Strangers have the best candy.

On Saturday afternoon, I was returning home on the Tube with a few bags of newly acquired merchandise (blue shirt, green bikini, finally some well-fitting bras). It had been a successful day of retail therapy and I was feeling quite at peace with myself and with the world.

A guy sat down opposite me. A cute guy, who probably has a girlfriend somewhere, like they all do. Cute guy with a suitcase that was getting in other people's way. We were on the Piccadilly Line going in the direction of Heathrow. He was leaving the country, I assumed. He sat down and took out a folder, a writing pad and a biro. It looked like he was a student of something, although he looked too old to be a student. I just assume anyone who is my age or older is too old to be a student.

He probably was a student.

Anyway, so there he is with his folder and a notepad and a biro that isn't working. It looked like a biro that should work -- the cartridge seemed full. So he rolls the biro over the page, back and forth and back and forth, relentlessly. I suppose he knew he was going to be on that Tube for another half an hour and he had nothing to lose, even though it was clear that the chances of that biro working were nil. I wasn't really watching him - I was reading my book - but I sort of was watching him, with one corner of my eye, because he seemed so desperate to get this biro to work. It was a heartbreaking effort of an individual against the odds of an unfriendly world. I knew I had a ton of spare pens in my bag. I always have a ton of pens in my bag, just in case an idea comes to my head. I love jotting things down, everywhere and anywhere. It's the single biggest use I have for business cards -- jotting things down. Same goes for receipts, envelopes, letters from the bank. My urge to write things down, to sort my thoughts out neatly on any stray piece of paper, borders on obsessive compulsive.

So I sat there, pretending to read my book now, wondering if this guy maybe too had a burning idea, desperate to write it down, desperate to relieve his brain of the effort to remember and analyze. Desperate to see the clarity of his ideas in bullet points, in black and white.

A few minutes later I finally found the courage, searched in my bag and threw one of my pens at him. I contemplated giving it to him politely and asking, "Do you need a pen?" but that would require him to answer, and possibly he'd say, "No thanks, it's fine.", or maybe there would be too much gratitude and too many thank-yous or maybe his voice wouldn't be as nice as I had imagined and frankly I just didn't want to know.

So I threw the pen through the air, acting like I didn't care at all, which was a bit rude, a bit random, but still nice. I didn't want to get to know this person. I preferred the mystery and the fantasies that could only live as long as we remained strangers.

The pen fell on his lap and he was surprised in a what-the-hell sort of way.

Then he smiled.

I smiled back.

He got down to his writing.

I went back to reading my book.

We shared this moment on the Tube. With no words. No names exchanged. It was perfect.

My pen flew to a new country that evening. My pen was allowed to write down somebody else's thoughts. My pen got a new life. I set it free.