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YYEEEEEESSSSsSSSsSssSSsSSSsSss.
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| Julian held his briefcase close to his chest. The underground train bounced and lifted and every now and then let sparks spew from its bottoms. He imagined the suburbs and the downtowns he was gliding under, the families and the wholesome dinners he was missing at sixty miles an hour, and then imagined his family waiting for him at the end of the orange line on the subway's route map. They waved and smiled with interlocked arms. Would they even be home when he arrived? Would they already be in bed? He never knew when he'd get off work and they never knew whether to save a plate for him at dinner. It unsettled Julian to think about how often they actually sat down with a meal prepared by both him and his wife. His thoughts were coerced to his waist when he felt fingers quickly slide in and out of his back pocket. Immediately he felt the absence of his wallet's bulk. Julian tried turning as quickly as he could, but the train was so crowded he could only strain his neck trying to catch a glimpse of the thief - so he panicked. He let go of his briefcase which didn't fall immediately, but instead hung in the air between the compacted bodies and finally landed on someone's foot. He pulled apart the crowd and got shoved and shoved back. Somehow his words found a way out of his throat, "He-hey! Hey! Thief! My wall-" The train shifted gears and swayed bodies forward, straining muscles, leg muscles and arm muscles, testing passengers' grips on the leather straps and metal poles. "Goddamnit, my fucki-" The doors opened and Julian was swept in the human current towards the door. There! There! Julian caught a dark pair of eyes glaring forthright and deliberately into his. The thief swiftly slid between bodies and out of the doors while Julian clumsily stumbled over ankles, banging his knees against other knees. His feet sometimes found the train's carpet, but mostly found the feet of those who fought just as hard to exit the vessel. The chime sounded over the intercom and Julian gave one last heeve towards the doors knocking two ladies down and an elder man to his knees. "Sorry! Sorry! The doors! Just- the doors!" His jacket caught the handle bar of a bike.
And there Julian stood with a hand full of his suit's sportscoat opposite of the train's passengers. He tugged hard at the coat, but it did not give way. One more time he pulled, but when he looked back he found he wasn't fighting the bike's handlebar, but the train's closed doors. Julian watched as the train slowly bounced away with his jacket flailing as if it were a small animal fighting for its life between the jaws of a predator. He swore he could hear those he had just manhandled and viciously torn apart laughing at him. They didn't understand. If they knew they wouldn't be laughing. If their wallets had been - his wallet! As he turned towards the stairs straining his legs into a sprinting position he saw it. His wallet laid open, facing upwards, revealing the photo he had just put in the photo-sleeve that morning. It was a shot of his two children, now teens, coming down the stairway having just woken up. It wasn't a great photo, slightly blurred from his unsteady hands that held the camera, but it was perfect nonetheless. His twin sons smirked in the photo at his father's odd and quirky timing. Their eyes were still swollen with sleep, but squinted with the smile that grew underneath them. He jumped from the landing into the railway. When he bent to lift the wallet from the train's path he could feel the breeze that was pushed through the tunnels by the massive traincars that traveled in them. It lifted his hair from his brow and cooled the sweat on his back as he slid the wallet back into his pocket. Julian's fingers gripped the top of the landing above him and dug his toes into the ridges of the wall. The sweat on his palms gave his grip way and as Julian fell backwards he could feel the same breeze that was pushed through the tunnels. When Julian's head connected with the bronze rail he saw his family waving at him. His two boys and his wife. All waiting at the end of the orange line on the subway's route map. | | |
| "When you're climbing down the tree don't hug it like a pole! You'll just scrape your theighs on the bark! No, no. With the palms of your feet! Bottoms, fine, bottoms of your feet, whatever. Now just- yeah, just kind of shimmy your way - yeah! Just like that! Do you have.. do you have sandles on? Are you climbing down a tree with sandles on your feet?! How'd you even climb- nevermind. Yeah, okay, Sam if I had a ladder maybe you could swing to it with the rope I brought and then you could slide down the fire pole and hop into the heap of pillows I layed out to break your fall - no I don't have a ladder for you to climb down! Just jump the rest of the way it's only - oh, c'mon, it's only about five feet! Just- you look ridiculous. Just jump the rest- thank you."
"I went up the tree to get my sandles that you threw. Thanks, Richard."
"Ah. Those sandles. Well, you didn't have to put them on. You could have just thrown them down!"
"And then climb the tree again when you threw them back up?"
"Well, naturally. But I would have been here to guide you!"
"Why does this feel like a rejected Calvin and Hobbes comic?"
"Oh, hush, you're just bitter you have scraped theighs." | | |
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