He is travelling from home to a weekend with his girlfriend. Crammed in a window seat on the coach after running for his London connection. In a pair of jeans and a pale green shirt. Thirty-eight with flecks of grey hair rising in the arches of his hairline like new rot. He holds a copy of a Sunday Times Bestseller in one hand, and in the other, his phone. He sips a coffee from the fold out tray in front of him. Alert to the goings on out of the coach window, he turns to face inwards for one moment; and in that moment catches the eye of the girl sat next to him on the aisle seat, pressed up to her sports bag as though it were a life source. In the moment they make eye contact he sees that she is crying. Crystal tears building like soap suds in her eyes. She looks away and stares at the blue lights on the ceiling of the coach. And he wonders why she is crying. It’s unusual to cry on public transport, he thinks to himself. Continue reading The Life Chronicles: “Never Ask A Stranger On A Coach Why They’re Crying”