Commuters
It is barely dawn when I board the commuter train. I hold my place in line as I step from the steel platform into the steel passenger car. I settle into my favorite seat and watch from the window as the sun dimly illuminates the horizon. The dawn is gray. My overcoat, and the overcoats of the other passengers are gray. We wait to travel a gray line to our offices with gray desks, gray carpeting and gray duties. The train vibrates into motion. I yawn. I ride the train like a cradle. It reverberates beneath me and gently rocks me in its sway. The conductor with the kind face takes my fare with a sad, pleasant smile. I want to buy him whisky. I want to ask him questions. I want him to tell me his story. But maybe it is better this way; that I don’t know his life; that we remain strangers. Anyway it is too early in the day and we both have far too many hours of labor left in us to entertain liquor - laced tales. I drift off, rocked to sleep on an iron sea. My eyelids...