The Girl who Drew Her Eyes to Life...

...often times the eyes of a stranger can captivate the furthest recesses of your mind...

I remember one day when I was on the Metro in Tokyo. I was getting back from Asakusa if I'm not mistaken. And I noticed a girl sitting opposite of me. Now, at first nothing was out of the ordinary. I didn't notice her at first. At a glance she looked to be a young student listening to music, reading her book on her way to somewhere in the city. A normal scene on the trains of Tokyo. It was a long commute and halfway I noticed the girl put away her books and took out something from her bag - it was a compact. Slowly and meticulously she started to apply foundation onto her face. When that was done, she took out an eye liner. You see, the trains along the Tokyo Metro tracks move really fast but some how, in her world, everything slowed down. Well, that's what I thought because she applied the eye liner with ease as if she was sitting in front of a mirror in the comfort of her room. I can distinctly remember the color she put on - it was brown. And I can distinctly remember each stroke she made along the lids of her eyes. They brought out the shape of her eyes and she looked different and yet the same.

I do not know why this memory stuck. And so vividly at that. If I close my eyes, it's as if I am there once again - on the red line of the Tokyo Metro, in the late morning. Only specks of people in the car that I was in and that girl that sat opposite me - the girl who drew her eyes to life...

xoxo