The Wrong Script: The Woman on the Train

The Wrong Globe is a newsletter about language, culture, and belonging written by a Russian-born, Israel-based essayist, linguist, and single mom raising two trilingual kids.

If you’re disillusioned by the current state of humanity, but still secretly hope that curiosity can fix the world or at least make it a less horrible place, this space is for you. Welcome.

I’m on a train, at 11 am — the best time to be on the train because there are only a few people there. Enough to make it feel like I’m out in the world, but few enough that I still get four seats and a table to myself. My ginormous art portfolio is on the two seats opposite me (I’m going to my illustration workshop), and I’m listening to Arabic in my headphones.

We stop at the airport. I don’t like this stop, because that’s where a lot of people usually get in, and they all roll in their suitcases and look happy and well-rested, and it bugs me to see so many happy and well-rested people at once.

Two middle-aged women roll their suitcases into our car and, of all the seats, choose the ones next to me. One sits directly across from me, which means I have to move my portfolio and wedge it uncomfortably beside me. I can’t hear anything through my headphones, so all I have to go on is her pursed lips when she points at my portfolio, wanting it gone. Her friend settles across the aisle, also facing me. They’re chatting.

The woman directly across from me has red, possibly dyed, curly hair and a big suitcase in front of her, which is annoying, because when I want to get out two stops from now, I’ll have to maneuver around it.

Her friend has long blond hair, well-defined triceps, long tanned legs, and a bright pink suitcase of her own. Other than these, she looks about my age or slightly older.

I wonder where they’re coming back from that they’re so tanned and so happy.

They stop chatting, and the blond woman starts talking on the phone instead, probably describing all the mojitos that she drank on the beach. I’m trying hard to focus on the Arabic in my ears, trying to hold onto the words instead of the comfortable life I’m imagining for her.

We arrive at my stop. I disconnect my headphones, grab my bag and my portfolio, and get up to leave.

That’s when I hear it: the long-legged tanned woman is loudly speaking Arabic on the phone.

I spent the whole ride annoyed at her for interrupting my listening practice. I could have just listened to her instead.

The Wrong Script is about the implicit scripts we carry about places, cultures, languages, and people — and what happens when they meet reality. They’re ‘wrong’ not as in shameful, just wrong as in ‘the map didn’t match the territory.’

Do you have a Wrong Script story? Send me yours and, with your permission, I might retell it in a future installment. You can stay anonymous if you like.

Know someone with a Wrong Script story? Send this their way.

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