Fat

It was a pleasant surprise to be able to get a seat on the 6 p.m. train ride home. Usually, I would be pressed all the way right up to the door, close enough for me to breathe in the reflection of my own breath. Even better, there was a whole row of blue empty seats. Between standing and having to squeeze in between two other passengers, I would choose standing because you will look like a dumb ass trying to fit into the small allowance of space by arching your shoulders into each other.

A seat away to my left, was an obese lady. No way getting around that (or her), she's huge, ass-spilling-over-to-adjacent-seats huge. (So, to be accurate, there was only half a seat separating the two of us.) Not pudgy, not chubby, not pleasantly plump, not big-boned, not slightly overweight, not full figured, not curvy, just plain obese.

She was looking downwards on a book, not once did she look up. It must have been a very engrossing read.

People were stealing glances at her, it must been very engrossing for them as well. A woman, the housewife kind, was more obvious than the rest. Despite averting her gaze every few seconds, she might as well be staring at the fat lady. Not just the harmless "looking around in a public place" kind of eyeballing either, her nose was slightly crinkled up, chin slightly angled up, eyes narrowed into a glint, contempt and disgust.

People were looking at the fat lady, she knows it, she must have known it. She must have felt the heat of the glares, the kind that burn into your neck and the back of your shoulders when you were asked to stand in front of the whole school, or when you tripped over a chipped pavement tile on Orchard Road and the whole world was staring at you. You couldn't see them but you knew, you just knew it.

It wasn't a long train ride, it reached Boon Lay 15 minutes later and everyone alighted then. I have forgotten about my observation, instead thinking about what I would do when I got home while winding my earphones cord around my iPod. I took my time; I hate to rush things when I'm not working because it's a good way to preserve my sanity. The fat lady was just getting up too, she waited for the carriage to empty before alighting. I half-turned to put my iPod with neatly-wound earphones cord into my bag's front compartment and I saw her patting her book with the corners of her cardigan. She was trying to preserve the pages, they had blotches of tears on them.