Chapter 2: Commuting

 

The walk from my outdated apartment building to the Metro-rail is often the best part of my day. While only spanning about two minutes of my entire day, it is the perfect time for nothing to happen. It is two full minutes of true transition, between being wherever I was coming from, and getting wherever I am going. On these walks, I try to my utmost potential to empty my head of any worries I have.

 

No longer at home, there’s no need to worry about my deadbeat roommates and their daily, trivial escapades of getting completely toasted and heading off to work at the local dive bar. Not yet at work, there’s no need to think about the endless barrage of rhetorical, well I think they’re rhetorical, questions and requests of the helpless bourgeoisie masses who shop at my high-end furniture store.

 

Yes, truly a time of transition. Not a thought passes through my head besides the smooth cadence of my steps. One freshly cleaned Nike tennis-shoe in front of the other, I make my way past the man-made ponds that separate my home and the Metro.

 

Step. Step. Step. Watch out for the cracks, don’t forget what your mother told you.

 

Sometimes, I cannot help but just stop and stare at the placid water that fills these ponds. Where there isn’t s**t floating in it from the city runoff, you can see the ghostly reflection of the moon. If you look really close, it becomes difficult to tell which one is the real moon and which one is the imposter.

 

A Coke can floats through the moon in the pond, breaking my trance and allowing me to continue my mindless walk to the Metro.  

 

Just as my mind has been thoroughly emptied, I reach the imposing, brightly lit gate to the Metro-rail system. I take out my Coach wallet and slide it across the detector, my pass tucked safely inside. The digital numbers on the gate tell me I have $3.20 left before I need a refill.  

 

The Metro station where I get on, Grosvenor-Strathmore, is above ground. It is the last stop before the train takes a nose dive and heads for the depths of the Washington D.C. underground. With seven minutes before the next train, I sit down on a wooden bench and stare at the ground. Anyone who has ever ridden the Metro in Washington can tell you what the ground looks like in the stations. The hexagonal, burnt-red colored tiles stretch from one side of the platform to the next, forming a pattern eerily similar to a beehive. At rush hour, the swarm busily passes over the hive, stopping here and there to make sure the honey is being produced without flaw.

 

I hear the train whistle blowing and realize that somehow, seven minutes has already passed. The red lights on the edge of the platform blink and the train screams in pain at having to stop to pick up more bees.

 

Once inside, I quickly scan the car for an empty seat. Of course, the only one is next to some crazy lady, babbling to herself and fidgeting in her seat. Her grayish, yellowish hair is matted beyond belief and her face droops to the left like melted plastic. Despite her grizzly appearance, the woman knows how to dress. As I sit down next to her and inhale the Metro-rail patented, fresh piss smell, I notice her freshly pressed white blouse and slim-fitting navy blue pencil skirt. Around her dirty, but well formed neck is a thin silver necklace with one amazingly bright pearl hanging from its center. The pearl has a strange glow to it, and reminds me of my recent moon-gazing episode.

 

Living in the city, you get used to being around weird people in close, claustrophobic situations. I try to ignore her as I put in my earbuds and search my iPod for something loud to drown out her mumbling.

 

“Aren’t you just the cutest little thing ever!” She suddenly hollered at me as if I was going to get up and leave before she got her chance.

 

“Name’s Luna, and yours?” She stared at me, waiting for an answer.

 

The train lurched forward and began to sway side to side as it picked up speed. I tried as hard as I could to just pretend I couldn’t hear her, but she just sat there, staring straight at my lightly closed eyes. I knew she wasn’t going to give in until I said something.

 

“Christian, thanks.” I managed to push out while frantically scrolling though my collection of artists to listen to.

 

Now, my name isn’t really Christian. That’s just the name I use when I don’t want people to know who I really am, or know that I will probably never see them again.

 

“Christian,” she said, “cute name, reminds me of…”

 

I cut her off immediately with, “Knights of Cydonia,” by Muse on my iPod. I turn it up to full volume and drown out whatever it was she was trying to talk to me about.

 

I could tell from the pitch of the train that it was starting its descent under the city. We entered the tunnel and the darkness of the night was replaced by a more dense darkness. The kind you can only find under the ground. I could feel the tunnel walls screaming by on each side of the train and an inevitable sleep crept in through the cracks in the windows. My consciousness fluttered in and out and finally left. I fell into a deep sleep next to that crazy mumbling woman.