Thursday

Gerri is unusually content for a Thursday. Normally Thursdays are her drudgery days. Her oh thank heaven tomorrow is Friday, I don’t think I can take it anymore day. She was about to stand in her usual spot  on the train, when she spots it; spots the anomaly.

The train is reasonably crowded, a couple standers, and ninety-five percent of the seats filled.

Ninety-five percent.

Yet , way off on the end she sees a whole row of three-seaters with only one person sitting in any of them.  He did not look homeless. There was no smell, no puddles. No, it can’t be, an empty seat?

Really?

Really!

A high-schooler takes one of the seats and she quickly takes the other. There is no jockeying for space. Everyone is comfortable, Wow! It even smells, well, clean.  It was not some chemical cleaner to the hilt, not someone drowning in a perfume, just a pleasant neutral clean scent.

The water sparkles beyond the trusses and lanes of the bridge.  The views of this side of downtown, as the train ascends from one tunnel, then the river and then the side of downtown before descending into the next tunnel are unusually breathtaking. The streets shine in the morning sun, drying from the recent rain. The river sparkles, sunlight dancing in myriad prisms on the waves.  She couldn’t remember the last time everything looked so lovely. Then again, Gerri couldn’t remember the last time she looked through the window to really notice.

The next station had a ton of people waiting on the platform for the train. Oddly enough, they were all waiting for the local train and she was on the express, where only a few people get on.

A young couple, disgustingly in love, sat across from her.  Were Gerri encased in flames while pirouetting, they would not have noticed.  All they had eyes for were each other and for once of their lip-locking did not want to make her roll her eyes. However, the old man standing by the door with his arm up to his elbow picking his nose did make her happy her station was next.

As she’s leaving Gerri notices a young cutie entering the train.  He’s so busy staring at her, his foot hit the small gap between the train and the platform causing him to stumble into the train. It takes everything she has not to look back as those on the train respond to him.

If you have to be temporarily encased in a steel coffin several days it’s nice to walk away smiling from it for once she thinks, grinning as she walks away.