\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lost and wandering.\u00a0 That was the problem.\u00a0 All these commuters distracted by their laptops and cell phones, cheap paperbacks and old newspapers.\u00a0 He was one of them, smoky Plexiglas divider or not.\u00a0 High thoughts and unrealized schemes meant nothing in this great machine.\u00a0 He was just another guy on the train with downcast eyes and a briefcase.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe he had to make his peace with that.<\/p>\n
A college student armed with a copy of Moby Dick had detrained at Silver Spring.\u00a0 This gave Daryl a clear view of the Style Section brunette.\u00a0 His constant companion, though she didn\u2019t know it.\u00a0 She stayed on the train when he got off for work, but they had the same schedule.\u00a0 Every morning, she sat on the very last bench at the end of the station, reading the Style section from the Washington Post.\u00a0 Every evening she sat and looked morose, always in the last car.\u00a0 He\u2019d never spoken to her, but he was worried when she missed a day like one would fret over a sick loved one.\u00a0 Once, she\u2019d been out for a week, and it almost drove him out of his mind.\u00a0 Was that grade one stalking?\u00a0 Perhaps just part of the onset of the madness that was putting worry into his friends\u2019 voices.<\/p>\n
She sat in a seat facing Daryl, staring out at the dark tunnel.\u00a0 In the window, her narrow face looked back, sullen and disappointed as usual.\u00a0 Outside, her wide eyes had followed the buildings, or stared down at the rushing ground.\u00a0\u00a0 In the tunnel, she maintained her stare, moving her head slightly, as if she could still see something out there besides the lights and the endless tubes and wires running along the walls.\u00a0 Dreaming of a world out there that no one else could see.\u00a0 Maybe she was just studying the contours of her face and body.\u00a0 She looked like a lost child in a button-down blouse and a skirt that was way too short for the chilly weather.\u00a0 Her long hair was loosely tied in two pigtails and she clutched a small purse to her stomach.\u00a0 She had the haunted look of a girl on the run.<\/p>\n
She was a small girl, her clothes often cheap and revealing.\u00a0 Daryl had made up a history for her and, he was sure, that\u2019s the closest he would ever get; he wasn\u2019t very good at starting conversations. He watched her yawn, covering her mouth with her fist and glancing his way momentarily.\u00a0 Their eyes met and she held the gaze, a challenge flashing, but he looked away almost immediately.\u00a0 When he looked again, she had turned back to the window, her reflected eyes looking towards him.\u00a0 It was easier to hold that stare. Then she closed her eyes and her face went slack for a few seconds, as if she were consciously relaxing all of her muscles.\u00a0 He saw that survivor instinct in her, a sense of struggle.\u00a0 Or maybe that was part of his fantasy.<\/p>\n
What if there was a spark, an unspoken connection?\u00a0 What if everything were just a little easier?\u00a0 He smiled.\u00a0 The sad, romantic dreams of the common man.\u00a0 He should have held her gaze the first time.\u00a0 Defiance in the face of a world that doesn\u2019t have many sparks or unspoken connections.<\/p>\n
As he watched her, he settled into the sounds of his commute now that there was nothing outside to distract him.\u00a0 He listened to the vents sucking air, the hum of the electricity, the rattling of the train as it hit rough spots on the track.\u00a0 He\u2019d become used to the rush of noise that surrounded him throughout the day.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was the pulse of the city, something that had surrounded him most of his life.\u00a0 It was hard to imagine the quality of silence, the world without breath.\u00a0 Part of his attempt to achieve some sort of inner peace had been to tune into the sounds of the living world, to notice everything, to cast off the familiarity with the background noise and routine.\u00a0 People got used to that background noise until it went away, until they stopped hearing it.\u00a0 Daryl felt that was when the soul was in danger, when a person got used to the elements of everyday stress.\u00a0 Tuning out one part of the world led to a certain zombie-like zen.\u00a0 Tune out the noise, the pain, and then the dreams.\u00a0 That would kill the mind.<\/p>\n
At the first underground stop, Forest Glen, the station was alive with that background while the PA system broadcasted unintelligible instructions.\u00a0 There was a power to all those sounds, a key to the fabric of the modern world.\u00a0 Instead of glazed eyes passing over the details, the mind had to be fit and sharp.\u00a0 But all these tired people on the train weren\u2019t fit and sharp.\u00a0 No one else seemed perturbed by the somewhat frantic quality of the voice on the Forest Glen PA system.\u00a0 It would probably take the average commuter a minute or so to react to a stalking gunman, and then the reaction would only be a pissing, animal panic.<\/p>\n
He tried to make out the words echoing over the station\u2019s speakers, but nothing sounded human down in the underground stations.\u00a0 The doors closed just as quickly as they had opened, and he was left with a feeling of concern.\u00a0 Like a dog\u2019s reaction to the tone of voice.\u00a0 These were days of constant security emergencies so, even if the commuters had heard something, it wasn\u2019t worth noticing.\u00a0 So soon after a tragic, historical event, yet the power of the images had already been lost.\u00a0\u00a0 He turned his attention back to the Style Section girl.\u00a0\u00a0 His lopsided, romantic fantasies about her had to be unhealthy, but they were loads of fun.\u00a0 He flipped on his sunglasses so the car looked like it was lit by a late evening twilight, then he closed his eyes and tried to clear his head.\u00a0 Enough was enough with the one-way thoughts.\u00a0 Tonight wasn\u2019t the right night to stare hard at some poor girl and conjure up strange masturbation fantasies.<\/p>\n
Her stare at the darkness of the tunnel, or the darkness under her eyes, was just too much to think about.\u00a0 He ached for her, or so he thought.\u00a0 Realistically, he knew, he was aching for any sort of social interaction.\u00a0 Always a bad sign, there was no question of that.\u00a0 Once you enter the pit of despair, it would be hard finding the secret exit.<\/p>\n
The worst part was, despite all his whining about his lot in life, any break in the daily pattern was shocking and painful.\u00a0 Perhaps because it was unimaginable that anything could ever really happen, even in a world where bombs and madmen ruled the prime time.\u00a0 Or maybe it was because he\u2019d really become settled and all his errant thoughts were simply the sign of an inactive mind in need of a hobby or a proper family.<\/p>\n
When the train braked suddenly, there was no exhilaration.\u00a0 No sense of change.\u00a0 There was only a quick jolt of fear, followed by confusion and horror that something so dependable wasn\u2019t working right.\u00a0 From a hazy mind straight to panic, like everyone else.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t too much time to form coherent thoughts as he flew forward,\u00a0 his hands flailing against the tinted Plexiglas and doing very little to break his bone-jarring collision with the plastic divider.\u00a0 The lock on the door to the driver\u2019s booth popped open and he jerked violently to the side as the thin door slammed hard against the frame of the dividing wall.\u00a0 There was a sort of shuddering that traveled through his body, momentarily making him feel as if he were somehow connected to the brakes trying to stop the train.\u00a0 Then he grabbed the handle of the door, fumbling with the cold metal.\u00a0 A scream built up in the back of his mind but it dwindled to a breathy, trapped animal moan by the time it hit his throat.\u00a0 The door popped open and swung loosely, settling in the center of its arc.<\/p>\n
Then, a moment of silence.\u00a0 Not even that.\u00a0 It was a heartbeat of silence, just like the seconds before a serious adrenaline rush, right before instinct takes control.\u00a0\u00a0 It felt like a lifetime passed him by in that moment.\u00a0 Then people were screaming.\u00a0 His sunglasses had him nearly blind and he tore them off, stumbling through the door and into the aisle that ran the length of the car.\u00a0 He stared forward into the next car, where people had risen from the seats and rushed to the doors.\u00a0 Others were doing the same throughout the train.\u00a0 The Style Section girl, hollow-cheeked, turned wide eyes towards him and it seemed as if the two of them were motionless amidst a tilting world.<\/p>\n
He opened his mouth, though he couldn\u2019t hope to be heard over the panicked screams of his fellow commuters.\u00a0 He reached forward and pulled her out of the seat and she fell against him, terror flaring in her face.\u00a0 The other passengers, pitched into a violent and blind panic, pushed them away as they crowded around the three exits facing the tunnel\u2019s emergency lights.\u00a0\u00a0 He hauled the girl back to the seat beside the driver\u2019s booth and slammed the dividing door shut, then he turned to the emergency door at the end of the car, the dark tunnel stretching out beyond it.<\/p>\n
The girl grabbed his arm, \u201cWhat is this\u2026an attack?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something bad,\u201d he replied \u201cI think we jumped the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God,\u201d she said through a grimace, looking down at the floor as if she could see rails and wheels.<\/p>\n
He shook his head, his hand on the emergency latch, when the PA system clicked on and a piercing, high-pitched alarm filled the car.\u00a0 The alarm cut off abruptly, replaced by the steady hiss of an open microphone.\u00a0 Everyone in the car had stopped screaming, some of them dumbly looking up at the speakers in the ceiling.\u00a0 All were ready to receive commands from the voice of authority, but that voice didn\u2019t come.\u00a0 Instead, a man spoke, at first slow and slurred, then wild and screaming. It sounded like the driver, but it was hard to tell.\u00a0 The driver\u2019s voice had been flat and monotonous when he was announcing stations and destination.\u00a0 In the background, panicked voices seemed to echo.\u00a0 \u201cMy God,\u201d the voice said, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry\u2026I\u2019m \u2013 \u201c<\/p>\n
The lights in the car flashed several times, then winked out.\u00a0 The lights in the tunnel followed, launching everything into inky blackness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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