The Subway A man laden with many shades of heaviness steps onto the midnight subway. Everything about him is straight-edged: the creases of his pants, the impeccable symmetry of his tie, the hard edges of his briefcase, the grid patterns on his cashmere scarf, even the lines on his face. Everything except the army of words marching from his pocket to his ears. From a distance it would look like someone with a carefree hand had painted the cord of his earphones that squiggle up his stolid gray vest and part at his tight collar. An old woman cloaked in layers of pain steps onto the midnight subway. Her knees, her fingers, her neck and back all ache from braving the cold in the streets above. And that is only the first layer of her agony. A girl, simply empty, or so she thinks, steps onto the midnight subway. She feels nothing, hears nothing, cares for nothing, and will never care for anything. She is not going anywhere but a single direction: away. As far away as she can. The man closes his eyes and feels the rhythm of the words root in his mind. Today he has gone to several meetings and worked overtime, and he is tired. Tomorrow, he will go to several more meetings, and he will be tired. When he gets home his wife will scold him for forgetting their anniversary that week, and he will scold her back for not understanding how hard he works. He is the most hardworking man on earth. The old woman closes her eyes and breathes in the weary air of the subway. Today was another day spent in the eggshell colored hospice wing watching her husband crumbling. Tomorrow, she will visit only to find him even more closely resembling the ghostly face of oblivion. The girl keeps her eyes open. She is afraid of what will emerge from the cavity within her mind. She sees the man and the patterns of light and darkness passing through the window. The 1
motion leaves her feeling sick and cold. Her hands are stiff and colorless. Clasping them together, she wonders where she will spend the night. First she will ride to the farthest station, she decides, and then... Something in her mind closes down, and a soreness fills the corners of her eyes. She shuts them tightly, chides herself for considering return. No, she will not go back. The man opens his eyes as he senses a tap on his shoulder. Glancing to his right, he finds a girl with mussed brown hair and troubled gray eyes, wearing only a t-shirt in the freezing December. Her mouth moves, but he cannot hear her. He takes one hand from his pocket and grunts as he pulls out his right earphone. "Can I..." The girl looks as if her entire body is about to shatter. "Can I..." she started again, "borrow..." Teeth chattering. "...your scarf?" The man looks at her disheveled expression for a moment, then averts his focus. What nonsense. Another teenager running away from home, thinking she has it hard. Hardening his jaw, he stuffs the monotonous voice of the entertainer back in his ear, listening to the distant audience laugh without him. "I'm... sorry," the girl whispers, but the speed of the subway leaves her voice behind. Gripping the freezing metal bar, she attempts to walk back to her old seat, but her legs do not want to move. Somehow the single shake of head from the man, the single sigh he emitted when he stuffed his earphone back in his ear - somehow, they paralyzed her. She collapses back onto the seat next to the man's and bites her cold, gray lips, clenches her shivering hands so hard that her joints burn. Crystal tears scrape her cheeks, but she keeps her mouth shut tight so that she makes no noise to disturb the man who even through a watery curtain still looks disgruntled.
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It is his stop, and he stands, the well-ironed creases of his pants falling perpendicular to the floor. The train jolts to a gentle stop, and he exits robotically as the door opens, striding along the platform with empty syllables flooding his mind. The girl whispers to herself after the man leaves. She pretends that he has pepper-gray hair and round glasses, a soft, grandfatherly face. His briefcase is worn and slightly tattered at the edges, glowing reddish brown. He does not have earphones. Or maybe he does, but he takes them out and rolls the cord neatly and tucks them away when she speaks to him. "Mister?" She says. "I just... made the biggest mistake of my life. I thought... I thought I won, because they cared and I didn't. I thought they'd chase me, but... but two blocks down I couldn't even hear them anymore." She breaks into tears, loud, jerking tears, unaware of the old woman at the opposite end of the car. The woman, having observed the upheaval from afar, involuntarily bends, joints creaking, toward the girl. She yearns to approach that curled up mound of dejectedness, but the subway lurches to a gentle stop, and a placid automated voice announces the name of the woman's station. Hunched over, she waits a moment before turning toward the door, considering staying with the girl, lending the girl her stained old coat. At last she shuffles toward the door, leaving the subway empty but for one soul. Stinging with loneliness, the girl sits motionlessly as the subway streams onward. She wonders if outside this unforgiving shell of cold, someone, anyone, would be willing to lend her a scarf.
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Pdf Entry Information Exhibitor Name: Angela Yang WEN: ADD5D6 Division: FA - 362 - Short Story Class: 01 General Fiction - exhibitor 54 Title: The Subway Description: A runaway girl unknowingly tests the empathy of a wealthy businessman and an elderly almost-widow.
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