Stream of Consciousness
He got on the car at the near pair of sliding doors and walked to the far end-- the very end of the train, where he'd be desposited closest to the escalator at his transfer. Quick steps, sure, listening to an MP3 and carrying a notebook with an unfinished thought holding its breath on the page, he noticed a girl, sitting just opposite the seat he was about to pick. Acknowledging glances, brief without even a nod. The default mode of careful indifference to other people quickly reasserted itself from the dim fluorescents and the sticky plastic floors. He sat down and settled in as the doors closed and the train lurched. The girl had been attractive in some way he couldn't remember, but this was not the time for it, this was the time for resting his eyes late at night on the train, listening to music and holding clutching his bag like a pillow in his lap. He stole a glance-- she was doing the same, across two metal dividers and an array of poles that marked that exit. But the attraction was gone, leaving curiosity-- what had been attractive about her? He looked out the window and mouthed lyrics as the city night ambled, swept, rolled by and brought him to a few more nightside stops before the stops where the sun never shone through the concrete and dirt. As the train moved through turning tunnels, passing stops being reconstructed, more people got on, and the disturbance broke the settled mode of the commuter-- he looked over and saw, my God, she had the most beautiful eyes. You don't just say that to someone, but he wanted to, to prove that he could. He'd do it, then. When he got off for his transfer he'd stand right next to her, politely facing the platform, and say just above a whisper, "you have beautiful eyes." Would he? Would he really? He should. And at once the dark tunnel wall changed to white tile and he was there, accelerating towards fear as much as the train decelerated into the stop, and he stood to leave, and from the corner of his eye she stood up with an irritated weariness and grabbed her bag, she was standing right next to him. No, he couldn't say it now. Not now that they were getting off at the same stop-- but see what happens! Will she make the same transfer? He hastens to the escalator, not too fast, and hears her get on it behind him. He is walking, but lingering, like a lure. For her, and maybe for things fated. Did she head towards the same platform? She may have. Step, turn, step, walk up, again until passing street level he was at the top and there was his train just pulling in. At once he felt the balances tipping back and forth between safety and risk, between getting home fifteen minutes further from midnight and waiting on a platform for the next train, probably feeling like a fool for letting some 1% fantasy miss his train for him. He dashed, past the jackasses on their phones in the doorway mumbling a firm "excuse me" and made it on the train a moment before the doors snapped shut. And yet he still indulged: would she board the next one behind him? Would she get off at the same stop as he? She had glanced at him too.
This is where he would sit, still dreaming, when no doubt an old man in the next seat would chuckle in a high cracked voice and say "Escuse me sir but you got some chocolate on yo face theyar."
Note: quite loosely autobiographical. Fleeting thoughts have turned into writing lately.
This is where he would sit, still dreaming, when no doubt an old man in the next seat would chuckle in a high cracked voice and say "Escuse me sir but you got some chocolate on yo face theyar."
Note: quite loosely autobiographical. Fleeting thoughts have turned into writing lately.