The Train Speaks

A.J. Bermudez

               This is a blue line train to 7th Street, Metro Center.
               He has always believed in poetry. He also believes in irony, but he is not sure this qualifies.
               “Don’t forget to take your belongings,” he tells himself.
               He thinks of the silent movie actors, stilted ghosts, up to their antics for as long as the reels survive. Having traded the cellular for the celluloid, the rude seven-year turnover of skin cells for the longevity of film.
               “Now arriving: Willow Street Station. The next stop is: Wardlow Station.”
               He earnestly entreats himself not to eat, drink, or smoke on trains or on platforms. To keep his feet off the seats. (Please.)
               He is impressed by the ubiquity. Many people are. He is in many places at once. Ignored. Like God.
               He listens for anything else. The antique grind of the rails, the labored breathing of the ventilation system, the dull wobble of the sides against the wind of the tunnel. The water torture dinging of texts.
               Feet are on seats, everywhere.
               “Now arriving: Vernon Station. The next stop is: Washington Station.”
               His mother visited, once, bounding forth from the Southwest arrivals terminal with the compact, white-hot, mistaken energy of a thousand suns.
               He had suggested hiring a car (he had proudly carved his check from the Metro voiceover job into roughly a hundred twenties and hidden these around his studio, like a childhood Easter egg hunt, so it was sort of fiscally viable), but she had insisted upon hearing his voice, so they boarded a bus to the nearest train station. Some other voice, perky and sterile like a robot, had greeted them. His mother had twisted her mouth into an angular, coat-hanger curl of distaste, giddily itching for the main event.
               He recalls the way she had stood in the underground lobby of Wilshire/Normandie, fixed like a wax figurine, studying the sallow fluorescent glow of the system map. Framed in a latticework of delicate graffiti, she had traced the thick, blood-red aorta of the line to Hollywood, the limp, dangling blue vena cava chugging upward from Long Beach.
               “Now arriving: Pico Station. The next stop is: 7th Street, Metro Center.”
               He beseeches himself to please be considerate to those around him. To refrain from playing loud music. To please, seriously, absolutely not eat under any circumstances while aboard the train, for the love of God.
               He thumbs the fossil-hard edge of a mash of gum on the seat fabric, oddly offended.
               He thanks everyone, magnanimously, for going Metro.
               “This is the last stop. Please make sure to take your belongings, and exit the train at this time.”
               He exits the train, per his instruction. He remembers what it was like to be commanding. Thankful. Certain. How could he forget?
               “For your personal safety, do not sit or stand near the edge of the platform.”
               Surging with the thrill of insurrection, he strides to the edge of the platform, his heels just beyond the fat yellow line meant to keep wayward passengers at bay.
               “Please stand clear. The doors are closing.”
               He thinks of his mother, folded into a neat, deflated shell, thumbing a Neolithic gum wad on the adjacent seat. “Why carpet?” she had asked.
               “I’m not sure,” he had said.
               He peers down the tunnel, a great concrete throat, the rails laid out like vertebrae.
               He knows what they will say. What he will say.
               “We apologize for the delay.”
               He thinks of the silent film actresses, strapped to the rails, thrashing about with the implausible sangfroid of a 100% survival rate. He thinks of their shining, grateful faces. He wonders where they’re buried.
               “We appreciate your patience,” he’ll say.
               He sticks his head out. No drama. Minds the gap like a surgeon.
               As the doors slide closed, he welcomes everyone, everywhere at once.
               The light appears at the end of the tunnel.
               And he hears nothing.

///
A. J. BERMUDEZ is an award-winning writer and director based in Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in a number of literary publications, including The Masters Review, McSweeney’s, Hobart, Gertrude Press, and more. She is a former boxer and EMT, and currently serves as Artistic Director of The American Playbook.