The 7:14

It is a Tuesday and the train is exactly on time, and Helen counts the carriage the way she always does, without meaning to, the way some people crack knuckles. Forty faces. It is always forty. The same forty since the timetable changed in spring, give or take a holiday, give or take a cold. She knows them the way you know wallpaper. The girl with the enormous headphones. The two men who never sit together but always nod. The old woman with the canvas bag who reads, every single morning, the first page of a different book.