There was a clown on the train. His head lolled back rocking slowly with the motion of the train, his mouth slightly agape with the deep slumber of too many hours worked the night before. I wondered, half interested, how long he’d been up and what kind of party needed a clown that he’d still be in his face paint on a five am train.
The woman whose chair
shared a back to mine was humming softly to a song that played from her baby
pink mp3 player, and I couldn’t tell from the humming if her voice would be any
good at a decent volume. I imagined her in a red sequined dressed belting out a
melody in a dilapidated theater down town with bums and other various vagrants
listening at the back door; huddled around a burning trash bin for warmth.
A teenager a few rows
down from me held a pair of drum sticks in his hands and oversized noise
reducing head phones over his ears. His dread locks swung as he beat on the
chair in front of him, much to the annoyance of the old man trying to read his
news paper whose seat affixed the teen’s imaginary drum.
I allowed my body to sway with the rhythm of
the train, letting it rock and lull me as I imagined lives and stories for
every passenger. The motion of the train like a sweet, familiar bass line in a
song everyone knew deep in their souls; a song for travelers and commuters
alike.
I sighed as the rhythm slowed,
the beat simmering to a gentle boil as the train pulled in to its station. The
doors opened and it was time to leave all of my new imaginary friends, the
people I’d met but never spoken to, the people I’d probably never see again.
5 comments:
Good! I can relate with my long commutes on the Light Rail when I lived there. I really liked the last sentence.
AAaahhhh how this brings back memories of my almost 2 hour commute to work just outside DC so so long ago. That last line is great & so true. Funny how your daily commute rarely brings you into contact with the same people on a day to day basis. It's always a new face.
Ooooooooo, I LIKEY!!!!! Great job, you! Super nice imagery. I have a story in a subway as well. I think I like yours better. LOL
Oh thank you, Darynda! You dont know what that means to me!
Very cool. I love how you imagined the woman in a red sequin dress singing in a theater. I wish you had done that with all the characters. I love to look at people in public and make up imaginary stories about them.
You know who I am!
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