The Subway
Person B knowing they’re undoubtedly about to die within the next few seconds, likely from the gaping wound they’re bleeding out from. Instead of calling for help, they phone Person A and carry on a casual conversation as if nothing is wrong, making sure to mention how much they love them before their time runs out.
There was something perfect to the subway. Riding it every morning was not a chore, not a bore, not even a terrible inconvenience to her. The influx of people shuffling about, the way she could sit among perfect casual strangers, common acquaintances linked only to similar schedules, the regularity of it, the sounds and the sights and the speed of it all. Clarke often missed her stop on purpose to stay just a few minutes longer, looping back. She read entire libraries on the subway, she sketched entire carloads of faces she would never see again, she met and spoke with interesting people. She loved the subway. She was either innately alone, confronted with anonymity in the midst of millions of people as the city woke and she yawned in its veins, speeding along, pushed by the hidden, pulsating, concrete heart somewhere in one of the skyscrapers, or she was full of life, being told stories of cats and birthdays and books and opinions and articles by chatty neighbours. Clarke loved the subway.
She fell in love on the subway. How could she not, since she was open to the magic of its ways? She caught her eye one morning when she was running late, and stared for six stops, the first morning. The next day, she timed her schedule differently, and stared for six stops again. It happened for a week, until an accidental night when she saw this girl, this girl, this girl, the kind they write poems and songs and novels and movies and plays about throughout the history of history.
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