Subway Chronicles, Vol. IV
Greetings, friends,
Happy Sunday to all.
A few days ago, as I was about to step into a train car at a station in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a fly flew into my ear. Bzzzzz. I have no idea where it came from. It was 9:35 a.m. on a Thursday. I don’t know if it was a shitfly or a fruit fly, but I could clearly feel it bouncing off my eardrum like it was a trampoline.
No amount of shaking, jumping, coughing, or sneezing could make it fly out. I even asked the young woman sitting next to me to reach into my ear, grab the fly by its tail, and pull it out with her multi-colored silicone nail tips. She cursed me out in Spanish, got up, and moved to a different car.
I was on my own. I had to get used to my new companion. Counting sheep didn’t help. Neither did Transcendental Meditation, which normally lowers my RPM in seconds. Suddenly, I remembered a writing prompt Cathy Fish gave us a month ago.
Cathy Fish (
) is the High Priestess of American flash fiction. She offers prompts that exercise my creative muscles and pump barrels of adrenaline through my system. This one went something like:“Write a dialogue featuring an argument between a couple who are stuck in a moment and trying to move past it. ”
Oddly, I began to feel calmer, more aware, more in control. Maybe it was the fly, forcing me to see the world from the inside out—to notice things I’d rather not notice, to smell things I’d rather not smell.
Across from me sat an androgynous man in shitkickers and three nose rings, holding hands with an older woman in conservative nurse’s scrubs. She wasn’t his mother. Their hands were entwined romantically, her right leg swung over his left. She glanced over at two teenagers on the next bench, necking.
She: So, this is us, huh?
He: It could be us. If we weren’t hiding in the shadows.
She: Think we’ll make it to Utah?
He: Not on this train, we won’t. Let’s try making it to Manhattan first.
She: Low expectations. I like it.
He: You were quiet at breakfast.
She: Oh my God. You noticed.
He: I notice. More than you think.
She: I’m still processing, that’s all.
He: Aha.
She: Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m processing?
He: What did you expect? From this trip?
She: I don’t know. More conversation, less awkwardness?
He: We didn’t talk much before.
She: We didn’t need to. We were drowning in joy, like those two.
He looks at the teenagers, who can’t stop making out.
She: Maybe that was the problem.
He: Or the solution.
She: But where does it end?
He: You want it to end?
She: Are you talking to yourself?
(irritated, raising her voice) I want to know what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I want…
He: It’s complicated. And that’s how you like it. Complicated is sexy. Remember who told me that?
She: That line worked three months ago. Now it’s a cop-out.
He stares at his phone. Silence.
She: Your wife is still with us. Like…
He: Okay, let’s not…
She: In the background, like never-ending static.
He: And your husband? A ghost you can’t shake off.
They both laugh.
He: So… why are we here? Because we love each other? Or because we can’t stop?
She: A little bit of both?
He: It’s complicated because we’re too scared to face the truth—that we’re unhappy, that we’ve outgrown this thing… this thing we thought we had under control. And instead of doing something about it, we just keep digging ourselves deeper into this hole.
(Pause)
I’m tired of lying. To myself, to her. To you. I wanted to figure out if there’s something real here, something worth risking everything for. Because if there isn’t…
She: You want to break up with me? Go back to your wife? Just say it.
He looks back at his phone.
He: I don’t. But I don’t want to ignore this… thing… either. I want more than just motel rooms and stolen moments.
She: Let’s just sleep on it, okay? See how we feel in the morning.
He: Yeah. Morning sounds good.
He rests his head on her shoulder and closes his eyes. I get off at Jay Street–Metrotech, watching them through the window as the train pulls away.
The fly? I don’t feel it anymore, but maybe it’s still in there—just quieter now. Like all the other things we carry and pretend not to notice.
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‘Til next time
ak