Scene from a train car
I board a train car at the Rosemont Blue Line station, on my way to the Cumberland Park N' Ride garage, where I am retrieving the rental car that I've been using to get back and forth to Wizard World this weekend. I am joined by a trio of early twenty-somethings who are decked out as Batman, Robin, and The Joker respectively. Obviously, they are convention-goers. Poor Batman is sweating so heavily that beads of perspiration are dripping from his jawline, but he refuses to remove his latex mask.
A kid in a blue-and-white striped polo shirt and jeans starts talking to them, very intrigued by their cosplay.
Polo Kid: Were you at the convention? I was gonna go, but I didn't wanna pay sixty dollars for a ticket.
Batman nods. Not sure if he is too overheated to speak or just doesn't want to engage in conversation with a stranger.
Robin: Yeah, we were just there. We're going back later.
Polo Kid (to Batman): That's a great costume. But you can take off your mask now. You're sweating.
Batman ignores him.
Polo Kid: My big geek thing was always Pokemon. That's my big guilty confession. But I couldn't do a costume from that.
Robin: There were a surprising number of people dressed up as Ash at this Con.
Polo Kid: Yeah, but the problem with dressing as Ash is that he is perpetually a seven-year-old boy. I couldn't pull that off, I don't think.
Awkward silence ensues. A minute or two passes, and then a man sitting in the little alcove at the back of the car lifts a saxophone from out of nowhere, and begins playing the theme from the Batman TV show!
The trio of cosplayers crack up. When the song ends, the entire train car breaks out in applause.
The train reaches Cumberland, and I exit, laughing and shaking my head at how randomly absurd my life can be.
End scene.