the younger stranger on the train looks at you and you look back. you wonder if the stranger is looking at you because there's something about you, or because there's something on you. you're staring at each other when, finally, another stranger comes between your two gazes, trying to reach the designated seat as told by the ticket in hand.

she is your age. she looks normal, and is sitting as normal people tend to do. her right hand is concentrated on an object of interest on her left hand, her index and middle finger occupied by the comfortably routine task of turning a silver ring round and round.

you feel tempted to ask her about the ring she keeps in motion: the hand is running on a schedule, programmed to carry out a most unchallenging sisyphean act...not in boredom, but in waiting.