This particular morning was truly no different from any other before it. I got up, showered, dressed, had two quick cups of coffee, and made a mad dash to catch my train. Work. Hate it; have to do it. I sat down, opened my notebook, perusing my directories for unnecessary files, waiting for the conductor. It was a semi-express train, making one or two local stops before heading straight into Penn Station. We made one of those stops and two attractive women got onto the train. One of them sat down next to me, the other sat across, facing me, in the opposite bench seat. The women opposite me was a curly, black-haired beauty with sharp features. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Worried about being rude, I focused on the screen of my notebook, taking only an occasional glance her way. The conductor came over for our tickets. I showed him mine and took the opportunity to afford myself a longer look at her. She was amazing, with a beautifully reserved voice. I know this because she was talking to her friend. She was also married as indicated by the two rings on her left hand. I tried hard to hide my disappointment, but I think she noticed. I focused harder on my screen, writing my schedule for the day’s business.
The train started picking up speed fully on its way for the express part of the ride. I threw my headphones on to distract myself. It wasn’t working. Looking a little closer, it was clear she wasn’t perfect. The skin on one of her cheeks was a bit marked, but damn if she wasn’t close. I’m not usually too hung up on overall appearance, but sometimes face is everything and damn it if she didn’t have face. I wanted to say something to her, but it was pointless. She was married and I just don’t play that game. I focused harder on my screen. I didn’t look at her again.
I closed my eyes, tilting my face towards the window and started listening closer to the music pumping through my headphones. I stayed that way for about a minute, really getting into the drive of one Stevie Vai’s guitar pieces. I opened my eyes and noticed the sky was a bit greyer. I don’t usually carry an umbrella, but it was looking like today was going to be the day to have one. I shrugged and looked back at my screen.
Typed into my schedule were the words, ‘Talk to me’. I looked harder. It still said the same thing. I thought, ‘what the hell does that mean’. The screen said, ‘It means talk to me’. My head kind of leaned into the screen of the notebook. ‘What’?
“God, you’re dense, aren’t you”?
‘Well, yes, I suppose I am’, I was kind of getting into it. It’s not everyday you have a talk with your pc?
“Right in front of you. Talk to me.”
‘I can’t. I’ve never been very good at this kind of stuff.
“I’m telling you to talk to me. I want you to”.
‘Why don’t we do it like this, like we have been’?
“You’ve heard my voice, I want to hear yours”.
I stole a glance up at her. Damn if she wasn’t smiling at me. It pretty much seemed like a no-lose situation. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a coward; it’s simply what I said. I’m not much of a conversationalist, especially with women. I smiled back at her, took off my headphones and started to speak. She looked at her friend and started talking to her again. My eyes kind of wandered off and settled back on to my screen. There was nothing there except my schedule.
‘Of course there’s nothing there except my schedule. Idiot.’
I berated myself a little more, laughed a bit inside, and went to put my headphones on. A hand touched my right hand. I looked up and she was looking at me expectantly.
When our eyes met, she asked, “Did you want to say something to me”?
Now I didn’t know how to proceed. I took what I thought was the safe course. “No, I probably had gas or something. Oh, sorry. I guess you didn’t need to know that”. I was really making an ass of myself. My only consolation was that I knew I was making a fool of myself. The only worse thing would have been for me to think I was being smooth. ‘Look at me, the ladies man, ooh, their panties come sliding off at a mere look from me, etcetera, etcetera”.
She was as polite as you could have wanted. “It’s okay, I know the feeling. I just kind of figured that, well you know, you wanted to say something”.
I sucked it up and shot the whole magazine into the target. “Why would you want to talk to me when you’re obviously married”?
She looked at her friend and then down at her rings. She smiled all kinds of big, gave a little laugh, and looked back at me. Man, she was good looking. I thought I could see a little of her soul, too, and I thought it was even more beautiful.
“Why are you laughing at me”?
She replied, “I’m not married, that’s why I wanted to talk. I put these on to scare away the, well, let’s call them the less desirable men that seem to come my way”.
I was feeling pretty good at that moment. I figured, hell, she thinks I’m ‘not less desirable’. This is a good thing, right? I think.
I smiled. She seemed to like it. She introduced me to her friend, Sharon, to whom I said a polite hello. I couldn’t take my eyes off this black-haired beauty. Sharon sensed it, my attraction, I suppose, and that of her friend. She excused herself.
The question rose up fairly big in my head, once I got over the shock of speaking with this beautiful woman. ‘How did you manage to talk to me on my pc’?
She smiled even larger, obviously knowing more than I do. “Let’s just say that some of us can do things”.
“Some of us”?
The smile got a bit devious. At that moment, we went into the tunnel that signals our approach to Penn Station. The lights went down suddenly. Not having taken my eyes off her, I saw a quick glowing flash of her face, and almost died on the spot. I threw my body and my head into the seat in reaction to the hideousness of the image I saw looking at her. The lights came on. She had somewhat of a perplexed face. “What’s wrong”?
“Uh, nothing. Must be more of that gas. I’m sorry. Would you excuse me”?
I went to leave, closing my notebook. She put her hand on mine. I could feel the cold, where moments before there was lovely warmth. “Please stay. I hunger”.
That was all I needed to hear. ‘Feets do your stuff’. Notebook, case, papers; I grabbed everything, stood, and moved quickly to the other end of the car, trying to make my way through to the next one. Sharon was seated towards the back. She smiled at me, fangs and all. “Too bad. You look healthy”. I think I screamed. I don’t remember. The lights went down again, the train was moving too fast, everything went real black, I guess I fainted...
I woke up hearing, ‘Penn Station, ladies and gentleman, please remember our clean train program, please take your newspapers and other trash. Dispose of them in the proper receptacles. Penn Station, no passengers, this train is going to the yard’.
There were people all around me. One nice lady was leaning over me.
“Sir, are you alright. Do you know where you are”?
I looked up at her. I must have looked scared out of my mind. She laid a comforting hand on my shoulder, saying it was all right. “You must have slipped and hit your head. Do you feel dizzy”?
Someone else, a man I think, said, “Slipped and fell, right, all the while, screaming like a pussy. He’s all right. Get him up so we can get the hell out of here”.
Someone told him to shut up and call for help. I felt fine, just really weird.
I looked at the nice lady and said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Help me up”. A few people helped me and someone gave me my stuff. I think everything was there. I looked around, trying to locate Sharon or the black-haired one. They were nowhere to be seen. I regained my composure, a little, I think. I thanked everyone for their concern, brushed myself off, packed up my case, and made my way off the train. On the platform, I looked around again. Nothing. I got my bearings and saw the large open staircase that led up to the main lobby of Penn Station. I noticed a bit of grey dust on my pants leg as I walked the stairs upward, probably from the floor of the train. I scanned the opening ahead to make sure they weren’t around. Nothing. The last step up and I heard a whisper in my left ear. ‘Such a shame. I wanted to taste your fear’.
I threw myself over the last step, and fell sprawling to the ground. I would figure that at least a hundred people witnessed me falling. A couple of them laughed, a few others came over to see if I was okay. I looked behind me afraid of what I was going to see. I saw nothing. I was starting to doubt my sanity. Someone helped me up. I thanked them, said I was all right, and brushed myself off again. I was frightened out of my mind. I couldn’t decide if I should go right to the stairs outside or just run like hell straight ahead to the subway. It was somewhere around 9:30 AM. I was going to be in a world of trouble if I didn’t get to work, but that didn’t really matter to me at the moment. It was simply a matter of safety. I opted for outside. Moving quickly, I took the stairs up, walked left through the upper mezzanine, and took the escalator up to the 7th Avenue entrance of the station. I could see hundreds of people milling about on the street, walking to work, hailing for cabs. I breathed a sigh of relief as I bounded the last few steps of the escalator.
As I stepped off the escalator, a voice announced, ‘Express number 2, downtown, next stop 14th street, watch the closing doors’. I was stunned. How in the hell did I get on the subway? The train started moving before I could make sense of it all. We picked up speed. I threw my back against one of the doors and looked around like a wild man. Someone moved away from me. Actually, a few people did. More were looking at me like I was crazy. And I was. Feeling crazy enough anyway. I was frightened out of my mind. ‘There was no way I could be on this train. I saw the stairs, I saw the bakery at the end of the mezzanine, I got on the freakin’ escalator, and I saw the buildings outside, the people as I stepped off the escalator. What the ….” The train was really moving and the lights flickered. I went off the deep end. I was screaming like a baby for its morning bottle. I heard the voice inside my head. ‘Ahh, that’s what it tastes like’. I started flailing my arms, spinning like crazy to get away from whatever the hell was attacking me. I bounced off one the poles in the middle of the train. Someone pushed me away from them. I fell to my knees. “Fuckin’ asshole” is what I heard. The train came to a stop. “14th Street. This is the number 2 express, downtown. Please watch the closing …”. I didn’t hear anything else. I ran like an Olympic sprinter out of the train. I leapt over the turnstile and three-stepped my way up the stairs and outside. I must have looked bad, because people were moving away from me as if I had the plague. You’ve got to look pretty bad for people to give you space in Manhattan. If you don’t know this, take my word for it. I looked around for a cop. Nothing. Never around. I found a cab and waved it down. I got in, “Hudson and Houston, fast”. The cabbie didn’t say a word, just grunted and drove. I finally took a breath, I think. My head wasn’t working. By the time I could even remember what day it was, the cabbie drove up to my office building. I leaned forward and told him, ‘this was good’. He stopped, $2.50, I threw him three, and got out. I lit a cigarette and hung out, trying to get myself together. I put my back against the wall of my building and smoked my cigarette in less than two minutes, looking around constantly for these crazy women. I thought of having another, but decided I was better off going upstairs to my office. Safer anyway.
Out of the elevator, I thanked God that nothing happened. That was the scariest five seconds of my life in that box. I had nightmares of it coming to a jolting stop, the lights going down again, and me being eaten because I ‘looked healthy’. I would have laughed at myself, but I was too frightened. I didn’t imagine any of this. I tried really hard to convince myself that I wasn’t losing my mind. I used my pass key to open my office door and made my way quickly to my desk. I threw my notebook down on the table, turned on the monitor to my desk pc, and sat down. A couple of my colleagues were looking at me somewhat expectantly. I realized then I probably didn’t look too good, disheveled or whatever. I unpacked my notebook, plugged in, and rebooted. Knowing that would take 2 minutes, I made my way to the men’s room, not looking at anyone. I closed the door to the bathroom and walked over to the sinks. Sure enough, I looked like I had just woken up. My hair was up on one side, and completely out of whack. Actually, I looked pretty silly. I fixed myself up quick, and washed my face and hands. My hands had what looked like two-year-old dust on them, again, probably from the floor of the train or the station. I dried my hands and suddenly felt ill, nauseous, and it was coming now. I turned the corner of the bathroom quick, and stormed into one of the stalls. I fell to my knees and threw up into the toilet. Very moist at first, then dry heaves. My body was racking with the force of the heaves. I flushed. Fantastic, time to wash up again. I walked back to the sinks slowly, my legs shaking the whole way. I looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw. I was pale, my eyes were blood shot, and my nose was running. I looked like crap. It was the only way to describe it. I cleaned up the best I could and got back to my desk. Thankfully, I avoided seeing or meeting anyone from my office directly. I sat down, logged my notebook in to our network, and put my hands over the sides of my face, making as if I was looking at my main screen. All I could think of was the voice in my head, the images I saw, and my own fear. In my own element, I started to sort through the whole mess. I kept coming back to the same conclusion. I wasn’t crazy. I know what I saw, what I felt, what I heard. It was irrefutable. Right?
Tina, this cute little hottie, came walking past my desk, distracting me for a moment. She looked good. Real good. Healthy was the word that came to mind. I realized I was thirsty. I mean real thirsty. I didn’t remember ever being this thirsty. I got up again and started making my way to the kitchen to get something to drink. Instead of turning into the kitchen, I followed Tina to where ever she was going. It was going to be a short day. I smiled. Good. I hate work.
***
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