Outside, Freedom

***

I woke up to the train honking and an announcement came over the speaker. "Attention, all passengers, the train terminates here." I got up quickly, everything still blurry around me. I exited the train through the two large doors. I stepped onto a platform. The night was setting in, deluging the sun. As the train closed its doors, I could feel the cool night breeze on my face, which sent a pleasant chill to run through my spine. I looked around, only to notice a small clock hanging from the station's roof. There was a light post near the exit and two wood benches near its side. Soon after I realized that my bag must still be on the train. My hand came up to my forehead and I closed my eyes, shaking my head. Taking a seat on a bench I looked out to the deserted landscape. Tears slowly came rushing down my cheeks. The quiet air was unusual, for a city person like me.

Thoughts whirled in my head like a fly trapped under a glass. What had I come to do here, in this unfamiliar place? I wasn't at home, even if I never had known the word "home". It felt like I had just lived a lie for all these years. 31 years. A lie for 31 years. A lie that had submerged my life completely. I wasn't the person people thought I was. I wasn't a friend; I wasn't a partner. I wasn't a colleague, neither a sandwich eater. I wasn't a New yorker. All my name stood for, all I ever was, was a spy. A spy that observed New York; that learned its ways; its secrets. But, in reality I was a spy, for absolutely nothing. It had been what I was destined to be. There was nothing to be explained, I lived for my own skin, and had no emotions.

And underneath the spy I was supposed to be, there was me. A person that had wanted to discover the world, see it through my own eyes, and not on New York's billboards. I took a deep breath, letting the cool air fill my lungs. I stood up, my hands in my pockets, I set off to an unknown world. No worries on my mind, just the excitement of this world, this world that had been waiting for me. And that was the last time I saw the tall, dark skyscrapers that engulfed the foggy New York sky.

-Manon