"Tell me a story!"

I got into the shuttle one evening not long ago, and sat down on one of the 'side-facing' seats. On the perpendicular seat I noticed a little child, Indian, sitting with her father. I've seen her before on the shuttle; she's a typical child - all fun and talk and creativity.

Well, anyway, so as not to appear to stare, I started looking straight in front of me. It appeared that the child was regaling her father with a story. She started with "Ruko, main aapko woh story bataa rahi thi na...", and started to talk of something. She had a very conversational style, punctuating her sentences with, 'samjhe na' and things like that. The weird part was, in all of the conversation, not once did I actually hear the man say anything. It was obvious he was responding because the child was responding to him as well. After a while, I turned toward them, just to see how he was conveying his answers. Here's what I saw.

The man was facing straight ahead in my direction, in his own thoughts, oblivious to his daughter. The little girl was facing the window, her back to her father, and talking animatedly --- to my erstwhile best friend, 'The Girl on the Other Side of the Mirror'.