The Subway

The smell of urine and hot garbage assails your nostrils as you descend into the underground. The regular New Yorker is barely fazed by this lingering odor, nor by the darkly poisonous puddles that dabble upon the cracked concrete stares or collect in corners. The walls and support beams are stained with homeless excretions, and bits of old, rotting garbage are scattered amongst the recessed train tracks.

All the light down here is artificial and cold. The raw flouresence illuminates the grimy mosaic tile on the walls that lets you know what station you currently occupy.

An old man on a one-stringed instrument scratches out a delicate, ethnic melody. The haunting tune, meant solely to draw the pocket change from a sympathetic passerby, drifts off and echoes in the shadows.

Somewhere off in the distance you hear a rumble; an audible tremor that seems to be coming up from the very belly of the earth. It gets increasingly louder until in a sudden rush of train, light, and speed, all seems to be in chaos. The racket of the wheels against the tracks drowns out any and all sounds, while the force of the train through that cramped tunnel whips up a mighty whirlwind. Papers stir, and hair gets tousled.

As soon as it came, all is quiet once again. The only reminder of the recent disturbance is a fading rumble, returning to its depths in the earth’s core. The melody of the one-stringed instrument picks up once again as the only sound filling the now stagnant subway air.

© Arwen M. Guerra