Whatever it is she sees
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Not long ago, on my bus journey home from work, I sat next to a rather attractive young lady who smiled politely at me as I sat down. Thinking nothing of it, I returned the gesture and set about my normal routine on the way home: eyes front, sit patiently, wait to arrive at my destination.
When I reached my stop, I stood up, walked to the stairs of the bus (I was sitting on the upper deck) and proceeded to head down. Before the top floor left my field of vision entirely, my eyes had the opportunity to scan the floor absentmindedly, settling briefly upon the same girl who, once again, was smiling at me. Intriguing, I thought, as I returned the gesture and got off the bus.
Once on solid ground, I began the walk home from my stop. Purely out of curiosity, my eyes once again panned over the surroundings, but this time deliberately sought out the place I had been sitting on the bus as it began to drive away. Sure enough, the same girl was looking back at me and smiling. With that, I returned the gesture once more and headed off, trying to think no more of it.
That proved to be more difficult than I thought. I'm not the sort of person that is used to having strangers of any gender smile at me, let alone attractive females. I'm simply not of a matching calibre. In fact, the only times such females smile at me tend to be when I already know them and have cracked one of my typically poor jokes.
And so it was that on this occasion I found myself in unfamiliar territory. A brief check in the mirror upon arriving home that night revealed that I had nothing amusing stuck to my forehead and that, if anything, I looked more normal than I usually do in my work suit, shirt, tie and long, black, leather coat. Okay, I have what can be, and often is, described as ginger hair. It's an affliction I'm not proud of, but I appreciate how it could be held responsible for raising a smirk from somebody that does not have to endure a similar curse. Nevertheless, I'm inclined to believe that this unfortunate fact has no relevance to this particular scenario (although I of course couldn't rule that out entirely—ginger people rarely do).
As a result of this fairly mundane set of events, the following few days saw my mind preoccupied with entirely baseless feelings of curiosity and paranoia. What, in a way, is so fascinating isn't so much the event itself any more, but that my mind can be so obscurely presumptive as to apply so much significance to it. But then minds are odd things.
I've seen the girl in question several times since and have received the same warm reception. And so my mind has left me wondering if there's anything behind the smile. What is it she finds so amusing in whatever it is she sees?