Overlapping

It's cold for October; the wind is snappish and forceful, trying to pry open my heavy jacket. I steel myself against the sting and duck down a side street of worn curbs and patched asphalt. It's some time past one in the morning and the only other people I see are ghostly faces whizzing by in cars and cabs. An eerie steam filters up from the sewers, mingling with the chill air before dissipating and disappearing. At the end of the street, a set of greasy steps greets me and I hurry down into the deserted subway station, the warm air and pungent smell more concentrated as I descend. Orange lights reflect off of dingy white tile and the ground has the same greasy glow as the steps. The scent of the stations is one unique to subway stations, I think, and there is something grossly comforting about it.

The 6 train rattles down the track into the station and the doors open with a soft, electric hiss. I board the train and drop into a seat of slate blue plastic. There is something amazing about subway cars; they are all at once bright and dim. The sickly fluorescent lights overhead shine mercilessly down on seats, walls and floors but the dull plastic and nondescript linoleum absorb the light, regurgitating a beaten, muted sheen that seems to falter and tremble in the stale air. The air in the car is heavy and has been recycled one or two times too many and tastes like pocket change, nickels especially.

This car is not empty. At the far end of the compartment, a girl in a bright red raincoat is curled up over two of the molded seats. There's a striped knit cap on her head, but her long jet black hair leaks from beneath it like mercury. She's reading a worn book she has balanced on her knees; the page corners are rounded and smooth from wear and the binding lies limp like a dead thing. She does not notice me, or anything else, it would seem. The doors slide open and then closed again and the train lurches once more down the stone tunnels. For a while, the car is ours alone.

Eventually, I get off four stops later at Astor and Lafayette, turning as the doors click shut to see a pale face gazing at me through the yellowed, scratched windows. She smiles a serene smile and returns to reading as the train clatters down the steel tracks, the rhythmic noise reverberating off the rough walls of the tunnel. I close my eyes, not moving for a moment, before recognizing what I find familiar about the sound of the train barreling down the tracks. The exchange of clatter and the steeling, grinding ring hangs in the air, the positive and negative spaces metered as the beating of a restful heart. I smile to myself and pull my jacket tight around me and step out into the night.