Lucky Number Seven (I)

This is not a late update. I posted it on Friday, but since it was from an old draft Blogger posted it directly into the archives. Silly Blogger.
I guess I'm not really sure why I took the train that day. Certainly the idea had been floating around my head for weeks, but if you asked me why I picked that day of all days to board that train, I wouldn't know what to say. Was it the particular kind of fall chill that made me nostalgic for my childhood train rides to the country? Was it the particularly inspiring music of the street musician performing outside the station? Or was it just time, the time when you've had an idea brewing for so long that if you don't just get off your ass and do something about it right now you know you never will.
But for one reason or another, that day I did it. I got on the number seven train, the first train of the morning, with nothing in my pockets but my wallet and a hole. The game was this: on the number seven, I'd pick a person and get off at his or her stop. I would trail him or her as discreetly as possible and take careful note of his or her entire routine. After that, the details were sketchy.
You see, Lucky Number Seven, as the game was called, wasn't really my idea. I'd heard it from a friend who'd heard it from a friend, et cetera - an urban legend, my friend was sure. The game had been adapted, rumor had it, for mass transit systems across the country and it led to everything from job offers to unlikely romances, but always good luck.
Something was supposed to happen during the day, either some connection or commonality with my target or some event that would occur because I was hiding, but my life was supposed to change for the better.
I don't think I did it because I believed in it. I'm not a superstitious person.
Of course everyone says that, but then when someone says "Keep your fingers crossed," they do. When they see a penny they pick it up. We don't believe in this stuff - we just do it, just in case. That was me. And for some reason, Lucky Number Seven intrigued me. It had occupied my thoughts more and more for the past several weeks until one day, instead of taking my regular number twelve to work, I hopped on number seven. I could scarcely believe I'd done it.
My first task after I stepped onto the train was to find my target. The way I'd heard it was that one shouldn't think too hard during this part. I decided to do it randomly. Whomever was in the seventh seat from the front would be the one. I moved to about 11 seats back and sat down, counting up to the seventh seat. There was a person on each side of the aisle: an old woman in old and ragged clothing on my side of the aisle, and a beautiful young blond woman, easily six feet tall, in a short pink skirt and a gray denim jacket, on the opposite side.
The woman was the quintessential picture of hot. Her long and highly visible legs ended in a pair of silvery heels. Her hair fell down about her shoulders perfectly, pulled out of her face by a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses, that were balanced on her forehead just above her piercing green eyes with their lovely lengthy lashes. She carried an impossibly tiny handbag, had her legs crossed as she nervously glanced about the train.
I instantly knew which of the two I had to follow. Of course, I reasoned with myself, following this temptress would make the game a little less innocent and a little more... well, stalkerish, but I had, after all, chosen her randomly. More or less. Of course, part of the game was that I wasn't to actually talk to this person at any point if I chose her, but - well, it was only a silly game, and I didn't really believe in it anyway. It occurred to me that maybe my good luck had already hit and I should just abandon this silly game, sit next to this babe and strike up a conversation. Maybe get a number. It wouldn't really be quitting - perhaps I'd already won.
I was still pondering this thought when the train took off, starting slowly and quickly picking up to a deceptively break-neck pace.
Finally I couldn't bring myself to give up the game for a woman who would, in all likelihood, just shoot me down anyway. I picked up my newspaper and held it full in front of my face, musing at the fact that all I knew about trailing people came from T.V. Periodically I would peer at the woman, particularly when the train stopped, but only once was she looking my way. I smiled a small and, I hoped unmemorable, smile and quickly looked back at my paper, which I had no interest in reading.
We went that way a long time until finally, at a small town stop, a place I'd never been, the girl stood up and made her way to the platform. I resolved to wait a few seconds before getting up myself, but this was a mistake as the old woman got up before I made it past her and proceeded to move very slowly down the aisle. The train would only stay at the station a short time, and it seemed as if the woman were doing her best to make sure she didn't make her stop. Finally, I gave up, turned around and ran down the aisle that way, getting off in the back of the train.
I stepped onto the dusty platform and it was like stepping onto the set of a western. The wind howled by, blowing dust at the small station, and there was no one in sight.
A moment later, I saw the old woman descend the stairs from the front of the car. The young woman was nowhere to be found. Looking back at the train, I saw her sit down in her seat. But she had gotten up... She must have gone to the bathroom at the front of the car, I realized. The old woman and my anxiety had distracted me, and I hadn't actually watched to see if she was disembarking. I turned back and ran for the door, but the train was already moving again, headed for God knows where.