I am sitting in the concrete tunnel. I like how the plants grow where the condensing water meets the eerie fluorescent glow from below.
There he is. He is waiting for the Glenmont bound red line train. It's Theodore Roosevelt. And, he has been shot. The stuffing of his red, weather-inappropriate parka is streaming out.
"It's okay," he says, "These saved me." He produces a shattered pair of spectacles from his left breast pocket. My face is blank with disbelief.
My train comes and Teddy is lost in the crowd.
There is an unwritten rule on the subway not dissimilar to a simplified concept of orbital sharing by electrons: when the train first begins to fill the (two person) benches are all initially taken by lone passengers. For the most part, riders do not begin to sit two to a seat until all the available seats have at least one occupant. The interesting part is that once this point has been reached, there is more initial resistance to seat sharing (activation energy, if you will) than there is later on when the majority of seats are shared, regardless of the fact that the seat seekers are just as in need of seats. It's as if people are resentful that they were picked first to sit next to.
I kind of like it when someone picks me to double-seat with. It makes me feel approachable.
I am thundering through the tunnel at a tremendous speed. The lights on the walls lining up perfectly with the star guitar in my head.
I am a goddamn cliche.
"Timothy." My meditation is broken.
"Timothy Lanik, your presence is requested on the roof of the train."
After a moment I make my way to the doors.
"Doors opening."
The wall, the concrete and cables, is streaming by a few feet out. It is a belt sander moving past the train at reckless speed.
I slowly clamber up the side of the car from the open door. Inside some of the passengers watch, but when I catch their glances they redirect them to the floor. I pull myself up onto the roof.
"Please stand back, doors closing."
Now the belt sander surrounds me on three sides. I hold my hands up like hooks above my head. They tear two parallel grooves into the belt. As the grooves deepen, my body is pulled up by capillary action, catapulted into the sky.
12 years ago
