March 2006 / Train Ride / 2 of 3

About 15 minutes later, the next train arrived, and I moved towards the first car, waiting for passengers to disembark.

A woman with a cane stepped down, and it was apparent from her orientation, directly towards the iron fence just behind me, that she was unable to see.

I stepped towards her, "Mag ik u helpen?, "May I help you?," I said in Dutch. 'No," she answered, "I am meeting somebody," but almost too quickly, before I had a chance to finish my sentence, very matter-of-fact.

Perhaps two minutes later, after clambering aboard the train and finding a place to stow my folding bicycle, I returned to the doors of the train and looked out.

I looked out and saw, some ten meters to the right, just next to the engine and not far from where the platform petered out, the blind woman and the man with the guide dog.

They were locked in a sideways embrace, and the woman's face was lit up with joy.

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