Good Night

I can smell the odors of the thousand other individuals who have sat in this stiff rubbery seat before me, the stale BO of a hundred sweaty men who have run to catch the last train of the night out of the city with their musty brown coat jackets flapping from the inertia of their movement and their hard black briefcases flailing at their sides. I can picture them waddling, ungraceful, their lumpy bodies bursting out of the white button-down that never once fit. I get a waft of the countless babies who have spit up on their caretakers, the parents with two-and-a-half children who force smiles and awkward laughs as the half-child kicks her mother in the womb and the two full ones throw up or otherwise act up. All for a trip into the city for a thing to do with the family on a Saturday afternoon. I catch a whiff of the perfumes and colognes that came before me, the eau de rose, or lilac, or apple, or whatever, the body spray that arrests the nostrils and sinks to the stomach, causing it to turn. And more recently, I feel the heat of the body that occupied this seat immediately before me, grateful for the owner of the prior butt who stood up to leave right as I climbed the metal steps to get on, as if we had planned it, like I had called her and said hey can you save me a seat? like we used to do with our friends in different classes at all-school assemblies. 

But no, I am just another lifeform on this lifeless bench, sitting next to another nobody who is entranced by the article on his phone, his thumb constantly attached to the screen, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I glance at his screen and catch the words ozone and warming and cicadas and changes and I know he is reading about the world that is flashing by in a blur on his left. I glare briefly at him, hoping he’ll look up at me in that exact instant, motivated by some unknown force, the eerie feeling of someone watching him, to break away from the bright light on his phone and look me straight in the eye and ask What? What do you want? I want him to feel the burn of my eyeballs on him in the split second when I have the courage to glare but he does not, and I look away. If he had given me the opportunity to explain myself I would have told him that he has the coveted window seat and he doesn’t even seem to care. Then maybe he’d offer to switch and I’d end up with my head resting against the cool glass, bouncing with every bump and turn but not caring about the headache that would ensue, staring out at the grey mass of trees and the occasional lake and buildings as we enter a town. My eyelids would get heavy and maybe I’d fall asleep. Perhaps then I’d miss my stop, forced to wait hours until the train made its way back. I’d have the train to myself, besides the conductor and the few individuals who ask to see our tickets. But mostly it would be just me and the window separating me from the outside world. 

This is a pipe dream. I never get the window seat when I get on this late, which I always do on Thursdays since we have a team meeting during the very last hour of the work day and it always run over. We all complain to each other in secret, swapping eye rolls and pings, listening to the drone of the manager as she scrolls through spreadsheets that contain little rectangular boxes that contain our daily tasks, our lives. I leave the office on Thursdays well after six and have to catch the crowded evening train with others who must have also been hypnotized by a monotonous and all-powering voice that controlled them past their allotted time. Today at least I have a seat next to someone whose knees stay to the left of the rise in the bench that demarks the boundary between us. 

I lean my head back against the germy seat and turn my head this way and that, trying to find a comfortable position that will sustain me for the next ninety minutes. I land on straight ahead and plug in headphones, both to my phone and to my ears, then close my eyes. I don’t turn on any music or podcast. The earbuds are a deterrent; I don’t want people to talk to me but I don’t want to be unable to hear them if they do. In case my sweater falls from my lap and I don’t notice, or an elderly man boards the train and asks for my seat, I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of these strangers by having to be poked and prodded if they need to get my attention.  

I recall the day’s events, a ritual of mine during which I tally my failures and compare to the successes, seeing if I land in the red or the black, reflecting on every detail of every conversation to make sure I grade myself fairly and accurately. I let myself drift back to the forest of chrome-colored cubicles with their soft-padded walls. There was a note on my desk when I walked in this morning: Come to my office when you get in. It was signed by my boss and I knew immediately I must have done something horribly wrong and I was going to be fired. I walked in eagerly, ready for my sentencing. 

“Nice job in that meeting yesterday, Kay. Got great feedback from the client. They want you to take over their account completely now,” she said matter-of-factly. Her laptop dinged and she returned her attention to it immediately, lured in by the bell of a new email or upcoming meeting. I sighed, out of equal parts relief and disappointment.  

“Awesome,” I told her with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and a toothless smile, though she didn’t bother looking back up from her computer. “Happy to do it,” I added, though the words happy to seem to have lost all meaning in the corporate world. Happiness has nothing to do with it. I left her office and closed the door, not bothering to ask whether she wanted to be shut off from the rest of us plebians, those who weren’t important enough to have our own sanctioned rooms. I knew what I'd want, so I closed the door.  

I’m unsure whether to count this as a win or a loss, mostly because I don’t know what game I am playing. If I’m locked into the corporate ladder with a rope tied between my waist and the highest rung, with me down here at the very bottom, then I suppose this is a win, maybe a half-step up.  

Thinking of ladders makes me remember the summer when I painted my parents’ house, the summer before my senior year of college, right before I had secured the job I have to this day. My dad told me to keep the metal thirty-foot ladder away from the wires protruding from the side of the house, the cables that provided us with a connection to the outside world via internet and cable. I scooted the ladder that was six times my height side-to-side, positioning it right where I needed it. I was tired of waiting for my dad to come help me move it each time I finished a section, since he’d disappear into the garage afterwards to work on the car and smoke a cigarette I wasn’t supposed to know about. I scraped the top of the ladder across the shingles high up, tilting it precariously close to the thick black snakes filled with electricity, ready to zap me. I wondered how serious he had been about his warning. I got too scared to find out.  

After two weeks the house was a darker shade of brown than it had been before, coated twice in the glossy stain my parents had picked out together. This would make it slightly more sellable, though none of us had that on our minds for another year or so, when they’d need to split the assets and it was easier to do so with cash than with a home.  

Now I’m on the corporate ladder, which only goes up. If I want to get off, I have to jump, the rungs I used to get to my current spot now seem to be unreachable. I’d have to leap into the unknown, back down to earth, with nothing to cushion my fall. My only choice is to keep climbing up into a world of promotions and raises and bonuses. And who am I to complain? I am no one. I have no right to complain about the stuffy suits that suffocate me as I hunch over the laptop that I squint at for ten hours a day, communicating with invisible faces and putting out urgent fires. I leverage and circle back and get back to people and shoot off a quick email and follow up for hours on end, contributing to the greater good of the company’s year-end financial reports. I do commendable work and am recognized for it. And each day I take ten walks to and from the window that overlooks the park with the trees whose leaves reliably die and bloom with the seasons, turning from pink to green to yellow to red to brown to nothing in what feels like the blink of an eye. They sway back and forth and I swipe my finger across the glass, following their movement, feeling the slightest spark of energy at the thought that if these trees do nothing but their job for years and years and bring me such hope then possibly I too am worthwhile. But just maybe. This is a fleeting thought. 

The caboose catches on fire. We are New Yorkers; we do not make any movement to indicate anything has changed, except to show minor annoyance at the smoke drifting slowly through each car, one by one, layering a foggy blanket of smog above our heads. A woman wraps her scarf around her nose, choosing to inhale the scratchy fibers rather than the dirty air. A man pulls his greasy long brown hair out of its bun and in front of his nostrils, like drawing a curtain. After another minute of rearranging ourselves, all passengers acting as one, stirring little by little then more and more, an inciting incident causing a ripple of torment through the previously listless faces, the train slows. I look out the window but the world has completely shut off and there are no manmade instruments to illuminate the objects, inanimate or alive, that lay off in the unknown. We are in between stations, some number of miles from civilization. One of the ticket workers stomps through the middle aisle, his black hat covering his mouth and nose, his free hand waving at us to get up. He calls through the soft fabric that we have to get off, tells us he doesn’t know for how long. I wonder if someone did this, if there’s someone we can pinpoint and blame, maybe a person who tossed a cigarette in the trash before the butt had completely died out, or perhaps this was a malicious act gone wrong and we’re to consider ourselves lucky for even being given the opportunity to vacate. More likely, the ancient vehicle is facing an electrical problem, two wires unable to cooperate for one more ride and they finally gave up and ignited. 

I follow the stream of hurrying individuals in between the seats and out into the darkness. We are a sea of floating faces illuminated by the bright light on our phones. Everyone is typing furiously, sending messages off into the abyss to notify their partners or parents or regular cab drivers that they don’t know when they’ll need a ride home, or that they won’t be back in time for dinner – eat without them. 

It's impossible to tell what season is it by looking at how people are dressed. There are puffy jackets, windbreakers, short sleeves, sweatshirts. Layers are being shed though. By some science I don’t understand, it got warmer as the day progressed and now that the sun has fallen below the horizon the temperature is higher than it was when I boarded the train this morning. I take off my light coat and stuff it into my backpack. I text no one. There is no one waiting for me in a cozy home with a homemade meal and a dim light on over the porch welcoming me back. There are moldy green beans in the drawer of my fridge waiting for me to finally cut them up, chop off the soft spots, and throw them into a pot of boiling water.  

I walk down the hill where we’ve been corralled, far enough away from the tracks and the ever-growing flames and the people. I trust that there are no rocks or stumps to trip me up since the ground blends in with the view in front of me. It is all just darkness, so I have no choice but to trust that I will not fall, and finally I am at the bottom of the hill and I haven’t tumbled so I count this as a minor victory. I am sweating now. I swear it’s getting hotter as each minute ticks by. I shed more layers, first the cardigan that serves as a barrier between my skin and the harsh office AC. Then I unbutton the flowy blouse that fights with me to stay tucked into the navy dress pants all day, which I also unbutton and unzip. I strip down until I am in just my underwear but I tell myself it’s like wearing a bathing suit which is acceptable to do in public so this is okay. Besides, I’m in public but no one can see me. Or at least I can’t see them. 

I stuff my clothes into my bag and heave that over my shoulders and stick my arms out in front of me, searching with my fingertips. I barge forward, farther away from it all. I’m moving too quickly, too used to the fast-paced world, so when my hands collide with the tree my right pinky finger bends back in a way it’s not supposed to and I hear a faint pop. Immediately, tears rush to my eyes and I feel pathetic, maimed by a tree, not even a bear. I pat the tree, more gently this time, and I imagine it’s apologizing, but the other trees are laughing at me for being so naïve.  

I sit at the base of this tree, my back resting against the bumpy bark. With my stuffed backpack on my lap I lean forward and close my eyes and listen to the owls and coyotes lull me to sleep. I fall into the deepest sleep, a more restful sleep than I’ve gotten in a long time.  

The bright rays of the early morning sun wake me from my rest and my limbs feel like the bones and blood have been replaced with concrete. I will each section of my body to wake up with small wiggles, though the searing pain in my finger as I try to move it does more to wake me up than any miniscule movements. I rub my eyes, preparing them to take in the day. 

The sky is on fire. The sun is a blood orange, center stage, emitting its vibrancy across the world, forming a backdrop of contrast against the browning trees. I squint my eyes and remind myself not to stare but the allure of the brightness is nearly too enticing to do anything but look deep into the orb. A red-tailed hawk swoops down mere feet in front of me, not caring that I’m here or perhaps putting on a show. It catches a furry vole in its beak and I watch the creature wriggle until it falls limps as the bird flies back to its babies. A pair of rabbits hops out and nibbles on blades of dewy grass, a celebration for not becoming someone else’s breakfast, yet. Instead of sheet and pillow creases on my skin, there are the outlines of dead leaves on my legs. I stand and glimpse down at my bare body and quickly choose to instead look up. I peer over the crest of the hill. The other passengers are gone, taken away in the middle of the night, presumably by another train, or they extinguished the flames and endured the smoke the rest of the way. I should put on my clothes, walk up the hill and walk towards the nearest station, back or forwards, I’m not sure.  

I turn the other way and walk into the wilderness.