Daily Commute

The rain spattered against the glass, harassing the trolley’s window. Alice increased the volume in her earbuds to drown out the white noise and she made her daily commute to work. She shivered from the icy wind that the automatic doors blew into the vehicle every time a person stepped in. The wheels screeched to a stop at the accounting firm she worked at and she hopped off, following in line with the other monotonous grey coats.

Alice was thinking about what Maruchan ramen she would heat up when she got off of work, but her attention was divided when a familiar scream pierced her left ear. She whipped her neck to face the sound to meet the sight of a woman in a floral dress standing smack dab in front of the trolley- and it was moving fast. Alice screamed and couldn’t turn away as she watched the metal steel bars of the front smash into the woman. Noise escaped her chest, but it was drowned out by all of the witnesses’.

Suddenly, she woke up, bathed in sweat. After catching her breath and letting out a sigh, she rested her elbow over her closed eyes. The woman’s horrifying end flashed on the blacks of her closed eyelids. She squinted to try to force the images away.

Alice eventually rose and got ready for her workday, following her routine as she always did, even on weekends. No specific thoughts popped into her head, as she had already forgotten about the dream.

As she mounted the trolley that brought her to the firm, she experienced Deja Vú and laughed. Of course she would, she had taken this route every day for the last 8 years. She sat down next to a man holding a small basket of muffins and a young university student, neither of which could even spare a glance at her as she sat in between them.

After a few minutes, her eyes seemed to hang heavy, occasionally flirting with fatigue. Alice figured she must have had a bad dream or something that prevented her from getting enough quality sleep. Through half-closed lids, the hem of a floral patterned dress came into her peripheral vision. Memories flooded back and she choked on air, snapping fully conscious in seconds. Her eyes scanned the seats in front of her, but there was no floral dress in sight.

Alice wasted her day away in her small cubicle, entering numbers and processing data. She hadn’t even realized when her lunch break had started. She gathered her brown paper bag and sluggishly made her way into the break room (unfortunately eating in the personal offices was prohibited). As she made her way to the empty table in the back row, someone tapped her shoulder.

“Alice Fantio? Senior accountant?” a man’s voice came from behind. She placed the name to the voice and recognized a superior's inquiring tone.

“Is there something you need, Sir?” Alice asked as she walked in the large office he was seated in.

“Let me cut to the chase because I’ve got a call in a few minutes. It is no exaggeration when I say that you are one of the most integral employees we have in our company. You always follow directions precisely and comply with every rule our company presents.”

Alice felt a strange feeling seep into her. She was just as valued as any other worker, just another slave to corporate America. Following instructions perfectly, never voicing an opinion. 

“For your hard-earned efforts, I got you a little gift of sorts,” he said nasally and reached under his desk to pull out a flat, square box with a brown ribbon on top. “Only for the special employees,” he said and winked.

Alice’s stomach heaved with discomfort and smiled an unwilling grin. “Th- thanks,” she stuttered out as she slipped it into her computer bag. With an awkward chuckle, she exited the glass room quickly. Walking quickly back to her office, she decided that she would skip lunch today.

Exiting the firm, she stood at the trolley stop, hiding amongst the masses. She inserted her earbuds and queued her playlist. Snow started to fall in the waiting time, tiny pale spheres in her cropped, mahogany hair. She smiled at the sky.

“We always loved the snow,” a familiar voice whispered in her ear. Alice jerked her head to see who it was, but all she caught was the faint vision of floral fabric fading into the mist right beside her.

Alice couldn’t breathe. She took a moment spinning around, assessing her sanity. Grey coats, black coats, blue coats, no floral dress. She faced the approaching trolley once again and pressed play on her music player.

The chicken ramen bubbled in the pot and Alice stirred it once before going to turn on the shower to get the hot water flowing. As she walked back into the kitchen her eyes caught on the corner of a gift box hanging out of her work bag. She had completely forgotten about the uncomfortable exchange with her boss's boss. She walked over and took the present in her hands. Carefully pulling the ribbon undone, she lifted the lid from the cardboard. Her finger’s nimbly peeled the grey tissue paper away to reveal a floral dress folded neat in its position. She dropped the box and it crashed to the floor.

The next morning she got ready as always, doing her hair up in a low ponytail, sipping her black coffee, and gathering her crucial documents. She did not think about the fact that she was wearing the floral dress as a means to say thank you to her boss and prove that she was sane. She did not think about the woman. And she certainly did not think about the fact that she dreamed about the collision last night, or, at least she thinks she did. For all she could remember she might as well have dreamt about the collision every night of her entire life and not once could she be 100% sure she dreamt or didn’t dream of it.

She stepped onto the trolley. She rode to work. She stepped off the trolley. In a hurry, she had left her purse on the seat. She ran back to the stop, hoping it was still there. She ran out in front to look at the traffic behind her. She was ahead of it. Good. She could catch it. She ran out in front of the stopped trolley, no other cars were in the way. Only the trolley wasn’t stopped, it was moving. She had a moment of Deja Vú. Of course she would, she had done this before. She had been hit before, but that was a dream. What was this?