Sienna Bentley

My favourite place to sit is on the steps outside Paddington Station.

I am the unseen observer of so many whispers of love assumed to go unnoticed. I feel as though I’m watching something I shouldn’t; intruding on delicate moments of intimacy. It’s like an addiction. 

It’s a first-date meeting point, a place of goodbyes and see you laters.

A man reaches out an awkward arm to hug his date in greeting, but she doesn’t notice. He stretches it off. I notice. 

A group of friends cackle over a shared box of doughnuts.

Two young boys invent a secret handshake only known to them and to me and to them and they practice it over and over and over and over and

A long-distance couple make out passionately on the patio before parting ways. He is weighed down by bags and she walks away, each step heavy. 

Two teenagers huddle close together over a box of chicken nuggets. He offers her one, she declines. She looks at him with love in her eyes. 

A boy and a girl with matching green streaks in their hair embrace for long, stretching minutes. They don’t want to let go and I don’t want to look away. 

A man checks his watch. He waits for me. I wait for him to see me. He doesn’t, because I’m invisible.

After letting the clock tick… one second, two seconds… I move. Into the crowd, tip tapping down the steps and into the fray. My trance breaks and my mouth moves and I am speaking, greeting, laughing.

Now somebody else is watching me.