The Empty Car

(First, a note: Forgive me. I do not feel able to write on this subject without reverting to vignette style, but never fear; tomorrow, I will be back to my normal style.)

On the platform. Still half-frozen air hovering on my cheeks. A long slow, screech, as a tunnel-long train slides up next to me. On either side, a car stuffed to maximum. Straight ahead, through thawing glass, a body lay, covered in an oversized green coat. No movement was detectable. No face was visible.

Beside me, a window opening. A head, covered in dreadlocks, was exposed a few moments' paces away. Lung maximum: "Next car. Next car." Into the crammed car I creep, with questions. Questions about the green coat, the empty car. Questions about the dead body I could feel, unmoving, inside it. That I knew was there.

Questions about dying alone, with no one and nothing. Questions about customer service, and how far it could go. Questions about what was disgusting, and what was sad, and what was ignorable, as if it was a Monday in some past year that no one can recall. If my heart were to stop in a subway car, I would at least want a few witnesses to my Brooklyn-Bridge-bound funeral, however rickety on the tracks below.