Subway

I had bought a day ticket although I meant to ride the subway only once. But I bought it so they couldn’t get me off the train before what was going to happen happened. The petite girl behind the glass at the ticket booth had smiled at me kindly. I thanked her and told her she had a charming voice. That brought a smile to her face and her blue eyes lit up like the sun had come out of the clouds after a rainy day. Those blue eyes reminded me of my Grace.

I walked slowly toward the platform and punched my train ticket in the little box before the escalators. As usual everyone was using the escalators and not the stairs. It was different for me though, to use them. I had a reason to. But these young kids, they have no exercise. They don’t go out and play games when they can do the same on their Playstations and what not. No exercise, no sir. They just eat their burgers and get fat sitting on their asses all day long.

I got on the escalator. Slowly I slid down and the platform came into view. A train was just leaving from the right side. I had to get onto the left one. The usual array of people was present at the platform. I sat down on a seat and waited for the train to come. The board said ten minutes. I heard a child crying and looked in that direction. It was a little boy. He was asking his mother – who resolutely ignored him – to buy him a chocolate egg from the vending machine nearby. He kept tugging her arm but she wouldn’t budge. My Brian was like that too when he was little. Oh, the tantrums he used to make. But that boy was the most determined child I have ever seen. He never quit. That’s what they told us later, when they presented us with the flag at the ceremony. He never quit. Killed by enemy fire near Saigon. My little Brian. My little boy. How he would have been afraid. How he would have wanted us to be there by his side just this once. I begged and begged him to go to law school; but he volunteered for the army. I wiped a tear off my eye.

Four minutes. A man caught my eye. He was tall with an efficient air around him. His face was perfectly shaved. His hair brushed until even the most wayward lock stuck in place. In his hand was a shining leather briefcase and under the same arm was this morning’s newspaper. In his other hand was a paper cup of steaming coffee. I knew the type. He probably worked at a big law firm downtown. Probably wanted to make partner before forty. And I was sure he was heading to work an hour early so he could stay two paces ahead of everyone else all day. Two minutes more.

There was a sudden flurry of activity. People lined up their positions. The veterans who knew where the doors would be quickly stepped to that place. Many people followed suit, observing the veterans’ every movement. I got up too and stood behind the efficient fellow. Everyone was now eagerly waiting for the train. Everyone from foreigners to business men, housewives to secretaries, schoolchildren to shaven headed youths had two words on their mind: “come on”. For two minutes, everyone on the platform was united. And then the train came.

It made screeching sounds and finally ground to a halt. The veterans were proved right again. The whole platform came alive. Swarms of people got off the train and probably the same number of people got on. I got on too and luckily found a seat at the very back where I wouldn’t be disturbed. Just as I sat down, I felt a jerk and the train started moving again.

As though on cue, a shaven headed youngster stuck ear phones into his head and started listening to mind numbing music, a woman who looked like a professional secretary, tilted back her head and shut her eyes, the efficient man opened up the newspaper and started reading. Such is the life we built for ourselves. For most people travelling each day on the subway, it is like a blue line connecting one part of their life to the other. The blue line was something that you had to bear each day to get from one end to the next. Everyone has a routine; each one has a way to deal with it as he sees fit. Just a blue line.

Suddenly the train shook and the windows rattled with pressure. Another train had passed us by. All I saw was a blur and squares of light which were windows. And as I looked into those windows, I felt like I was looking into a window of my own life. I closed my eyes. For forty years I had travelled on the subway. I had my routine too. I’d read a book and not even think about the office. Many important events in my life had occurred on the subway. I met Grace here for the first time. She had gotten onto the wrong train and I helped her find the right one. I pretended it was my stop so she wouldn’t feel like she was burdening me. We got married a year later. On the exact same day. We went home straight from the church, changed and rode the same train again. And we laughed all the time. The whole carriage was staring at us like we were nuts, but we didn’t care. It was the happiest day of my life.

When Brian died I was coming home from work. When I got off the train I saw Grace standing there on the platform waiting for me. Her eyes were red and puffy and all she managed to say was, “They called about Brian.” I hugged her and soon all the people who had been clearly visible just a moment ago turned blurry from the tears. My happiest and saddest moments had been spent here. It was only proper that my last day be spent here too.

I put my hand in my pocket and took out the ticket. I put it in my hand and lay my hand on my seat with the ticket in it. I felt short of breath. They said it’d happen. The train had been stopped at a station. It started moving again and entered a tunnel that led deeper underground. The ancient Greeks had believed that the souls of the dead live underground. If they were to be believed, I was closer to my wife and son than ever before.

* * *
The Daily Times
MAN FOUND DEAD ON SUBWAY

A dead man was found riding the subway train today on line 16. He was discovered by cleaners who had come to clean the train in the early hours of the morning. Apparently, the man – identified by the city’s transportation officials as John Hutchinson, 78 – got on the train in the morning and died sometime later. The transportation officials believe Mr. Hutchinson was presumed to be sleeping by other members of his carriage, and as people keep getting on and off the train, nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary. His day ticket was found in his hand. It had been stamped by an official who also assumed he was asleep.

Transportation officials expressed their regrets on Mr. Hutchinson’s death and said they were trying to find his next of kin, but had not been very successful so far. It is their hope that someone reading this article may come to claim the body from the city morgue.