just an ordinary goddess…

Rush rush rush. Every morning Delia spends rushing to and fro, waking up too late, feeding the cats, speeding through her daily ablutions, trying on outfit after outfit because, again, she forgot to choose one the night before, so that a quarter of her wardrobe ends up on the bed each morning, or so it seems, only to be put away after arriving home in the evening.Then rushing down the street to her bus stop, fashionable black heels clacking on the pavement in bossa nova rhythm. Her adrenaline still pumping, Delia waits anxiously for the next bus, unable to stop moving her feet as they shuffle impatiently. Even on the bus her nerves continue to jump as her toes and knees bounce up and down. The bus ride is too short to allow relaxation to enter the picture. Within five minutes she’s at her transfer point: the subway station.

Delia rushes out of the bus and walks quickly to the escalator, which is faster and closer than either the elevator or the stairs. Her right hand lightly grasps the moving rubber handhold as she takes the escalator as if they were stairs, moving down them quickly, her left hand curled around the shoulder straps of her black nylon messenger bag and faux leather purse.

She travels through the first level with nary a pause to notice the people lined up at the ticket and change machines. Another good reason to have a monthly transit pass. Then down the next escalator to the second level, the platform, where – as luck would have it – a train pulls up just as she steps off the escalator.

Delia knows she has a few minutes, as she always does, so she steps lively to the last car of the train. As the majority of riders congregate in the center cars, this back car – her favorite – is always less crowded, even during rush hour. Most of the time she can be assured of a set of two seats to herself. And she can nearly always get the seats she prefers: two rows from the center of the car. Left side towards the far end of the car is desired, but any of the second rows from the center door will do.

She slides into her favorite seat, opens her messenger bag and pulls out a 4”x6” blue notebook and green ballpoint pen. Slowly the adrenaline subsides, her nerves stop their Irish jig and her jittery appendages calm down.

She opens the notebook and scans over her previous words, then clicks the pen and, behind the barrier of Jackie O sunglasses, peers up and observes her fellow passengers.

An older man – perhaps in his 60s – sits facing the aisle on the other side of the center door, hunched over a backpack, tiny red notebook in hand, and watches every female that crosses in front of him. His thinning-haired head bobs as if in the throes of a neurological disorder, but Delia can see his frenetic eyes traveling up and down the moving forms of the women as they pass his way. He jots down quick notes, then lifts his weaving head in time to study the next woman.

Delia suppresses a shiver and takes notes about the older man, creating a history, a life for him with a few deft strokes of her pen. Soon he has morphed from a creepy old man on a subway into a man searching for a long-lost love, taking notes in hopes that one of the women he’s observed will possess what he’s looking for.

One day he spied a young woman who was almost the spitting image of the girl from his youth. The ink in Delia’s pen formed a stalker, following the young woman home night after night. Finally, three nights later, the girl – Stella by name – stopped and confronted her erstwhile creep.

Unhinged even further by her boldness he lashed out, swinging his arms wildly and screaming about Elizabeth’s desertion forty years before. Stella was able to avoid his flailing arms, but could not shake him as she turned and hurried away. He kept pace, dancing around her and yelling, sometimes his bobbing face mere inches from her pretty one.

Stella reached into her purse for pepper spray, but he knocked it from her hand as soon as she cleared her purse –

“Last stop, Union Station. Please look around to make sure you have all of your belongings. Thank you for using MetroRail and have a good day.”

Delia looks up from her notebook and notices her fellow riders filing out of the car as the subject of her story continues his own disturbing observations and writing.

She gathers her belongings and opts to leave the car through the rear door, then walks quickly to the other end of the train, entering the end car for the return trip. She slips into her preferred seat, then takes up her pen and notebook again and accepts that she will finish her story when she gets home. After all, there are more people to watch, more characters to create. And she has a full day of train riding in which to do so.

THE END