Suspension

I was waiting for the subway. My jaw sore, my legs aching, I pulled out my phone to check the time, but the screen was blank. I wondered if I had lost service or if there was simply no time left to pass, if I had used up all the seconds allotted to me standing in this crowd of people, lined up, militaristic. I didn’t remember falling in. It must’ve been instinctive. Most of them stared straight ahead, but few of us were weak; we shuffled and glanced around, searching casually for information or entertainment. The woman next to me in line took out a cigarette with shaking hands.

“Does anybody mind?” We might have minded somewhere else, but not here. Relieved, she lit up, and smoke hung still in the closed air.

Finally, a train approached. As it screeched to a halt, I tried to move forward. But those waiting with me seemed to pull me back. I was tired of perpetual idleness, tired of not knowing how long I had been trapped underground, inside tan concrete. I contemplated walking up the stairs and out onto the street, hailing a cab or taking a bus, and I felt fingers on my sleeve, clutching, holding me in place.

“Why can’t I go, too?” I asked, despising the whine behind my voice.

The woman smoking at my side shook her head. “That’s how it is,” she said, choking on a leftover bit of emotion that the others had disposed of long ago. “They choose, but they never choose us.” Four of the stoics detached themselves from the group and boarded. The second the doors shut, they were sucked down the tube.

The next train came after a while, but only one got on, a blond girl wearing a long white dress. The crowd expressed no outrage and offered no explanation, besides a small mutter from deep inside: “She’s related, the bitch.”

My legs shook, hurting worse than before, and I had to fight the urge to scream. I was trapped. But he was not. The man in a yellow jacket, smelling like mint and leather, walking slowly in front of us all, hands in his pockets, ignoring the order of things. When he saw me, he smiled mockingly and licked his lips. I longed for motion. But he did not.

Suddenly, another train came, faster than the last, rushing on and on. Eventually, I could no longer tell whether it was made up of many cars, connected, or if it was one long, solid mass of metal. I tried to step back but couldn’t; I was surrounded by a mass five people deep.

Calm, unafraid, he approached the silver blur and extended a hand.

“Don’t!” I shouted, and the heads surrounding me, more than ever now, whipped around to stare at me. He didn’t notice, kept reaching, reaching until finally, in one whiplash motion, he grabbed a bar on the window of the car and was carried away. The train ended, finally, leaving behind a rush of sound like a broken wave. He was gone. But I was not.

My heart ached. Whether for him or for me, I couldn’t tell. The wide, dead eyes turned away from me, back to the tunnel. But it was no use. It was empty. I was empty. I wanted to take a chance like him, to stretch out and grab or maybe just to lie on the tracks and wait down there. Either way, I would at least have the promise of action. Instead, I straightened my spine and stared. And waited.