A
few of the passengers were still struggling to locate a place to sit
before the train departed. I sighed at the empty seat by my side,
shining like a beacon for the desperate seat-searcher who was
destined to take his or her seat by my side and potentially annoy me
for the next couple of hours. One of them, a rather overweight man,
walked - or should I say waddled? - in my direction. I could hardly
contain my excitement.
To
prepare for the inevitable, I reached into my pocket and pulled out
my smart phone so that I could listen to music and tune him out.
“Less than 20% of battery life remaining” the phone’s screen
read. Grunting in frustration, I pocketed my phone. My parents would
be pissed at me if I let it die and they couldn't contact me before
I got to my grandmother’s house. I immediately regretted choosing
to leave all of my books at home.
To
my great surprise, however, the man did not sit next to me. He
instead opted to stand, holding onto the rails hanging from the roof
of the train. But why? What was wrong with sitting next to me? I
wasn’t the fat and nerdy one with the obnoxious glasses and the
World
of Warcraft
t-shirt. I didn't fidget awkwardly as I looked about the people on
the train, nor did I flinch from surprise stupidly when the train
started to move. I was sure he didn't have many friends, so wouldn't he love to have someone to sit down next to and talk to?
He must have been socially awkward or intimidated by me. Yeah, that
explained it.
Examining
him was irritating me, so I took to looking out of the window
instead. The people at the station awaiting the next train became
shapeless blurs before my eyes as I sped away from them and they were
replaced by the countryside. The blurry view from the window quickly
grew boring to me, so I took to reading the signs on the train
instead. They were mostly meaningless things like safety protocols
that everybody already knew or advertisements that I didn’t care
about, but it still gave me something to read, at least. But reading
the signs didn’t last me very long, so I went back to reading
people instead.
There
was a ditsy looking girl sitting not far from me chattering away on
the phone. She sounded scared about having lost something, but the
way she said “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!” made her sound like the
mindless preppy girls I went to school with, so I just dismissed it
as something pointless. She probably thought she had lost the phone
she was talking on or something. Girls like her seriously upset me.
She probably thought that just because she had all the curves in the
right places that she was better than everything else and that labor
and intelligence were beneath her.
She
was really beautiful, though, I had to admit. Just my age and my
type, physically speaking. But regardless, the bottle of beer beside
her told me all I needed to know. She was an underage drinker, a
ditz, and probably a partier, too.
But
still…something about her was strongly alluring to me. It was hard
to look away. But after hearing the shrill, high-pitched, sickeningly
cute voice of her friend talking to her on the phone, I shook my head
and turned my attention back to the countryside. I hated being
attracted to girls like her, but she was just so gosh darn pretty.
Maybe the most attractive I had ever seen, but I didn’t really keep
score. I did my best to push her from my mind as I contemplated what
books I’d read at my grandmother’s house. I didn’t much like
visiting her because she always rambled on about the most pointless
topics,
like which of my third cousins is going on some scandalous date or
whatever. But she had the biggest collection of books I’d ever
seen, so that was something positive.
As
my mind was racing through the many literary possibilities, the train
passed through a tunnel, making me feel particularly claustrophobic
and tightly packed in with the others on the train. It was a
particularly nauseating feeling. Worst of all was that in the
darkness of the tunnel, she was clearly visible in the reflection in
my window. I could see her more clear than before, even.
She
was wearing a button on her sleeve that read “pro-choice”. Great,
she was a baby killer. Actually, strike that. I don’t really like
to get political or whatever. But still, a lot of the pro-choice
girls that went to my school only felt that way to justify sleeping
around. So far, I had little reason to believe she’s a whole lot
different. Not only that, but people who wore their opinions on their
sleeves - literally, in this case - were always so annoying, shoving
their ideas down your throat and stuff. Ugh.
Perhaps
worst of all was that her jeans had slid down slightly because of the
way she was sitting, exposing a part of a thong. I never got why
girls would wear stuff like that in a public place unless they were
like really
desperate or something. And those kinds of girls really pissed me
off. Maybe the most frustrating part was how I couldn’t take my
eyes away from it. But the way her lower back was exposed like that,
showing off her smooth skin that was entirely without blemishes,
really fascinated the more primal part of my stupid male brain.
But
then she did something that surprised me. Something that utterly
confused me, even, and seemed to unravel the fabric of my personal
reality. Something that made her, at least for a moment, entirely
different than any girl of her kind I’d ever seen before. She
seemed to have realized that her thong was exposed because she
suddenly got really embarrassed and pulled her jeans up. The irony of
the situation baffled me. It was about then that the reflection in my
darkened window faded out and was entirely consumed by the blackness
of the tunnel. The emptiness stretched out from the tunnel and
encompassed my brain as sleep took me so that I could return to a
reality that I could understand in my dreams.
*
* *
The
first thing I noticed upon waking up was the large man wearing the
World
of Warcraft
shirt, who was now occupying the seat that the girl from earlier was
sitting in. He looked different now than when I first examined him. I
must have been groggy from the nap, because I hardly noticed his
weight now. Nothing seemed jarring about it in the least; it looked
very natural on him - he looked good that way. More than that, he was
wearing a baseball cap bearing the logo of the San Francisco Giants,
something I would have thought to be impossible.
I
stared at this oddity for a few moments before looking for the girl.
A quick scan of the car I was in told me that she had either moved
into another one or had gotten off of the train while I had been
asleep.
“Oh
hey, you’re finally awake!”
I
jumped in surprise, snapping my head to the left to find that the
girl had moved to the seat between the window and me. “Sorry for
startling you,” she said. “I moved over here to give that other
guy a seat. I hope you don’t mind.”
I
mumbled to her that I didn’t and turned my gaze away from her. For
some reason, I found that she now interested me a whole lot less than
before. The same could not be said, however, of a man that was
sitting a few rows ahead of us; he seemed to be staring quite
intently at the girl, which was more than a little disturbing because
he appeared to be at least ten years older than us. I dismissed him
as a creep and moved on.
“Excuse
me; is this yours?” I heard after I had been staring up at the
ceiling in silence and boredom for roughly ten minutes. The speaker
was the creepy man I had seen a minute ago, so it didn’t come as
any sort of surprise that he wasn’t talking to me, but to the girl.
“My
bag!” The girl exclaimed. “Oh my goodness, thank you so much! How
did you know it was mine?”
“It
had your ID in it. I’ve been trying to figure out for sure if the
person in the picture was really you. It looks like you’ve dyed
your hair since it was taken.”
“Yeah,
sorry for the confusion,” she apologized. “But I can’t begin to
tell you how grateful I am. Can I pay you or something?”
The
man smiled and shook his head. “No need; it was no trouble at all.”
The girl thanked him again and he returned to his seat.
“Got
something important in that bag?” I asked her. I immediately
regretted starting a conversation - I really didn’t want to get
involved with this girl.
She
nodded. “Yeah, it has some paperwork in it for this orphan I’m
adopting as part of a charity program. His mother wants to get an
abortion, but we arranged this deal where I can save his life if I
agree to raise him instead. I was nearly aborted myself, so I’ve
got a soft spot for that kind of thing, ya know?” I just stared at
her unblinkingly as she rambled on to me, a complete stranger, and
defied almost every label I had placed upon her. “And she’s
making me pay the medical bills, too, which sucks. I guess UC Davis
will have to wait a few years for another Biotechnology major, but
it’s worth it, I think. Oh, sorry. I’m rambling without even
properly introducing myself. I’m Alana. And you?”
I
stared a bit longer, feeling like an ass, before stuttering out my
name. It was awkwardly quiet for a few moments as I thought of
something else to say. This girl had totally defied everything I
thought possible. The only mystery that remained was the bottle of
beer that she held in her lap, which I could now see was unopened.
“Oh,
I’m sorry about this,” she said, seeing that I had been staring
at the bottle. “I’m not a drinker. It’s for the boy’s mother
- she’s a big fan and I want to be on good terms with her.” I
remained completely speechless. She was like a fascinating book, and
each time I turned a page I could see that she was infinitely more
fascinating than the cover. And here I was, dumbly staring at her,
letting her get away.
“So,
where are you going?” I asked her casually.
“Actually,
this is my stop,” she said, gesturing out the window to the station
that we were speeding toward. I blinked in surprise; I had no idea we
were anywhere near there.
“Small
world,” I replied. “This is mine, too.” The train began to slow
as we drew closer to the stop.
“Oh
really?” she asked. “Would you like to come with me?” The
people in the train station seemed less like a crowd than usual. The
individual faces were more defined, each with their own details and
stories that could be seen on them.
I
tore my face away from the crowd to look at Alana. Her face was more
defined by far. I was starting to see the words that made up the
story of her life. But I wanted more; the words alone didn’t
content me. Not for her. I wanted to see the letters, too.
“I
would love to.”
Congrats on posting the first story, Jordan!
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