Untitled, Dorothy Brown ’23

Dorothy Brown ’23

Untitled

A man stood on a subway platform.

He wore a dark blue windbreaker over a light gray shirt and had a black backpack on his shoulders. He was staring at his phone, waiting for the train.

The platform was, as it had always been, dingy, filthy, and crowded. The red and white tiles were smudged with the dust and grime of a thousand commuters who had shuffled through the station that day. Though the area was well lit, the white light seemed just as dirty as the places it illuminated. The piles of litter that had accumulated on the track blew about as a train grinded to a stop, the brakes fighting the inertia of its hundreds of silent, indifferent passengers.

The man’s eyes wandered up to the arriving train, and then back to his screen as he stood at the side of an opening door. His face was fixed in a blank, slightly tense look to match the crowd around him. Not that he took much notice of them as he boarded the train, or as it slowly struggled into motion again.

A door down, a woman walked onto the train. She was a strange sight on the subway, every bit as filthy and unkempt as the station, though perhaps a little wilder. Her pale, limp hair hung unbrushed and untied about the sides of her wax-white face, and her clothes were loose, unwashed, and colorless. She looked over the heads of the people and stared up and down the train with intense eyes that swept across the crowd for only a moment, until they rested on the man at the end of the car. She walked towards the man, and the passengers moved out of her way without objection, never looking at her, never acknowledging her existence except to shift and let her pass by. She seemed to stumble, lurching through the train with uneven, yet not unbalanced, motions.

When she reached the man, she simply stood, her eyes fixed on him, as if reading a story. For a long time, she stood there, until slowly, slowly, she lifted her thin, grubby hand from her side and moved it towards the man. The fingers reached hungrily out, until they rested on the phone, her hand covering the light for just a moment. Her harsh eyes closed, and her chest rose as if she were breathing in some wonderful scent. The man did not react to her presence or the hand she had reached out. He did not move his eyes from his phone until she had let her hand fall back to her side,

something small and bright held gently between two fingers, and walked off the train, turning her gaze away, and disappearing.

Another day, this one cold and rainy, and the man sat in his car.

The sky was all one shade of gray, never varying, with no sign to show where the sun was. The rain fell in a vague, undecided mist that soaked the ground silently, without the patter of drops or a whisper of thunder. The air was heavy and close, stirred by a soft, uneasy wind.

The man put his bag in the back of the car and pulled out onto the road without a sound. The car slowly moved through the streets, the rumbling of its engine blending with the constant din of morning traffic, but he could not hear the rumble of the cars; two small black devices rested snugly in his ears, buzzing music to drive away the sounds of the world. Their constant humming filled his mind as his hands and feet jerked mechanically to operate the brakes and steering wheel. The words and notes sank into the gray of the sky and mixed with the lurching of the traffic, adding another layer to the monotony of the drive.

Beside him was the woman. She was kneeling on the passenger seat, facing him, her head slightly tilted, as if in thought. Her face was expressionless, and her hands folded in her lap. Her black eyes were fixed intently on the man’s face and on the humming device in his ear. Then, slowly and quietly, her hand moved towards it; the dark veins on her wrist stood out against her sallow skin, and her movements were slow and steady, as though she might startle the man with a sudden move. If he noticed her, or knew she was there, he gave no indication of it. She stretched out a finger and gently touched the small black device, feeling its small vibrations. Then her arm dropped to her side, and for just a moment there was a tiny gleam in her hand as though she were holding a small, glowing diamond. Her face never moved, but her eyes were satisfied, even triumphant.

The car halted for a moment, and the woman stood and left, never looking back.

It was night, windy and dark under a city sky.

The man was in his apartment, sitting in his living room, his head in his hands. A streetlight shone palely through the window, but none of the lamps were lit. The darkness clung to the walls, hid in the corners, and crowded around the man. The living room was a mess, papers and trash

scattered about and crammed into nooks and crannies, dishes lying on the desk and table, and the man’s black bag dumped on the floor. The man had kept the lights off so that he couldn’t see these things, and he was trying desperately not to think about them either, but the thin curtains could not block all the illumination of the streetlight. It filtered mercilessly into the room.

The woman was there, standing in the corner. This time, she seemed almost agitated; her cold face gave off an anxious energy, and her breath came quickly. She was waiting, her eyes fixed unblinking, unmoving, but alive and bright with eagerness.

The man’s shoulders trembled, almost imperceptibly, and a small tear escaped from the tangle of his eyelashes, out from behind his hands, and rolled down his cheek, where it stayed, glistening. The woman moved, like a lioness padding her way gently through the grass, placing each foot silently, deftly on the floor, not making a single noise, and barely breathing. She slipped across the living room until she stood next to the man, and, for the final time, stretched out her hand. As she touched the tear it began to shine with a faint light, cleaner than the dingy light of the train station, more vivid than the gray light of the cloudy morning, and richer than the streetlights that shone through the window. As she gently picked up the tear, the light became brighter and brighter, making her eyes water as she gazed, fascinated, at it. It was no longer water, but a small, clear stone, lit up by some inner energy that pulsed frantically in her cupped hands.

She put her dry, colorless lips to the stone, kissing it, and as she drew away, the light faded and died, leaving only an empty, glassy bead in her palm. Her mouth curled into a smile that lay across her face like the jagged slash of a dagger; the air of subtlety and secrecy dropped away easily, and she straightened, her eyes glittering with malice and victory. She tilted her head, and her filthy hair fell away from her face, and down her back. Her laughter began as an ominous rumble in her throat, rising higher and louder, until the piercing shrill of her laugh filled the whole room, sending a shiver through the air.

The glass bead dropped and shattered on the floor, melting away without leaving a single shard or speck to show that it had ever existed. She smiled down one last time at the man, and then turned and left the silent room. She had what she wanted and would never come again.

The man had become very still, and after a few moments of silence he lifted his head, turning on the lamps and looking at the room, without a flicker of emotion reflected in his face. He walked past the mess and the shreds of his life that lay scattered throughout the room, not glancing at them, going to his room and shutting the door behind him.

He went to sleep easily, and his slumber was unbroken by dreams.