Between Two Stops

Flash Fiction

Photo by Wells Baum on Unsplash

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I got on at Grand Central, off at 69th St., this happened in between.

I never sit, I don’t know if it’s the way I was raised or the anxiety of wanting the freedom to get off at any moment. Subways have that effect, stuck in a rattling cage but given the chance every 180 seconds to exit.

That’s life. The vacillation between feeling overwhelmed, stuck in a prison of our decisions, and the freedom presented—the car is never locked.

Doors opened at 59th St. He stepped in and sat. I stood, but you already knew that. I never got his name, it won’t matter, you’ll see soon enough. Vulnerable, that’s the feeling when there’s only two in the passenger car, and I left my headphones at work. Yep.

“Why are you standing, there are only two of us?” He said, hardly looking up from his book—a tattered copy of Confessions. “Uh, I feel more comfortable standing,” I responded. “You don’t look comfortable,” still hardly looking up. Even between strangers, the space between words can say more than the words themselves.

Confessions clapped shut. “Have you ever read this?” Pointing to the book. I shook my head no.

He went on, “In it Augustine writes about memory, as not only recalling facts, but emotions and sensations. It’s strange how you could smell or hear something and be transported back. My mother is long gone, but if I close my eyes, the sound of the subway puts me back on her knee. It’s a paradox, you can remember joy while feeling grief. And, there is something else about memory, behind the tragic ones you find God. Freedom is not fleeing memory, but trusting God to heal and reorder it.”

Looking up at me, “It’s OK if you want to sit down.”

Doors open. 69th St.