Commuter Train

He entered the train at the Chestnut Hill station at 7:30, just like he had done yesterday and the day before that and the years stretching back and his head hurt thinking about it, this cyclical pattern of his life, if it could be called that. No, it was more like a means to an end, only lately he began to feel that he was merely the means. Yes another faceless work-a-day daddy in a world full of other faceless work-a-day daddies, filing single file into trains, into offices that all looked the same, back into night trains, back to the house that looked like every other house except for the numbers on the door.

Sometimes he wondered if he wandered through another door would he find the same things filling the spaces within, as if filling these spaces somehow filled this vast tunnel he felt passed right through him, right on through the floor. He could hear the screech of metal on cold metal as the train turned a corner,  a naked bulb overhead blinking off on, off on, like he was a stone falling in a bottomless dream that somehow passes through the emptiness silently, maybe occasionally passing by another quiet, falling stone.

OK he had to focus now, read the morning paper, something…

For some reason, unknown to him he looked up as she passed by him in the crowd moving into the next train. He noticed her eyes, like she had been crying and it seemed like she noticed him. Not in a obvious way like a man would, but in a subtle glance in his direction, some slight hint of reconition. And there was something about her that flooded him with memories. Remembering when he was living the artist's life on South Street. It was just a bombed out loft with red brick walls and cold water and that single space heater that she used when she modeled for him. And at night in winter they wouldn't bother turning it on after torching the town, one art opening at a time, having breakfast at the Galaxy diner at 3 AM and then falling into bed together until their body heat warmed the sheets, warmed each other.

He was wondering already what his evening would be like, perhaps like last night,  eating a TV dinner and watching an old black and white movie in the dark, the kids asleep in the other room and she would be out again, another meeting, another something vitally important. And he would get to the part in the movie just before Rick kissed her, before they missed the train, before he fell into a dream that he spoke to her, before she passed into the next train.

And he would wake again at 3 to find the note on his chest, “I didn't want to disturb you”.

And he carefully placed the note back into his journal, turned and went back to sleep.