The pale cement of the station platform was as full as any day as ever. A sea of shiny black shoes and colorful ties, waiting to be swallowed yet again by an ever-hungry metal monster subject to locomotion on railing. A still hulk of faces, each illuminated by smooth lighting that of phones held inches away from them. Ghastly and tired by the early morning wake, to by tired yet more by the white-collar agenda. And in the midst of the unappealing and uniform coat-and-tie drab was the fine, hourglass-shaped, color-clad beauty of a cyclone.
She stood out amongst them with her peach dress and knee-high boots with all the fancy straps and black stockings included. And she not only stood to wait for the train, but also to discern.
I am different, was her first observation. She had not a pair of dark half-circles looming from below her eyes, nor did she bow over to a portable, fingerable screen to kill time. No job lay in wait for her, no station requiring of her occupation.
But, she thought, what makes me no different from the rest is that I am tired. And she was; not just physically from the heavy duffel bag hanging on her left shoulder, but of a burden not quite subject to corporeal dimensions.
The railing screeched and the mass of bodies moved forward, into the unwelcoming iron sliding doors of a deathly transit leading to many individual hells. She was swept right along, and that was what she wanted.
The train ricketed on and on, sometimes stuttering on its tracks and sometimes not. It was packed. 7A.M. blues.
Rush hour.
The duffle bag was getting heavier by the minute and there was a pinkish line forming on her exposed neck. There were offers from the many glancees to hold it for her but she gracefully declined each time, each to a blushing face murmuring either an 'Are you sure?' or 'Okay,'. It wasn't long before the first station stop was made--Gilmore--that she could finally sit down and have her duffel bag tucked neatly under her seat.
The city was awakening, and from the window she watched as people scurried at the sidewalks; into their cars, buses, taxis; off to jobs unknown to her and to few others choosing to kill the time by looking out the viewports than with a smartphone. It was mostly sterile of sound in the confines of the transit, except from the steady whir of the wheels on railing, and from a few muttered words here and there from the passengers.
The train steadily decelerated as it neared yet another stop. There was the loud humming of it and those standing leaned forward from the flinging momentum. She didn't have to look at the sign to know that this was her drop-off.
A maelstrom of office clothing poured out of the metallic snake and in the midst of that sea slinked a brewing and bright-sashed cyclone that was nearing her landfall.
