Life Takes Detours

Flash Fiction

by Julie McGlone

            Everyone on this train looks like it’s their day to die. The slumping gray-haired gent across the aisle is wearing an inverted sailor hat that screams geezer. His stretched-out sweat socks, drooping over buckled shoes really should be eliminated.

        At each end of this car we have teenagers wearing headphones and portable CD’s, bobbing to tunes I’ll never hear. A young mother pushes a stroller with two other angels clinging to her slip. No one is supposed to notice the undercover cops, but they were already on when I arrived at the end/beginning of the line.

        A sour man boards the train, carrying a brown box fastened by duct tape. Duct tape? I should have worn my protector hat. He perches in the conductor’s seat and pulls the curtain for effect. Behind him swaggers a nymph with hair striped in seven colors. What made me think hideous was out of style?

        Train rushes to next station. Train stops. Mother leaves, sprung from the jaws of death. One headbanger walks off, replaced by two lip piercers. I’m getting too old for public transit. It hurts to watch them talk.

        Then striped-haired nymph growls in progressively louder threats, “Get this effer moving or I’ll slit the throats of every one of these losers!” First we gasp in unison. Then it’s time to take sides.

        “Get this effer moving!”

        “Do it! I dare you.”

        “What’s the problem? Get this piece of trash moving!”

        “Go ahead. You don’t have the guts to slit a throat.”

        She gives a sneak peek of the knife to the captive audience. The silence is deafening. Except for gray-haired gent.

        “Do it.”

        “I’ll do it and I’ll start with you, You Leper!”

        What are the police waiting for? Isn’t this exciting enough for them?

        Train rushes to next station. Finally, my stop. Freedom! I’ll watch the evening news to see how the others fared.

        I hear the clack of high-heeled boots stalking me. I glance to see her all in leather, with polyester envy. Through the turnstile, up the stairs, and onto the street. I can’t shake her. Then I feel her hand on my right shoulder.

        I throw my purse onto the sidewalk.

        “Take it! Leave me alone!”

        Her left hand holds something over me. I swing around, grab it, and pummel her until she’s down. Inner strength and rage have taken over and I can’t stop. Whack! Whack!

        She covers her bloody face and I continue. A kick to the ribs. City life brought me to this boiling point. I’m no longer a potential victim. I’ve proven myself.

        Someone stops to watch. My hair is wild, my eyes are crazed, and in my swollen hand I am holding the weapon. My umbrella. My umbrella.

        Frozen in the glare of shop lights, I make the split-second decision.

        “Thieves!”

        “Good for you!” the onlooker encourages.

        And I proceed to the corner, turn down the street, dropping it into the trash.

        I become more inhuman each year. Man’s inhumanity to man.