She had ridden on a subway like this every day to work for two years, and before that, to the private school across the Diamondus City that she had been sent to for twelve years. The brown, wet grime on the floor, like the smell of cigarettes and urine, and the glower of the square, fluorescent lights through the tunnel, was as familiar to her as the course she would later take up the still, broken escalator to the dim outdoors, and later up five flights of metal stairs to a four-room apartment where she lived with three roommates. She adjusted her jacket, which she was using as a blanket, across her shoulders to cover entirely her chest, and she looked around at the others sitting tiredly on the seats around her.

Across from her, a man read a greasy magazine above the head of a younger girl who lay asleep across his lap. Her hair rested messily across her neck and trailed like vines down one of her dangling arms, hiding the white scars that were just done with fading.

One girl on the other side of the car called attention to herself by loudly blowing her nose into a crushed blue and red checked handkerchief, which she had extricated from the front pocket of her tight flare pants without standing up. She unrolled a cough drop wrapper, fumbling with the dotted paper, and put the hard speck into her mouth, crunching noisily as the silver, disco-ball Mardi Gras beads around her neck jostled with her movement.

Three guys on the end stood next to the poles, defying the pull of the subway's speed as it raced through the tunnel at four in the morning. One, with neatly trimmed and gelled hair, giggled softly and passed a brown paper bag to the guy in front of him, who shoved it deftly into his pocket with a dissatisfied frown. The third was smoking a mixed cigarette—she could tell by the smell that drifted over to her and lingered sorrily around her head—until he put it out with his steel-toed boots; the fabric which covered one had been rubbed away and the shiny metal was exposed. He looked up from where he was crushing it and met her glance uncomfortably, so she looked away.

I would feel so much better, she thought, if I had someone to lean against right now, and to fall asleep against. But she instead settled her cheek against the back of the blue plastic seat, and tried to shut her eyes against the bright, shining, reflection of the other sleeping girl's watch.

~*~

This is my new story, and if anyone is interested, please post your profile of less than 1000 words.
I'd love to take anyone and everyone. I miss this place.

Black