What I would give

1: Ralph

The subway car rolled along the tracks, swaying as it went into a turn, and pushing someone into Angie's right shoulder. They mumbled an apology and righted them self, pulling their jacket closer to keep out the cold. Angie nodded her head but paid no attention to the other people on the train. She never did.

Her breath crystallized in front of her face, but she knew it wasn't real. The head phones blasting music into her ears did nothing to block out the voices that ran through her mind, playing out stories she would never write, but always remember. Most of the things that ran through her mind were awful things that would have scarred her if she hadn't been desensitized to them already. Others were completely random little tales about creatures that didn't exist, or love stories between people she had never met. Sometimes she turned these stories into inspiration for her writing, but not often.

The voice over the intercom announces her stop, and she rises from her seat, collecting her bag and brushing past people on her way out the doors. A tall man passes on the other side of the station, catching her eye. His curly black hair sticks out in every direction, the lights reflect off of his glasses and for a moment, when the light clears, they make eye contact. He winks, like he does, every time giving that sad, half smile she used to know so well.

Something tugged at her coat and she looked down to see a small child smile at her. Angie glanced back up to see that the man had vanished. He always did, something always distracted her and she always looked away, only to find that the hallucination had vanished.

Looking down again, she addressed the golden haired child at her feet, doing her best to be discreet.

" Ralph," her voice came out raspy from lack of use, and she smiled sadly at him. "Walk with me?"

The boy nodded and tightened his grip on her long, trench style coat. The two walked out of the station and into the cold, watery, winter sunlight of December in Boston. No one noticed the barefoot child. No one saw him but Angie.

She had long ago named this specific hallucination. He was one of the few mild ones. He didn't scream or threaten. He was just there. Sometimes he would smile, but he never made any noise. He didn't have a story or a place in her head. The cold didn't affect him because he didn't feel it, he didn't see the people towering above him or hear the noise of the city as they passed block after block. Ralph just was, and Angie had come to enjoy his presence on occasion.

The old brick buildings slid by as her feet carried her to her work place, classical music filling her ears, doing its best to keep the voices at bay. The cold air nipped her nose and the wind carried the smells of the city to her, coffee from the shop on the corner, bread from the supermarket one street over, and as always, beneath it all, the smells of dirt and grime. The exhaust from cars and busses, trash rotting in dumpsters down the alley, the dirt that cakes the side walks in the wrong places.

The door glides open as Angie pushes through, and suddenly she doesn't feel the steady weight of Ralph's grip any more. Looking down, she sees that he has gone, no sound, no memory for anyone but her.

"Morning Bary," She says to the guard at the entrance and flashes her I.D. towards him.

"Mornin' Angie" His thick southern drawl was smooth and slow, the coffee in his hand steaming in the cool air brought in when the door was opened. "How're you this fine day?"

"As good as it's ever gonna be." She said as she made her way towards the doors on her right, glancing up at the words hanging in the wall in elegant, giant, black letters.

"The Boston Globe"

-S-J