The Exit and the Creepy Guy in the Restroom
The title is Geoffrey's fault, but very little of the content is.
We cannot get out. Outside is equally a disaster, hot and humid and waterless so you sweat and it does nothing and you've no way to replace it. There's no water on the train.
There's not much of anything - no juice, no chips, a choice of one kind of soda or one kind of beer or something stronger but smaller and still more dehydrating. They restocked in New York, they said, but it's all gone now. And the train isn't moving.
We see the other trains inch by, and even their inching seems enviable. The only mercies are that it grows late and we sit in shadows; we can no longer say for sure that the air is gone.
We hoard water - well, soda and ice, what's left of them. We cannot tell how long they will need to last, and we would rather not chance the restrooms. I haven't gone back there since I saw the man lurking.
Understand, the restrooms have long since ceased to be a location one would occupy by choice, if indeed they ever were. Small, disordered - seat covers shoved into the trash can, blue flush-water starting to back up - they begin to smell like portapotties. And he's waiting there.
He keeps the door ajar, light and odor filtering through that slit into the hallway, into the rest of the car. We do not walk by there - without food, without water, covered in sweat, excretion will become unnecessary. Or so we tell ourselves.
Thought shuts down in this endless sea of heat. We endure, but we make no progress. We will never make progress.
There is no exit. There is no way out. But when we tire of this which is no longer life, he will still be there, in the restroom, waiting.
We cannot get out. Outside is equally a disaster, hot and humid and waterless so you sweat and it does nothing and you've no way to replace it. There's no water on the train.
There's not much of anything - no juice, no chips, a choice of one kind of soda or one kind of beer or something stronger but smaller and still more dehydrating. They restocked in New York, they said, but it's all gone now. And the train isn't moving.
We see the other trains inch by, and even their inching seems enviable. The only mercies are that it grows late and we sit in shadows; we can no longer say for sure that the air is gone.
We hoard water - well, soda and ice, what's left of them. We cannot tell how long they will need to last, and we would rather not chance the restrooms. I haven't gone back there since I saw the man lurking.
Understand, the restrooms have long since ceased to be a location one would occupy by choice, if indeed they ever were. Small, disordered - seat covers shoved into the trash can, blue flush-water starting to back up - they begin to smell like portapotties. And he's waiting there.
He keeps the door ajar, light and odor filtering through that slit into the hallway, into the rest of the car. We do not walk by there - without food, without water, covered in sweat, excretion will become unnecessary. Or so we tell ourselves.
Thought shuts down in this endless sea of heat. We endure, but we make no progress. We will never make progress.
There is no exit. There is no way out. But when we tire of this which is no longer life, he will still be there, in the restroom, waiting.