Mornings by the Abra Station
Mornings by the Abra Station
Each morning, I walk to work from the Abra station, the same way, like a groove cut deep into a vinyl record. The strip of shops I pass feels eternal — textile stores folded in with bolts of sarees made from Japanese silk and shimmering synthetic cloth, grocery stores stacked with tins of ghee and pickles, run primarily by quiet Iranians with unreadable faces, and the occasional electric shop where fans and stereo sets gather dust in window displays as if waiting to be claimed by someone in need of cool air or to listen to a Hindi song.
Most mornings are silent, save for the whirr of a shop shutter being dragged up, or the metallic clatter of tea glasses being arranged behind a curtained stall. And in this slow, hushed world, I see him. Always from the opposite direction. Always alone. A boy, slim, almost brittle-looking, his limbs too long for his small frame as if stretched by adolescence. He carries a worn satchel, possibly for school or work. He must be an apprentice.
We never speak. We only smile. A fleeting, wordless agreement between two people who will never know each other’s names. I know he doesn’t speak English, and I cannot place his language — Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, who knows? In Dubai, it doesn’t matter. You can go for years sharing space and steam with someone and never once know what tongue they speak.
This morning, he wore a dark green shirt — faded like the old covers of exam pads — and a pair of bell-bottom trousers so pale they could’ve once been white, now worn soft like someone’s memory of home. We crossed paths at our usual place, just after 7:30, near the shop that always smells faintly of dust and cardamom. The fruit on the trays never seems to move, but the shopkeeper arranges them each morning as if expecting a rich arbab to walk in.
I find his presence reassuring. He appears and disappears like a punctuation mark in the rhythm of my days. In a city of strangers, that repetition becomes a sort of belonging.
And then today, a brief interruption.
An Iranian shopkeeper — thick eyelashes with sombre, intelligent eyes — calls me over. He says something in Persian. I don’t understand. I say, “Pardon?” but the English hangs uselessly in the dry air.
He gestures — points to his moustache, then points to me. It takes me a moment, but then I understand. Or at least, I think I do. It is not language but the language of the body. The facial expression says it all: no moustache, no man. I am not complete. Not yet.
There is a pause, one of those thick, airless ones. I offer a small, uncertain smile. He doesn’t return it. Perhaps I disappoint him. I decide not to explain. Some things don’t need defence. I nod politely and walk away, leaving him with his tray of dates, which he adjusts with meticulous care. I move on towards my workplace.
And so I continue past the boy in the green shirt, past the shops, past the nasty shopkeeper, into another workday, as always.
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