The Commute

Is he looking at me? 

My eyes try to watch anything else. Signboards, other passengers, my reflection. Yet my attention was always brought back to the man standing skittishly at the back of the carriage. I’m imagining things, I must be. Maybe he’s just zoning out and his eyes just happen to be rested on me? 

If you’re a fellow non-license holder, you’ll know that in the morning the subway can be packed. And not everyone has remembered to bathe. He looks ill, maybe he’s just really trying to focus on something else to avoid the nausea. If I was ill, the stench in here would certainly make it worse. Could febreze cover this?

The subway train grinds to a halt alongside that thought, as the platform’s lights beam into our compartment. The doors open, an immediate signal to these industrialists to migrate to their offices. Most of them do, leaving only a few bodies between me and the man who was still staring.

Right at me still.

Then he began to shift towards me.

Do I know him? He looks like he thinks he knows me.

Lumbering towards me like a wounded animal, I could now see this man’s complexion. He was disheveled, his hair escaping his head in several directions and his beard patchy and ragged. His skin was pale and his eyes were sunken. 

He looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

He kept encroaching on my space, and I couldn’t help but panic. I can hear the final warnings for the sleepy entrepreneur that the train will be departing soon, although it feels muffled by the tension of panic-driven thoughts running through my head. I dart.

The train doors seal the man shut, a pedestrian prisoner in an aluminium cell. He looks at me, trying to talk but I can’t hear him through his new enclosure. He bangs on the window as the train begins to depart for a station where I’m not at, and as he vanishes into the subterranean dark, I can finally breathe again. I realize that I am frozen on a station platform, and have gathered a small following of spectators. Maybe they know I’m going to be late for work now as well.

As I climb the staircase to the urban world, I begin to chalk my encounter up to a chance meeting with a creep. You always hear stories of manic people on the subway yet never think it would happen to you.

It’ll probably make quite the conversation starter.

I begin my trek through the jungle, passing vibrantly lit department stores that are maybe too bright for this time of day, and other workers who are also late. It’s slightly motivating seeing so many people rush, maybe they’ve had a bad time of it too. I flip out my cell phone.

“Rebecca, yeah, hi! I’m going to be a little late.”

She is mostly lifeless in her response, just saying she’ll tell David when she gets a chance. Great. I hang up and put a little more hustle into my step since I know she’s the “forgetful” type. 

I hear footsteps laden with weight and urgency behind them. For a moment I freeze, yet I rationalize that it’s another tardy gentleman sprinting to their office.

Then they grab my shoulder.

“Ex-excuse me, you— you were on the train!”

My heart sinks as my head turns instinctively to see the shambling man behind me, his eyes white and bulging. I heard my heartbeat in my ears and could feel the cogs turning, my fight or flight kicking in, an instinct that made my knees weak. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.

How is that even possible?

Escaping his exhausted grasp I bolt, my flats hitting the sidewalk with the intensity of a war drum. Soon I could hear the opposition’s march keeping good pace with me. This was unreal. It can’t be happening. I try to run faster, racking my brain for examples of people more athletically gifted and for what people do in this situation.

Part of me was still worried about getting to work on time. I dash round several corners and circle blocks in a desperate attempt to shake him off but I can’t. Once barely able to walk, now chasing me at full sprint with little reprieve?

Maybe I’m slower than I thought.

Other pedestrians ignore my plight or stare on in confusion. I search frantically, throwing my head near off it’s shoulders in search of any authority figure as the seriousness of the situation begins to sink in, and I can’t find the courage to joke about it any longer.

I thought about Catherine Genovese, how thirty-seven people didn’t call the police to tell them that she was being murdered. Was I going to be like her, a face in an old paper, being known for nobody saving me?

My lungs burned and my legs were beginning to tire, but he kept a manic panic behind me. 

“Please, I just want to ask you a few questions!”

Oh no you don’t, I know how that goes. 

His voice cracked as he shouted at me again,

“Please!”

My folly was my hesitation, when I stopped for just a second he barreled into me. My chin scraped against the concrete and the compression of my body propelled breath from my mouth. I began to kick and scream, just hoping someone could hear me. 

“Please calm down, I don’t want to hurt you, please!” When he began to cry I relaxed my limbs and he rolled off of me. His head falls into his hand and blurts out through sobs, “I’ve—

I’ve b-been looking— for so long.”

 I rubbed my chin and it felt wet. I crawl back to pull my violently shaking body as far away from him as I can. I caught my breath and wanted to ask him why, why harass me? Why not someone else? He’s still crying, one part of me wants to offer my pity and the other part is repulsed. 

“I— I think you’re my daughter.”