He held on to the overhead bar half wondering what it was that posessed, even compelled people to live this kind of existence, day in, day out, clutching hopelessly for the bar on the subway praying that they wouldn’t fall into the fat old lady behind them, wheezing and panting, looking oh-so-chic in her 25 year old fur coat and red sunglasses. It was beyond him, it really was.

He liked to think himself a bystander, here by circumstance. He took the subway, yes, but it was only coincidence that he had gotten on at 5:00, in the heat of rushour. He was just beginning his day, he thought, and it was mere coincidence that he should be on the subway at the same time as these sheep. he wasn’t commuting, he was just there. Somehow, though, he knew this didn’t wash, and that even if he was there by circumstance now, he felt his life inextricably liked to these commuters, and he was hopelessly locked on the same path of life that they were following.

“Your attention please, your attention please. This train is express to Packard’s Corner. This train is express to Packard’s Corner.”

Damn, he thought. What should he do? Packard’s Corner was one stop too far, but he hated waiting for T’s. He hated all the people, and he hated crowds.

Damn, it’s bright. He thought. His sunglasses slid down his sweaty brow again. Damn glasses, he thought.

Might as well get off, he thought. Hate walking more than I hate this flock of sheep.

As the T came to a stop he though he may as well get off. Maybe everyone else is going on past Packard’s Corner, maybe this way I won’t have to deal, he thought.

So, he got off the T. But so did everyone else. Soon he found himself immersed in thousands of Business clad, fat sweating bodies and he hated it. He decided to get back on the T. Anything is better than being near these people.

But as he was about to get back on the T, one of those sheep, one of those miserable, deformed demented sheep knocked his sunglasses on the ground. he stooped to pick them up, but that selfsame miserable sheep pushed him aside to get where he was going just as quickly as everyone else. That miserable sheep just kept kicking his glasses, further and further away, not even noticing, not even hearing his plaintive protestations, convinced that the time on his fucking watch was the be all end all of human existence.

And he just stood there, watching his glasses be swept up in the flow of human sheep, resenting them, watching without speaking, wishing there was someone to notice his predicament. But there was no one. No one but uncaring, miserable sheep.

He got back on the train as the doors closed. And made his way to Packard’s corner.

Tags: archive, damn glasses, fiction
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