2 posts tagged “lance rivas”

            Focus…focus… focus… That’s the word that keeps pounding in my head. Focus… focus…focus … the same time this word drills my head a loud clanking momentarily disarrays the mindset and noise filled corridors block me from accomplishing that task. Focusing on getting home. I look at the clock on the wall and see that the subway to Ellis Avenue is now twenty five minutes late. People standing all around me, all wanting the same thing I do, to leave this catacomb known as the metro station. I look down the subway corridor hoping to see the subway light. My palms feel like soaking sponges filled with perspiration, and my head feels (and probably looks) like a mop bucket filled to the brim. I hate this time of day. Not the day itself, just this part of it. The part where I have to come down to this station and wait for the subway to take me home, I hate it. It’s like I feel suffocation and anxiety when I come here. I'm not afraid of the subway, I just don’t like that I have to stand here so close with these people. Oh look, there’s the subway.
    I walk towards the dock and fight my way through the sea of humanity in front of me. I walk into the subway, no seats left. I'm left standing next to people I don’t care for. Oh well, just let me get home. The subway leaves so slowly; it rocks back and forth swerving around the corners. We stop abruptly; the lights flicker a bit but no reason worry, just sweat a little more. The conductor turn on the intercom to announce:
    “Slight delay up ahead, there’s construction up on the Washington Street stop.”
    No problem, just get me home. We waited for another five minutes. First this subway was nearly thirty minutes late and now we have another slight issue; now I am getting a little restless…
Well it’s been nearly an hour now and no word from the conductor. My suit has become a sauna and I feel as though Im going to faint. I push my way through the mass to the front where the conductor is. No one was in there; I looked around the front and through the glass to locate him, I feel an eerie chill run through my whole body. The conductor is gone. I look around at the people and see their faces are gone. No one has a face. I back into a corner in sheer horror. I look at the child sitting on the bench next to me. It was stares at me. How did I not notice this earlier?
A rumbling shakes the ground and heat fills the cart. I jump up to look out the window and horror fills me. Flames are rolling down the tracks towards the cart faster and faster and faster and closer and closer and closer. I turn around to see the faceless people gone and I am the one left in the cart. I fall to my knees, with no idea of what’s going on, I put my head down and cover it. I feel the flames reach the cart and I close my eyes as tight as I could.
I open my eyes, and realize I'm still in the cart with people, people with faces. The intercom comes on:
    “Slight delay up ahead, there’s construction up on the Washington Street stop.”
    I have never come to the realization that I'm alone until today, and before today I never had come to the realization that I'm lonely .
    Focus…focus… focus… That’s the word that keeps pounding in my head. Focus… focus…Focus on getting home…alone

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