A Single Sign of Life on a Dead Train

The bodies all swayed together like meat hanging from hooks on the back of a truck. The train does that—it turns commuters into dead things. You would never know it from the stubbornly empty looks that these beings could be capable of shouts, laughter, and sex.

The females wilted into their bodies, arms folded over crossed legs, eyes down sometimes staring into bibles. An occasional glance at another female’s shoes or clothing and a disapproving lift of an eyebrow, as if moved by a quick breeze, were the only sparks of life.

The males sometimes looked at each other, too, sizing up strength and success. Rather than become demurely invisible they tried to take up as much space as possible. Chests puffed arms expanded sideways and legs split open to the sides as if to air out their dangling privates. As with the females, the life in their eyes was soon also extinguished and that glaze, that non-awareness, that look took hold that says if this train exploded right now I wouldn’t care.

At the other end of the train car I saw him. Hair gelled into crisp spikes, brown jacket striped with white, brown slim slacks and gleaming green tennis shoes—he looked back at me for a second too long and I darted my eyes away. My desperation, of which I’d just then become aware, vanished, and I looked back at him. Our eyes celebrated in whispers: we’re not alone!