She is sitting on the eL, and is visibly uncomfortable. Middle aged woman- not handicapped- but frail. Unsettled. Hands locked onto the purse she is holding on her lap- fingers so tight that her knuckles are the colour of seashells. She stares at the floor and makes no eye contact with anyone. But I cannot help but watch her.

In the train car, there is uninvited intimacy. I am close enough, standing in the aisle near her, that I can see her eyelashes moving almost constantly -as if dust had fallen on her head and she needs to remove it from her vision- without moving her hands-and without letting go of her purse.

Is she afraid of theft? An attack of some kind? Her knees are locked together and her practical shoes are shoved under a seat, far from where a passenger might step on them if they walked by her.

If public places fill her with such dread, if the experience of the crowded train was that terrible for her- why is she out at all? What would drive her downtown on such a grey winter's day?

In my mind I think she is counting to herself- the number of stops until her stop- the number of minutes until she is home-- the number of steps to the platform-- to the stairs- to her apartment- 12, 11, 10, 9, and so on.

I close my eyes to her misery and I pretend. I dream that she has a warm safe place to walk home to after this ordeal. A quiet flat with a quilt spread over the sofa bed and china on the walls. She will pour water into a kettle to make some tea- and then will pour some more into a glass jelly jar (grape-Winnie the pooh) -take a small sip-and then pour the rest into her pansies- a small pot of flowers sitting in the window above her sink. The clouds part slightly to allow a little late afternoon sunlight into the alley. She smiles with relief.

In my dream this is what happens.

At seventeen, I knew the way the world was supposed to work. The daughter of a soldier from a line of soldiers, I was going to join the Army, avoiding the question of college, avoiding the question of career, free choice, and all the other bugbears that drive teenagers to distraction. SATs? Not important. All that mattered was that I had a great ASVAB score and a way out.

All that stood between me and eight years without thought or question of who or what I was was Military Entrance Processing.

We were told to come to the Holiday Inn before ten o'clock that night. Breakfast was paid for (and turned out to be horridly cold eggs and badly-cooked sausages): in the morning, we would wake up before sunrise to go to the good old Bishop Whipple building.

It was all paperwork and medical testing. Somehow, I wasn't prepared to be hustled into a big room with ten or twelve other girls and told to undress, standing side by side with another girl.

The two of us somehow ended up separate from the other blonde, blue-eyed girls in fancier underwear, the farm girls, the cheerleaders, all the normal people that had somehow ended up deciding to join the Army at seventeen.

I can't remember her name, but I remember her well: about my height, she undressed unselfconsciously. Her arms were layered with muscle; she wore boyshorts. Later, she would tell me that she lifted weights. Turning her arms allowed me to catch sight of the cross-hatched white scars (all old, none new), a cutter's habit. In amidst them were crudely-done tattoos, runes amidst the weakness.

She told me that they'd helped her stop: I admired sighel in particular. We whispered quietly about paganism, about where she had gotten her underwear, other nonsense. Eventually, they had us all going through stretches and odd poses as they circled us like horseflesh. I was questioned about my unnatural pallor; they questioned her about the scars with unsubtle insinuations.

I remember that she stared straight ahead, answering calmly and clearly as they humiliated her in front of eleven other girls who were glancing sideways, trying not to be seen. I noticed a couple of sneers; a few smirks. She must have noticed. But her face was calm, her pose was steady, and she did not flinch when they demanded her psychologist's word that she was sane.

I caught a glance of the records for us as they passed: "scars; self-inflicted. feet; unusual pigmentation." We were both put off for another day: she until she could get her psychologist to vouch for her, me for a prescription for Claritin.

We did not belong there. I ended up leaving the Delayed Enlistment Program over the lies of my recruiter; after that day, I never saw her again. Sometimes I wonder whether or not she made it: her intended MOS was infantry, mine was psychological operations. Barely remembering her name, I can only imagine the fortitude it took to stand there while the room giggled, can only remember the strength in her voice as she answered their questions and took notes. Runes, boyshorts, short black hair.

She's a bit of a hero to me still, imperfect, different, and strong: unbending. I hope she made it. I hope they never crushed her spirit. I hope one day, we'll meet again.