The NEL Way - The Autistic-Staring Game

I can't resolve why taking the NEL route home has the uncanny effect of producing in me, a melancholic feeling. All I am concerned about upon boarding the East-bound train from the Outram Interchange is getting a seat. Once God gives me a seat, I’ll spend the rest of the half-hour journey to Bedok sleeping with mouth unglamorously agape and/or head pivoting loosely on my neck (its movements subjected to the journey’s jerks as well as the entertaining conflict between gravity and the natural position of a head attached to a living body). This is if I’m lucky. More often, I’ll waste my life away on the train making futile attempts to achieve something academic. Alternatively, I’ll play the Autistic-Staring game. I’ll gaze at the eyes of some unfortunate unsuspecting victim opposite me. I don’t seem conscious of my staring because I appear to be staring “through” my victim in such a way that I don’t feel awkward when my victim catches my eye. However, while I gleefully and ‘autistically’ do so, my poor victim is cruelly made to feel uneasy. I go on doing this to a few more preys (often chosen indiscriminately, or if by a deliberate selection, because he/she is conveniently and strategically located diagonally from where I am – my favourite staring position).

For today’s trip home, I wasn’t doing so, because I decided I should pencil this down on a scrap piece of paper. It appears that blogging kept a few people from feeling uncomfortable on the train today.