boy for the whole evening. She is very grateful for that night of clarity.

Not forgotten

2006-07-06T17:43:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl had heard her phone beep that morning, but, too tired to look, rolled over and closed her eyes to get just a little bit more sleep. It wasn't until much later in the day that she remembered and checked her messages.

It was the Short Boy.

She read his friendly greeting from sunny Deutschland and when she got to the end of the final "wish you were here" jumped up and danced around in an erratic little circle, clutching the hem of her cream tartan skirt and shaking it as she ran on the spot.

Once her little fit of euphoric dancing was over, Melbourne Train Girl ran and skipped to find someone to share her excitement with. Her sister was not very impressed when Melbourne Train Girl chanted "I got an SMS, I got an SMS, I got an SMS!" over and over whilst jumping up and down in her long black boots, waving her phone in the air.

Her sister's indifference didn't matter one bit, however, as Melbourne Train Girl had enough excitement pouring out of her toes to keep a small dance troupe energised for at least several performances.

Young

2006-07-05T01:12:00.000+10:00

She had the palest white skin, her cheeks glowing pink in their porcelain setting. Her hair fell long and strawberry blonde down the sides of her face, tumbling over her shoulders as she moved her head to laugh and smile. Her face looked no older than fourteen. One day she would be stunning.

Her tiny pale fingers touched the cheek of the Asian boy she stood with, who looked not very much older. Their movements were shy yet familiar, and Melbourne Train Girl wondered how long they had been calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. They looked so young. Too young.

Yet Melbourne Train Girl remembers how she felt at that age. This girl reminded her of herself. Pale and slender, with a shy mouth. And Melbourne Train Girl would have worn lilac too.

At that age every akwardly put together piece of Melbourne Train Girl had ached for a boyfriend. Some days she found it hard to think of much else; the rest of the days it was all she thought about. She thought about who he would be, how they would meet, and in tiny, exruciating detail, what their first kiss would be like. What her first kiss would be like.

(It hadn't been that great...he had opened his mouth too wide and she felt as though she were being engulfed by a small octopus)

The first kiss is always easy and wonderful. It is after the first kiss that the first relationship steers out of control onto treacherous and uncertain ground. Decisions are made when the decision makers are truly not ready, and for too many of the wrong reasons. Melbourne Train Girl hopes that this little red haired thing hasn't yet reached that point of confusion. She hopes that for now it will be holding hands and kissing in doorways for so long that their lips tingle as feeling leaves them. Melbourne Train Girl is very glad she is well past that point herself.

The Short Boy was a gentleman. Their last night together it had been very very late, and he had looked very very tired. "You are welcome to sleep here, although my bedroom is very messy..." she had said, her voice not quite managing to cover the shyness he seemed to make her feel. She got the feeling he didn't think she was quite that shy, however. Perhaps it was the look in her eyes as she bit the skin on his collar bone lightly with her teeth, and ran her fingernails down his spine not so lightly.

"A very tempting offer..." he had replied, "but I will have to decline."

He had smiled at her and kissed her once more. A little later he had told her he wouldn't want to run into any members of her family in her house at that time of night.

Melbourne Train Girl can't help sighing when she thinks of that. Almost a week has gone by since he left, but still her inbox sits empty...

Clocks

2006-07-04T01:40:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl walked through Melbourne Central right on the hour. Tourists with cameras got to their feet under the clock as it began to chime. Couples smiled and wrapped their arms around each other as the galahs appeared and the sounds of Waltzing Matilda filled the air. Melbourne Train Girl has never taken that kind of notice of the clock before. To her it has always been small and insignificant.

To those who have come long distances to experience Melbourne, however, it is something very notable indeed. It is a reason to turn to briefly meet their loved ones eyes, and smile with an uncontained excitement. A reason to squeeze their dearest's hand a little tighter, and draw them just a little closer. And they will remember that night under the old clock with fond sighs and misty eyes.

Melbourne Train Girl has never really been away anywhere with someone significant. Just before her last relationship ended, she and the Late Boy had gone camping with friends. But that was when things were not going so well. The afternoon they arrived was bright and sunny but quickly turned to heavy rain, converting the soft grass of the camp site to thick, wet mud. The Late Boy had left their tent unzipped, and Melbourne Train Girl had discovered their sleeping bags and blankets soaked through. They slept that first night on opposite sides of the small tent, damp and uncomfortable.

The second night they slept dry. Melbourne Train Girl had hung their bedding in the sun when they woke. The Late Boy rolled over to place his arm across Melbourne Train Girl's chest, and she had turned over onto her side. Pretending to be asleep. For a second night they slept on opposite sides of the small tent.

On the third night, as a drunk Melbourne Train Girl buttoned her pyjamas, he began to unbutton them. She laughed and did them up again, and flopped down into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. Without saying a word he crawled out of the tent and stalked off somewhere. Melbourne Train Girl doesn't know where he went, or when he returned, but she knows that they slept that last night on opposite sides of the small tent.

Melbourne Train Girl hadn't wanted a holiday like that. She has always romanticised about the trips she will take. About sitting under a completely insignificant landmark and feeling as though it were the most magical thing in the world. She has wanted weekend car trips, plane rides interstate, and perhaps even wandering adventures overseas. For almost three and a half years there were no holidays. The Late Boy was too late, and too disorganised.

Melbourne Train Girl has a feeling growing slowly and delicately from somewhere deep inside her abdomen. She is quite certain she has taken several tentative steps onto a path leading to her clock.

Flowers

2006-07-01T23:14:00.000+10:00

A girl in a brightly coloured chiffon dress trod bare foot down the opposite platform. In one hand she carried her shoes and a bottle of water, in the other a dainty leather handbag. The dark skin under her eyes told tales of a night not slept, and the hesitancy in her footsteps of a few too many glasses of something not so good for her.

This girl's night was ending, as Melbourne Train Girl's day was only just beginning. It should have started almost an hour ago, but Melbourne Train Girl was running late. So was the train.

A spindly legged man got on at the next stop hefting an akwardly large suitcase. The worn, soft paper of the tag told her he was from Darwin. He must be finding Melbourne very, very cold today.

Melbourne Train Girl takes her own suitcase on Saturdays. It is small and light, but still akward. For fifteen train stops and a tram ride she sits in the biting cold and writes.

Last night she had a dream about the Short Boy. He looked diferent, but her mind told her it was him. He gave her flowers before he got on a bus to leave somewhere, and told her they would remind her the two were meant to be together. In the dream Melbourne Train Girl hadn't been able to find a vase the right size. They were all too big. The petals began to soften and wilt, before turning brown and falling one by one to the ground. She ran and ran until she found a sink, and submerged the flowers, desperately hoping and wishing them back to life.

When she woke the dream haze made her smile. She believed for a minute or two that the Short Boy really had given her flowers. She could imagine them sitting in a too big vase on her chest of drawers. Then as her alarm clock chased the fog from her mind she realised it was a dream. That was disappointing.

But then she remembered that he had sent her an SMS just as he was about to get on the plane. That has made her confident he will remember her once he gets back. She knows he will.

Melbourne Train Girl shall wait out the next five weeks until he returns with delicious anticipation. And she has decided she will not write about the Short Boy anymore until then.

Nina Simone

2006-06-30T03:12:00.000+10:00

The last few trains on Wednesdays are always surprisingly full. There are less carriages, and they are livelier and louder than those on the stoic peak hour trains. Passengers in suits, coats, jumpers, tracksuits, dresses, skirts and jeans sit and tak or read papers, or in Melbourne Train Girl's case tap their feet to the music in their headphones and write.

She listens to Nina Simone and closes her eyes to let that voice surround her. Blocking out the harsh lights, blocking out the loud conversations, and blocking out the scrolling words that thank her for travelling with Connex. She writes and writes until her pen runs out, and when a search for one that works in amongst the endless array of useless items in her handbag comes up empty she turns phrases over in her mind, remembering and refining the best ones.

She writes in someone elses diary. She found it on a bench on the platform at Flinders Street, and has been carrying it in her handbag ever since. Useless items. She had shown it to the Short Boy, and he had turned to her like an excited school boy and told her they would each tell the other who they thought had owned it. Melbourne Train Girl had lit up and dived hungrily into his game. People fascinate her. He fascinates her.

Now she adds her thoughts to the international phone numbers, the letter to god and the notes on a manicure class. She thinks she might leave it somewhere herself after a time. She wonders who will find it and what they will think when they read it. Will they add their own words to those already accumulating? She hopes so.

Nina Simone plays through her head long after she has turned the music off, and her hands have once again found themselves a working pen. She could listen all day and all night and still never hear all of what that voice and those fingers over ivory keys can do.

Big screens

2006-06-27T15:29:00.000+10:00

It was after 5am when Melbourne Train Girl got into her house.

"I think I'm going to miss you when I go away..." the Short Boy said as they once again sat in his car outside her house.
"And I think I'll miss you too..." Melbourne Train Girl replied.
"...which is is a little odd seeing as it hasn't been very long at all," he continued, smiling.

At 8:22pm that evening Melbourne Train Girl stepped onto the train. She was supposed to catch the earlier one, but it had taken longer than expected to get to the station. She sent the Short Boy an SMS telling him she would be late.

On the train there were people everywhere dressed in green and gold. They waved Australian flags and children laughed excitedly at the prospect of staying out much later than their bed time. Melbourne Train Girl decided she was the only person on that train going in to the city to watch a film instead of the soccer.

She took the hair tie she kept constantly around her wrist, and the bobby pins from her coat pocket, and tied her hair first up high, then low, and then to the side. Frustrated, she put the hair tie back around her wrist, the pins back in her pocket, and left her hair loose. It hasn't been cut in over a year, and Melbourne Train Girl doesn't know quite what to do with it. She thinks she is growing it. But she's not sure.

Once in the city more and more people dressed in layers of jumpers, coats and green and gold scarves joined the crowds coming up on escalators from train platforms and putting tickets through barriers. Melbourne Train Girl crossed the road with them, and stepped onto the first waiting tram.

The Short Boy would be in the book store near the cinema. Melbourne Train Girl walked in, and wondered which section she would find him browsing. She spotted his shaved head and black jacket at the magazines. He was reading an industrial design magazine - she liked that very much.

He kissed her hello and told her he had already bought tickets. It was his choice of film, and he had chosen well. Dark and funny; although after it was over they both agreed that the ending let it down. They sat close in the dark cinema, he on the left and she on the right. Melbourne Train Girl's left foot rested on her right thigh, her knee on the Short Boy's left. He held her hand and everything was so comfortable. At times she rested her head on his shoulder, and he rested his head on her's.

The Short Boy is only a little bit shorter than Melbourne Train Girl.

They stepped out of the cinema and into the bustling excitement of Lygon Street. All around people in coats and jackets and hats and scarves greeted each other, and restaurants and pubs were full with patrons and anticipation as large crowds drank beer and huddled around outdoor heaters, waiting for the soccer match to start. The street had been closed off, and police and security stood casually chatting to one another. They could afford to. The crowd were all surprisngly good natured.

At a busy pub Melbourne Train Girl drank hot chocolate, he a coffee, and they shared a plate of dips. Then the game started, and they decided to walk down to where one of the large screens was erected on the road. It was freezing cold. They stood, arms around each other, making bets on when the first goal would come. He said minute 37, she said 48. Both were wrong. At half time they walked to the other end of the street to watch the second half of the game on the other screen. This time the Short Boy stood behind Melbourne Train Girl, his hands in her coat pockets and his head on her shoulder. He hummed a little jig and they danced together to it to keep warm.

"What are you singing?" Melbourne Train Girl asked.
"Nothing. Just a made up song. The Short Boy's special song." he replied, still singing.

Melbourne Train Girl smiled and put her hands in her pockets to clasp his.

Australia lost.

The crowd dispersed, cold and subdued, walking back to cars or into homes. The Short Boy hummed again as they walked hand in hand.

"What are you singing now?" Melbourne Train Girl asked, "Short Boy's Song 2?"
"No, I think this is the same song as before. The second verse."

Melbourne Train Girl smiled again. She kissed him on the cheek and then they ran across the road to his car.

Melbourne Train Girl doesn't think she will see him again before he leaves, but she is certain he will call her. And he will miss her. She wonders if he realises just how much she will miss him.

So soon

2006-06-25T14:08:00.000+10:00

On Thursday the Short Boy is leaving to go overseas for five weeks. Melbourne Train Girl knew he was going, but she didn't realise it was so soon.

"When do you get back?" she asked him last night as they sat in his car, her chin resting on her hands, her hands resting on his shoulder.
"The beginning of August," he replied as he tucked a stray piece of Melbourne Train Girl's auburn hair behind her ear, "and I hope that I'll still be able to see you after I get back."

Thinking now about the way he pronounced that sentence makes Melbourne Train Girl's heart beat a little faster.

"I hope so too," she replied smiling, and then joked, "but you might meet some lovely Croatian girl and forget all about me."
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
"I don't think that will happen. But you could meet some dashing young man who comes and sweeps you off your feet, and then you'll forget all about me."
Melbourne Train Girl smiled, then hesitated slightly before answering "No, I don't think that will happen either" and kissing him on the cheek. Telling him that she didn't want anyone else to sweep her off her feet would give away how much she actually liked him.

For some reason he makes her a little shy.

Five weeks is too long. She told him that.

"Can you fit in a suitcase?" he asked.

It was getting late. She told him that too.

"I am saving sleep for when I am on the plane."

He is leaving on Thursday.

And things are only just beginning.

Melbourne Train Girl wonders how little sleep he can survive on until then...

At last...

2006-06-23T16:54:00.000+10:00

The Short Boy had surprisingly soft hands.

Melbourne Train Girl was going to catch the last train home, but he offered to drive her, on the condition that they stay out a little later and have another drink. Of course Melbourne Train Girl accepted. They flirted. His hand on her leg when she made a joke, her shoulder against his on the couch as they talked. He let her eat the wedges of lime from his finished vodka.

He stopped his nice car outside her house, behind Melbourne Train Girl's not so nice car that hadn't started that morning. He left the engine running.

"That's my stupid car," she said, pointing at it. "Cars are more trouble than they're worth."
"Hey, cars are what got you home," he replied patting his steering wheel, "don't knock them!"
"That's true," she turned to him and smiled.

That was when he lent over the hand brake and kissed her.

His skin smelled like Germany and he tasted like limes. There are still traces of him on her jumper; Melbourne Train Girl wore it again today for that reason.

It was ten minutes before he took his hands from around her neck and shifted to turn off the engine. He kissed her again as he pulled up the handbrake with a soft click.

"Your foot was on the brake that whole time?" she asked.
"Yes, it was," he laughed. Melbourne Train Girl remembered how much she liked his voice.

It was 1:30am when they arrived at her house.

When the radio announcer said it was 2:30 Melbourne Train Girl stretched and looked at him with her head inclined.

"You have to work tomorrow..." she said as she touched his open palm with her own.
"I'm past the point of no return now," he ran his hand down the inside of her arm, "I'll be tired no matter what."

At 3:30 the rain started again.

"Aren't you glad you accepted my lift?" he smiled and brushed Melbourne Train Girl's hair away from her face.
"Very glad," she returned his smile and traced his lips with her finger.
"You would have had to walk home from the station in the rain!"

At 4:30 the rain had stopped. They both stretched and reluctantly agreed it was time to part.

"So can we do this again?" he asked her, his fingertips on her cheek.
"I'd love to," Melbourne Train Girl kissed the palm of his hand.

It was very cold when she left his car and walked to her front door. But she didn't feel a thing.

Butterflies

2006-06-22T18:46:00.000+10:00

Less than two hours.

Melbourne Train Girl didn't take the train today. That is why she is early. She will sit outside the State Library and eat the mandarine she found in her bag while she waits. The scent will linger on her hands and when the Short Boy arrives he will smile and comment on it. Then the next time someone is sitting nearby him, breaking soft orange skin with their fingers, he will think of her. Or so Melbourne Train Girl likes to hope.

There is a man nearby her with his shoes off. He is slouched, in an olive green knitted jumper with a forest green parka hanging on the back of his chair. He looks very bored. Melbourne Train Girl looks at the rolled up cuffs of his jeans, and his black socks. The heavy creases in the back of his jumper distract her for at least several minutes.

Less than an hour and a half.

The tiny butterflies inside Melbourne Train Girl's stomach are growing more restless. They have begun to dance and chase each other in and out of her ribs, following one another up to her chest, to quicken her heart just a little. Melbourne Train Girl's right shoe is coming apart. She should have chosen a less worn pair, but she will have to walk home from the station. And these are comfortable. He will find them charming, she decides. The butterflies laugh and dance faster at her optimism.

Less than one hour.

There has still been no real kiss. How will he greet her tonight? The butterflies swarm at the thought of his lips. Melbourne Train Girl takes a breath and lets the air escape very slowly from her nose. She closes her eyes. She had not worn a very heavy coat tonight, and the air is very cold. She wonders if he will warm her with an arm around her shoulders. If he does, Melbourne Train Girl will turn to face him, take his hands and draw them around her waist. And then she will kiss him. If he doesn't, she will possibly still do the same.

Less than half an hour.

She will kiss him.

And hopefully he will kiss her back.

Bump

2006-06-22T02:04:00.000+10:00

The Short Boy emailed Melbourne Train Girl today. And he called her tonight. Melbourne Train Girl was so excited about his phone call that she promptly fell over very embarassingly.

Red wine

2006-06-20T10:26:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl had been in the city since lunch time. She wasn't meeting the Short Boy until nine. At exactly 8:02pm she walked to the tram that would take her to their decided meeting place.

When the Short Boy had told her the name of the place to meet in, Melbourne Train Girl wasn't quite sure whether it was a bar or not. She replied to his SMS.

"Is that a venue, or an oddly named architectural landmark?"

He had laughed in reply, and told her it was a place. That day he sent her an email with a map in it. Just in case Melbourne Train Girl was thinking about getting lost, he said.

Melbourne Train Girl left the tram and walked down Bourke Street. It was a Monday night, so restaurants were all closing early. Short, stout Italian men in aprons were dismantling umbrellas and stacking chairs on the street, whilst younger, thinner Italian men swept floors and wiped down tables inside. One restaurant owner greeted Melbourne Train Girl as she passed. She waved politely, and continued walking.

It was exactly 8:52pm when she arrived at the laneway. She decided to wait for him on the corner. She stood in her red shoes until exactly 8:58pm, when she changed her mind and walked to wait inside the bar.

"What can I get you?" the barman greeted her.
"Just a glass of house red please," Melbourne Train Girl replied with a smile.
"What are you up to on a Monday night?" he asked as the dark red liquid ran down the inside of the large glass. Melbourne Train Girl's fingernails were painted the same colour as the wine.
"I'm meeting a friend," she smiled, more to herself than the bartender.
"An old friend, or a new friend?" he asked, and Melbourne Train Girl caught a knowing glint in his eye. She knew he had picked up on her nervous fumbling inside her bag for change.
"A new friend," she replied, smiling again, this time at the bartender.
He left her to sit akwardly on the too short stool, with her too large wine glass on the bar. Melbourne Train Girl waited and watched the door.

When the Short Boy arrived he greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. They went to sit on a quiet couch in a quiet corner once he had ordered a drink.

Melbourne Train Girl drank red wine.

The Short Boy drank vodka.

Their conversation was lively. They laughed a lot, and the hesitancy she had been feeling toward liking him disappeared completely. With each drink the space between them on the couch narrowed. There was an intoxicating tension hovering in the air. Melbourne Train Girl didn't pull away when her foot brushed his leg, and the Short Boy didn't hesitate when his hand brushed her arm.

They lost track of time.

Melbourne Train Girl should have been at the station at 12:13pm for the last train. It was already 12:24. The Short Boy asked if he could offer her a lift. Melbourne Train Girl smiled and said she had no choice but to accept.

The Short Boy had a very nice car. It made Melbourne Train Girl feel young, and very much a student. The Short Boy can also speak fluent Japanese. Melbourne Train Girl can only speak semi-fluent German and a little French. That also makes Melbourne Train Girl feel young.

When they arrived at her house they said goodbye. This time his kiss was directed at her lips, and not her cheek. It was only a tiny peck. And that was somehow more exciting than any other kiss Melbourne Train Girl has ever had.

A kiss

2006-06-15T00:33:00.000+10:00

The Short Boy lent in to kiss Melbourne Train Girl goodbye on the cheek. She misjudged his direction and they almost met in the middle. Almost. Melbourne Train Girl laughed at the akward moment that followed. On the second try he found her cheek, and then they parted ways.

The Short Boy was different to the Tall Boy. The Tall Boy was loud and vivacious. A big personality who threw himself completely open to the world, leaving nothing to mystery. The Short Boy on the other hand was quieter, and perhaps a little shy. Melbourne Train Girl had to unwrap him slowly, layer by layer; peeling away each newly discovered secret to reveal another.

The Short Boy didn't make Melbourne Train Girl feel as though she had just left a tornado the way the Tall Boy did. Every time she saw him he left her even more intrigued than the time before.

Tonight there had been some akward silences, but he had always filled them.

Now, the thought of the hints of South Africa in his voice made Melbourne Train Girl's stomach flip unexpectedly. She closed her eyes on the train and imagined he was sitting next to her, talking.

Then she imagined kissing him. She wondered what moment would lead up to that first kiss. Melbourne Train Girl was getting too used to drinking a little too much wine and letting the alcohol make that moment. It was easier that way.

But was it more fun?

Perhaps they would stand on a tram together. And perhaps the tram would jolt, and he would catch Melbourne Train Girl's shoulders to stop her from falling...

Or perhaps they would go indoor rock climbing like a few weeks ago, near closing time when the gym was empty, just the two of them. He would belay her down much too fast, and then offer his arm to help her up from where she had landed...

Or maybe he would walk her to her door, and as he laughed at the plastic plant her mother kept hanging in a basket on the front porch he would tell her he had had a lovely evening, take her hands in his, and leave just one simple kiss on her lips.

Guitar strings

2006-06-13T19:27:00.000+10:00

A young boy stepped onto the train carrying a guitar. He didn't have a case, and when he sat down in the far corner of the carriage he began to play very softly. Melbourne Train Girl listened as his fingers danced tentatively up and down the frets, picking out scales and arpeggios. She heard the notes only every now and then, but the sliding of his fingers along the steel wrapped strings drifted down the carriage, rhythmic and steady.

He looked like Nick Drake, Melbourne Train Girl thought. She wondered how old he was. Younger than her.

He rested his head on the body of the guitar, listening to the strings. Melbourne Train Girl smiled. She often does the same when she plays.

It was not even 5pm, and already the sky was close to night. The sun was low and beautifully golden against the silouhettes of trees and small houses rushing past. To the east it was impossibly dark. By the time she reached the city everything would be black, and there would be no stars. The sky would reflect the street below, hundreds of bodies in black coats rushing for trains and trams, and Melbourne Train Girl would be standing in red as the tides of people flowed around and past her.

Melbourne Train Girl had looked at her red shoes before leaving the house.

She had put on black boots instead.

Washed up

2006-06-12T14:45:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl sent the Tall Boy one final SMS yesterday afternoon. By that stage she was sure she had hit the ball squarely into his court. It was a flirty SMS. A fun SMS. An SMS she had spent the morning thinking about. Drafting in her head. It was the kind of SMS he should have read with a smile, and then replied with something equally devious and saucy.

Now it is today afternoon and he hasn't replied.

Melbourne Train Girl is fairly sure it is doomed.

The ball is sitting in his court, but it seems he has decided to keep it. Perhaps he decided she was too crazy. Or found someone a little less deranged who he liked a little more.

Melbourne Train Girl has told herself she is not going to think about it any more. She even put her phone away in her bedroom.

But Melbourne Train Girl thinks she really did like him...

Concentration

2006-06-10T19:12:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl had called the Tall Boy yesterday.

There had been no answer.

She couldn't concentrate on anything all day, and she still can't concentrate on anything today.

She even forgot to hold her breath as the train passed the cemetary.

She did take notice, however, when the train stopped completely and all the lights went out. Passengers on her carriage looked around, over their shoulders, and out the windows. Faces that would normally remain blank made eye contact, and a collective tension rose up from the floor to hover dense and silent in the air. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone, sighed away, as the train engine rumbled to life and order was restored to the world.

Melbourne Train Girl looked down at her red coat and saw that she had covered the front of it with biscuit crumbs. She brushed herself down but to no real effect. The girl sitting opposite her screwed up her nose and furrowed her overely pencilled eyebrows. Melbourne Train Girl smiled apologetically, although why, she wasn't quite sure.

Last night Melbourne Train Girl's friends had gone to the pub, but Melbourne Train Girl had stayed home intending to do homework. She had written three sentences. Her friend's work friend, the Short Boy would have been there. Perhaps she should have gone.

The Short Boy had come to see her unexpectedly at The Bar two Wednesdays ago. he was very sweet, and very intelligent. As they had chatted, Melbourne Train Girl had listened to his accent. Here and there she picked up little hints of South Africa. She had asked, and he had told her he was born there.

She hadn't known that; she liked that he was surprising her. Perhaps she should have gone last night...

Instead she had sat on her couch and watched an episode of Wallace and Gromit. It wasn't until she was half way through that she remembered she had watched the Wallace and Gromit movie with the Tall Boy those weeks ago when she had stayed at his house. They had sat, in separate chairs, his hand on her leg, her hand on his, tracing the outline of his knuckles. That was nice.

Today Melbourne Train Girl was on her way to the State Library. She hoped that she would get more work done out of her house. Melbourne was grey. So grey that the tops of the tallest buildings disappeared into the viscous covering of fog. They looked never ending. Melbourne Train Girl wondered what you would see if you were on the top storey looking out of the window.

Sitting in the Reading Room at the library, Melbourne Train Girl fidgeted and wasted time. She switched off her phone, but a minute later turned it back on again. She sat, her papers spread in front of her, watching the girl at the next study booth highlight notes about vaccination.

Melbourne Train Girl knows she won't be able to start up as easily as the train did. She knows she will get nothing done for the rest of the afternoon.

She packed up her books and walked outside to meet a new friend for coffee. Standing on the corner of Swanston and Latrobe streets, a Canadian boy she had met at a bar last Friday walked past. He didn't see her. They had chatted for half an hour or so that night, until Melbourne Train Girl wanted to dance with her sister to the gypsy jazz that was playing. She had invited him, but he declined. He didn't look like much of a dancer.

He had told Melbourne Train Girl he was a primary school teacher. She believed him. When she told him what she did, he told her he thought she would have been a writer. Melbourne Train Girl is not a writer. She wonders if she looks like one. Melbourne Train Girl can't even remember his name.

Melbourne Train Girl wrote four more setences today.

That makes a total of seven.

Melbourne Train Girl needs her concentration back.

Waiting

2006-06-09T12:10:00.000+10:00

Late Wednesday night Melbourne Train Girl stood at Parliament Station waiting for the train. She had missed the previous one by exactly thirteen seconds. The doors had closed and the train had pulled away just as she reached the bottom of the escalator. The next train was thirty minutes away.

To pass the time, Melbourne Train Girl had taken the two escalators back up to the station entrance. The second escalator is very long and very steep, and Melbourne Train Girl likes to stand, looking right up at where it ends, far above her. It is so steep that it feels like she is travelling horizontally. Once she had arrived at the top she turned back around and proceeded down to the platform again.

She had stood on the platform next to a woman wearing purple socks for the remaining seventeen minutes.

The train had arrived, and she had sat on the floor near the door with her Wednesday cases and bags around her. There were no seats left. They were all taken up by pairs of people falling asleep on each others shoulders. There was a couple by the door opposite her. He had held onto her arm much too tightly, as if afraid someone would come and steal her away. Even when she went to look at the map of stations on the wall he kept his grip firm. If Melbourne Train Girl were that girl she would have told him off. She then would have gone and stood defiantly next to the cute boy towards the back of the carriage. This girl just stood. Perhaps she liked it.

Her car was much too far from the station.

And the night was much too cold.

Melbourne Train Girl's smile has been slowly wearing off...

She had met the Tall Boy for lunch on Monday. It was over much too soon. Now it is Friday and she wants to call him, but she has called him much too much. Which isn't very much at all, but much more than he has called her. It is now Friday, and Monday was too long ago.

This morning, she woke to her phone ringing. Too tired to answer it, she let it ring out. She lay for a while, and then the thought that it could have been him calling her bobbed to the surface of her sleepy mind. Her room was cold, but she threw off her blankets anyway and stood shivvering, in only a pair of underpants, listening to her voicemail.

It wasn't him.

It was a friend, older and wiser than her in the ways of love.

She sent him an SMS, and told him she was hoping he was the Tall Boy.

He replied and told her she should just call the Tall Boy. "What have you got to lose?", he had said.

As Melbourne Train Girl's finger hesitates over the call button on her mobile, she thinks she should stop taking advice from friends.

Melbourne Train Girl wondered if she should have added a smiley face at the end

2006-06-02T09:09:00.000+10:00

MENU - MESSAGES - COMPOSE MESSAGE

TO: Tall Boy

MESSAGE: My red shoes and I will be at That Bar on Brunswick Street tonight. We would very much like your company if you are free. We shall be waiting together downstairs.

SEND.

Notes

2006-05-31T23:11:00.000+10:00

This morning Melbourne Train Girl walked past her almost best friend's car on the way to the station. She picked up a leaf and wrote a message on it, and slipped it under his windscreen wiper.

WILL YOU BE HOME FOR DINNER?
LOVE WIFE.

She wondered if he would notice it, or if he would brush it away, thinking it was just a fallen leaf.

Stopping to write the note made her miss her train. It sped past her at the part of the track where there was no fence and you could run straight onto the railway line if you wanted to. Not that Melbourne Train Girl wanted to. She just liked to take note of these things. She sat at the station and waited 15 minutes for the next train.

Yesterday the foreign boy had rung her, but she had missed his call. Melbourne Train Girl knows she should call him back, but she had found him a little boring on their date. She is always lively and funny. He was quiet with not very much to say.

While waiting for him with her handbag and umbrella, she had wondered if she would even recognise him. She had been a little drunk when they had met.

A lot drunk in fact.

A whole bottle of very average red wine drunk.

When Melbourne Train Girl had seen him crossing the street toward her her heart had sunk a little. She had really been hoping he wouldn't come. He smiled, and they had exchanged greetings in his native tongue. She had wondered whether she should have used the polite pronoun when asking him how is day was instead of the informal. It was only their second meeting after all. Then again, she had kissed him on their first meeting.

They had walked to a restaurant and eaten. Conversation was sparse and slightly uninteresting on his part. She had babbled all the way through dinner, just like she always did, and laughed and smiled much too much. They had parted ways at 9:30. He offered to drive her home, but Melbourne Train Girl had declined politely. She always likes the train. It gives her time to think.

Yes, she definately likes the Cheeky Boy much better. She had given in and sent him a text message the other night. He had called her later on. She still smiled when she thought about that.

He knew she would be at the bar tonight. She was there every Wednesday. She wondered if he would come to see her. Probably not, but the thought that he might arrive, and greet her with a bow and a kiss kept her smiling for at least an hour.

Melbourne Train Girl has been walking around with a faraway smile on her face for some days now...

Cold feet

2006-05-29T01:23:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl has always had cold feet.

Tonight it is 9.3 degrees celcius outside and exactly 14 degrees inside her house. She can't find any socks, so walks around on the slate in bare feet. Today she bought a new red coat with Paddington toggles and a hood. She is wearing it now, buttoned all the way to the top.

She wishes for warm thighs to put her toes between. For naked skin pressed against her own. For fingers lightly down her spine.

She wants to call him, but has decided it is his turn. Melbourne Train Girl calls boys too often, and doesn't want to scare this one away. So she will wait for him.

Hopefully he calls her soon. Tomorrow? Hopefully.

Maybe she already frightened him away...

Her bed is cold like his was.

She always has had cold feet...

Plaid and tartan

2006-05-25T22:29:00.000+10:00

A young man sat across from Melbourne Train Girl wearing an abundance of criss cross designed clothing. His blue-grey plaid pants matched his pink plaid shirt, and his pink plaid shirt matched his pink tartan hat. His pink tinted sunglasses sat perched on his prominent nose, and his head bobbed to music playing inside his mind. In his shirt pocket was something flat, rectangular and silver. Melbourne Train Girl imagined it was a cigar case, and that in his other pocket he carried a matching cigar clipper and fancy lighter.

Melbourne Train Girl was on her way to meet the foreign boy for dinner. At least, she assumed she was. They had organised to meet at 5:30, but he had told her he would call her the day before to confirm. He had never called. Not wanting to stand him up, Melbourne Train Girl was going to the spot they had chosen anyway.

The clouds from the train window were thick like whipped cream. And grey and threatening. For once she had remembered her umbrella. The plaid man shivered and rubbed his bare arms. Melbourne Train Girl wished she had warn a warmer coat.

A Greek father and his son sat down opposite the plaid man. They wore matching Greek soccer scarves and spoke in matching booming Greek voices.

If the foreign boy didn't meet her she would find a quiet spot to eat alone and write in her little blue notebook with seemingly endless pages. In truth, she was hoping he didn't meet her so she could do just that. She didn't much feel like company, and the weather was her favourite kind for sitting alone somewhere warm, looking out at the sun setting early in the grey Melbourne sky.

Both the plaid man and the Greeks got off at the next station. Melbourne Train Girl watched them walking down the platform: the father and son arguing loudly, the plaid man still dancing to the music in his head.

When Melbourne Train Girl reached the city she discovered Melbourne's usual landscape of black coats was punctuated with more cobalt scarves and jackets, as well as Australia's green and gold. These brightly coloured folks marched with determination towards Flinders Street station, and Melbourne Train Girl fought her way against the flow of pedestrian traffic in her red shoes.

On the tram everybody laughed as the doors opened and then closed again every time a girl tried to step on.
"Open the doors driver!" ordered a middle aged woman very loudly. Her face was set in the biggest scowl Melbourne Train Girl had ever seen. The doors opened and the girl stepped onto the tram. A little red and embarassed.

Melbourne Tram Girl pulled the tram cord when she saw the meeting place, and disembarked. There she waited with her handbag and umbrella. Thinking with a smile about the breakfast of fresh toast and homemade jam she had shared just the other morning.

Wet shoes

2006-05-24T23:45:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl saw the puddle on her way to the supermarket. She had hopped gracefully over it as she crossed the road to buy chocolate, yet on the way back she forgot. As her foot sunk into the ankle deep water she let a tiny swear word slip from her mouth. All the way back to the carpark her right canvas shoe squelched, cold and uncomfortable.

For some reason a wet shoe made Melbourne Train Girl think of the boy she went out with last week.

She called him.

Only to find out if he were free any time during the week.

He was cooking dinner.

"Would you like to come over for tea?"
Melbourne Train Girl didn't even hesitate before answering, "I would love to come over for dinner. What is your address?"

They watched Black Adder and ate. He laughed very loudly and Melbourne Train Girl smiled her lopsided smile.

His Dad was lovely. He had buttered roll after roll and let Melbourne Train Girl try different varieties of his own homemade jam. She had liked the raspberry best.

Two walks and a movie later it was 2am.

He sat on a chair, Melbourne Train Girl facing him, sitting on his lap.

"So, is it sex or sleep?" his eyes were devious and inviting.

"Well..." Melbourne Train Girl said between kisses. "I don't really feel like driving home right now..." She hesitated, her mind hastily remembering the never purchased leg wax and the last resort underwear she had pulled from the bottom of her drawer that morning.

But she really didn't want to drive home.

And he really was lovely, and sexy, and playful...

His bed was icy cold. Slipping with him under the covers was like diving into a pool at the height of winter. Although the exhilaration may not have been completely the fault of mid Autumn's chilly grasp.

As he laughed and childishly blew a raspberry on her stomach, Melbourne Train Girl knew she had made the right choice.

The last train

2006-05-19T14:28:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl walked between platforms in a misty daze. To her, the vehement cacophony of squeaks and groans from the sculpted roof of Spencer Street (Southen Cross...) station was a beautifully discordant symphony (Melbourne Train Girl's daze was also causing her to think in dramatic and passionate adjectives). She imagined a group of experimental musicians were on the roof, each controlling their own unique squeak. And she imagined that she were the only one in Melbourne privy to the impromptu performance.

They were both early. He had bowed when he greeted her at exactly 4:54pm outside the town hall; a low, sweeping bow. His hand had brushed the dark stone tiles in front of her red shoes. Melbourne Train Girl had laughed. And he had stood, stepped slowly towards her, taken her cheeks in his hands and bent his head to kiss her. She wasn't used to that kind of greeting from someone she had only just met, but she thinks she liked it.

In truth, it didn't feel like they were only brand new friends. She wondered if he were just naturally friendly, or if there was something more between them. She only wondered that for a few seconds though, until she slipped back under her veil of euphoria.

The man sitting next to her on the wooden bench at the station noisily opened a packet of chips from the vending machine. As he lifted a crushed handfull to his greasy lips their familiar salt and vinegar scent filled Melbourne Train Girl's mind. It should have reminded her of childhood; of tiny fingers fumbling with tiny packets. But the veil was too thick.

There had been one third laughter, one third food, one third wine and one third kisses that evening.

(Melbourne Train Girl has no time for maths, but she does have time for kisses that include her neck and ears)

11:44pm. That was when her train back to the city would arrive. They had walked together to the station hand in hand. He had kissed her goodbye, and then the doors to the train had begun to close before she was all the way inside. She had to free her half trapped self, and the train pulled out of the station.

Melbourne Train Girl had smiled and waved out the window.

Wishing just a little bit that she had missed that last train.

And now, as the second train of her journey left Spencer Street Station she sat, smiling, introspective. Staring out of the window, but seeing nothing through the misty haze of euphoria.

Getting dressed

2006-05-18T07:20:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl sat on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by the contents of both her wardrobe and her chest of drawers. She had made the kind of clothing mess that would have caused her mother to question aloud "why do I bother ironing?".

She had tried on every conceivable combination of outfit before deciding none of them were right and discarding them all over the carpet. And now she sat in the middle of it all wearing the outfit she always ended up in when she went out. She should have known and put it on in the first place.

Tonight, after class, she was meeting the boy who had told her she was intimidating. Outside the town hall. At 5pm.

Yet Melbourne Train Girl couldn't help remembering how dreamy the Market Boy was. He had been there last night. Sexy and unshaven. And he had been happy to see her. Not to mention his special effort to say goodbye to her before leaving.

She would wear her favourite red shoes today.

Melbourne Train Girl wondered if the Market Boy had thought about her at all after he had left.

Yes, she would wear her favourite red shoes.

Melbourne Train Girl need not worry

2006-05-16T22:03:00.000+10:00

He called her.

Concentration

2006-05-16T19:10:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl stood at the intersection while a man in shorts that defied the brisk air jogged beside her on the spot. A woman wearing blue stockings who had sat opposite her on the tram stood on Melbourne Train Girl's other side.

Melbourne Train Girl had not been able to concentrate all afternoon. Even now, as she stood waiting for the lights to change, she smiled silently to herself.

And it wasn't that the Foreign Boy had forgotten they were supposed to have a date that evening that caused her mind to wander.

She was thinking about the boy who knew to bite her bottom lip when he kissed her.

"Perhaps I might run into him here in the supermarket," she had thought as she studied the chocolate aisle. He would have been surprised and delighted to see her. Then he would have asked her what she was doing that night, and they would have gone out to dinner and lived happily ever after. She took her seat on the second train carriage from the back, sitting backwards on the left, and entertained these thoughts.

A man whose forehead and nose made a perfectly straight line when she looked at him in profile caught Melbourne Train Girl smiling at her reflection in the dark windows. She quickly turned her head to look at another man wearing a t-shirt that read "an akward morning means a boring night". She didn't even notice the spelling mistake.

Should she call him tomorrow or Thursday?

She slowly unwrapped the very expensive, very dark chocolate and broke off a square. She should have spent her last $10 on leg wax and not chocolate.

If their date was Thursday would tomorrow be too soon to call?

She ate the square of chocolate in small bites. In actual fact she should really have saved her last $10 for tomorrow's train ticket.

If their date was Thursday night would Thursday lunch time be too late to call?

She hesitated, and then brushed away a glimmer of guilt and broke off another square of chocolate. On second thoughts, leg wax was more important than a train ticket.

If it were only Tuesday today, would she be able to wait until Thursday to call?

She considered a third square, but wrapped the chocolate back up again and put it away in her bottomless handbag. She definately needed leg wax.

If their date was Thursday, and it was only Tuesday today, she would call him Wednesday.

Walking home

2006-05-14T05:17:00.000+10:00

"How eerie," thought Melbourne Train Girl aloud as she passed the lonely flashing sign telling her that there would be roadworks and long delays for the next week on the road she was walking down. The streets were silent and dark, and the air was perfectly still. The road was covered in a hazy film of fog. The only sounds to be heard were the footsteps of Melbourne Train Girl's favourite red shoes, the occasional odd growls of possums from the trees above, and the thumping of dough as bakers kneaded bread inside the nearby bakery.

Melbourne Train Girl was walking home.

And in her phone was a brand new number. She seemed to be accruing quite a few of those lately, but this one made her smile. She had met him that night at a party, where they danced a little, talked a little and kissed a little. They also walked a little and ate a little too.

"I have to have your number!" he had declared dramatically from the dance floor; for the second time that evening.
"You've already asked that, and I've already given it to you," Melbourne Train Girl had replied, with the left side of her mouth curled in her little half smile. The smile she always tried to avoid doing because she thought it looked silly. She never succeeded at that though.
"I did? You did? But I don't have it!" he had looked at her with mock despair.
"Well, that's too bad. I don't give out my number more than once." Melbourne Train Girl had echoed him with mock regret.

(Of course, Melbourne Train Girl had given him her number for a second time. But she had told him there wasn't going to be a third. She had known, though, that she would have gone back on that word as well, if she discovered he had lost it again.)

Melbourne Train Girl crossed the road to walk on the other footpath. She preferred to walk home alone at 5am on the side with houses, and not the side with the big open park. Somehow it made her feel safer from attack.

"You know you are very scary, don't you?" he had said to her at one point of the evening.
"What? I'm not scary!" red wine had made Melbourne Train Girl flourish her arms with a little more vivacity than normal during that statement.
"Intimidating. Intimidating is a better way to put it."

Melbourne Train Girl was far from intimidating. She was shy and harmless. And she was akward and a little bit boring. Or at least, that's what she thought.

"I'm not intimidating. You have it all wrong."

She had smiled her half smile again, and he had kissed her.

Melbourne Train Girl passed a single shoe, lying wet and muddy on the nature strip. It was the fourth she had seen so far on her walk. She would see three more before she made it home. While walking she remembered the date she was supposed to have on Tuesday with the foreign boy who told her she was charming. She was still unsure about him. She was much more sure about this new boy.

She had kissed him, biting on his lower lip the way she always did when she kissed boys. She was surprised when he did the same.
"No one ever likes to bite back," she had said with a smile.

As Melbourne Train Girl stopped to find her keys inside her handbag, the thrumming of wings passed over her head. She looked up to see a single bat disappearing over the roof of her next door neighbour's house. She hadn't seen a bat at her house since she was little. She smiled, unlocked her front door, and was home.

Five boys

2006-05-07T00:38:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl has been thinking about several boys. She likes to watch the suburbs go past from the train window while daydreaming. She has been thinking about them just enough to be distracted from what she should really be doing.

There is the foreign boy she kissed last night. Who told her he wanted to take her home in a little box when he left Melbourne in two months, so that when he arrived he could open the box and she would appear. Who told her she was charming and surprising and smart and stylish. He was maybe too old for her, and maybe a bad idea. Of that second point she couldn't be sure. They exchanged numbers and are going to have dinner one night this week.

There is the work friend of a friend, and he quite possibly likes her. Her friends all think they should hook up. He is friendly and lovely and a little bit shorter than Melbourne Train Girl. She likes the t-shirts he wears, and he seems like the kind of boy who could be handy around her house. She knows her mother would love him. Like the foreign boy, he too is maybe a little bit old for her. He is also a friend of a friend. Melbourne Train Girl has a policy about going out with friends and with friends of friends. That policy is never.

There is her ex boyfriend. Exactly twelve days ago was their one year breakup anniversary. She remembers how he would lie next to her and ask her what she was thinking.
"Nothing," she would reply as he tried to play with her nipples, and she would turn over to lie on her stomach, her face to the wall. She really meant "nothing except that I don't think I like you anymore, I feel sick when you touch me, and I wish you would see what a terrible person I am and break up with me". She was always too cowardly to make those moves by herself. They were together for almost three and a half years - which was almost two years longer than it really should have been.

There is the boy who she met at the market two Wednesdays ago. He had a little lisp and was cute and friendly. She thinks he may have liked her - he sent her an email last Thursday. That email was a business email, although she likes to think it was really an excuse to contact her. He did use a smiley face in the email. She replied, but he never replied back. She is starting to think it was just a business email after all.

Then there is the one boy who occupies most of her daydreams. She has known him for ten years, been friends with him for seven years, and been almost best friends with him for six months. She calls him her husband and he calls her his wife. His mother doesn't like her very much, but she doesn't mind. Her mother loves him, but he is scared of her. Melbourne Train Girl can think of nothing better than marrying him and living in a house together. This is really because she doesn't want to share him with anyone else, which she knows is selfish. She imagines sharing toast together on Wednesday nights when they both can't sleep, and talking about Nina Simone while they cook dinner.

He is gay.

Melbourne Train Girl is the only one who knows.

Flinders Street Steps

2006-04-16T03:38:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Train Girl stood waiting. Music through her headphones was distracting the tiny flutter of butterfly wings buried inside her abdomen. They had decided to meet at the steps of Flinders Street station, which was such a cliche but nonetheless convenient. An arfully crafted SMS sent by her earlier in the week, and an hour sitting on the roof of her car the night before, had led to this date.

She didn't know why she was so nervous. Perhaps because this was to be her first ever real date. Melbourne Train Girl's first boyfriend had taken her out into the city on what could have been called a date, where constantly snapping plastic cutlery had caused mild embarassment over their takeaway burrito lunch, but that was in high school. Once you go on a date in high school you are considered boyfriend and girlfriend, and even if you never see each other again after that first date you can still count them as your ex.

This new prospect was a friend of a friend, and Melbourne Train Girl thought he was cool. She liked the way he wore converse shoes, and that he was studying a nerdy stream of science. She also liked that he was into Black Books and played guitar. She didn't like that he loved Family Guy, but could overlook that. Standing while the constant flow of people moved around her, meeting their own friends or saying their own goodbyes, Melbourne Train Girl listenend to her music and waited until his converse shoes came around the corner.

They exchanged their friendly greetings, it being rather obvious that both were covering up nerves - her with lively yet akward skipping, and him with babbling sentences. It was then that what had started off as such an optimistic evening turned dramatically on its head. Two tram rides and a long walk after they left the city, they ended up back where they had started without finding a place to eat. Everywere was either too vegetarian (for him), too un-vegetarian (for her) or too busy (for them both). He then suggested Crown Casino with such enthusiasm that Melbourne Train Girl couldn't help but reluctantly agree.

They snaked their way among the forest of flashing Pokies, through that jarringly lit interior, looking at the various bistros, but to Melbourne Train Girl's utter relief the only thing served was roasts and fish. They thankfully left the Casino - and the overwhelming feeling of distaste that comes over Melbourne Train Girl every time she is in there - behind, and headed for a nearby restaurant which she had suggested right at the beginning of our evening. Finally they were seated at a table and making choices from a menu.

In spite of all these setbacks Melbourne Train Girl was still enjoying herself and the conversation, although was starting to get the sense that perhaps they didn't have as much in common as she had first thought.

The meal turned out to be painfully long.

Then it even more painfully ended with him insisting on paying. Melbourne Train Girl normally wouldn't have minded, except that he made it quite clear he had this outdated ethos that the male party should pay for every meal every time. She jokingly asked if he were pining for the 50's. He didn't seem to catch the lightheartedness. Melbourne Train Girl needed a glass of wine. Or three.

By the time they had said their goodbyes back at the train station, the list of things she liked about him was all but replaced with a new, much more negative one. She didn't like that he didn't want to go to a bar to get a drink after dinner, or that he thought the only point to going out was to eat. She didn't like that he seemed young, or that he reminded her too much of her ex. SHe didn't like that he paid for her meal, or that he had never had a girlfriend and never even kissed a girl before. She also didn't like that he insisted they go to the pedestrian crossing to cross the road. And then she didn't like how crazy she was being for thinking that way about all those little insignificant things.

Despite all this, Melbourne Train Girl still liked him the way you enjoy a friend's company. And when he hopefully voiced the prospect of seeing her again the next night she guiltily told him she would let him know. She spent the train ride home watching drunk business types flirt with wives and husbands who were not their own, and thinking up how best to decline the second date without hurting his feelings.

Introductions?

2006-04-14T20:36:00.000+10:00

The sound of the train whistle quickened Melbourne Train Girl's already hurried stride to a run. Not making the train would mean not making it to class on time. And she had already been late twice that week. Reaching the ticket machine, she pressed the familiar sequence of buttons - daily, zone 1 and 2, concession - and inserted her money.

The whirring of the machine was joined by the hissing of the train, the squealing of the brakes, and the releasing of the doors. She waved her fingers in front of the machine impatiently. The same as every morning. It was a habit. Not that it made her ticket appear any faster, but it did make her feel like she was doing something to help it along. Just like the way she pressed the buttons at pedestrian crossings many more than once, twice or even three times.

Just when it seemed like she would once again spend her morning train ride thinking up a plausible late excuse that she hadn't used yet, her ticket appeared and the change rattled out. The train doors closed behind her and she left the platform behind.

Melbourne Train Girl always chooses her seat carefully. She only likes sitting backwards. And she prefers to sit backwards on the left hand side of the carriage.

She also likes to sit near attractive, intriguingly mysterious looking boys.

Today there were none.

There was, however, one man eating a banana (a very expensive banana too, given Australia's current shortage), four high school students planning to wag, three people sleeping (one of them drooling), eight men reading The Age, nine women reading The Age, and one girl reading a very outdated TV Week.

"Maybe tomorrow," thought Melbourne Train Girl as she opened her novel.