When I got on the train, they were already seated there, side by side. Surely they didn't know one another, for they both sat not saying a word to each other ... she staring straight ahead, he buried in his newspaper. From my seat behind them, I was intrigued that they would be seated next to one another − these two strangers − with so many open seats elsewhere on the train.

I settled into the familiar rhythm of the ride to my center city assignment. The rustle of newspaper drew my attention from the familiar scene outside my window to him, seated directly in front of me. Totally absorbed, he rarely looked up. When he did, it was to glance out the window. My eyes sidled over to her, in the aisle seat. She sipped from her Starbucks cup absently, as coffee drinkers do. She never looked his way, not once, so I got only the slightest hint of her youthful profile. Certainly too young for him, I mused.

Ringlets of dark hair tumbled onto her fragile shoulders. While the rest of us scoured newspapers, tweaked iPods, stared out windows - she sat absorbed, her gaze almost never drifting sideways. Only casual sips of coffee interrupted her pensive demeanor. What might she be thinking, I wondered? I was drawn in by her.

The conductor called crisply for Tickets! as he entered the train car and worked his way down the aisle. Eventually he stood at the pair seated before me and reached over collecting first his ticket, then hers. Studying her ticket briefly, he looked at her and asked, "Are you getting off at the Jarrettown stop?" He answered for her without so much as lifting his head from the newspaper ... "Yes" ... as though the question had in fact been addressed to him. She looked up at the conductor and responded with an affirmative nod, not acknowledging that a response had already been offered for her.

A brief, stifled exchange ensued between the two of them, seated there - she leaning slightly in his direction, he talking into his newspaper. Then, silence again, thicker and more evocative than before. Not really strangers as it turns out. Yet, apparently so. As the train pulled into her stop she stood, silent, to depart.

Walking toward the exit of the train she didn't look back, and he didn't look up.