Six Fifteen
Before the alarm rings, sunlight through the gap in the curtains tickles her eyelids. From under the covers she reaches out just a hand and gropes for her phone. The clock still says six fifteen. The alarm is twenty minutes away. Down in the kitchen, the milk carton she bought yesterday is on the table. From the opened spout comes a faintly sour smell. She sniffs it, hesitates a moment, and ends up boiling water instead of making coffee. The bubbling of the kettle sounds unusually loud. Outside, a sky without a single cloud. She washes her face in cold water and hopes the face in the mirror looks a little less tired. But the woman in the mirror is exactly the same as yesterday. Somehow that makes her smile a little.
Seven o'clock on a winter morning, I think of a woman I saw on the subway platform. In front of the empty turnstiles she took a sip of vending-machine coffee and drew her collar closed, and today, for some reason, that view of her back keeps returning. She stood at the far end of the platform with her head lowered, and even in that winter wind the steam from her coffee rose strangely straight. The scene was somehow sad and tender at once, and it has stayed with me a long time.
The days I wake at half past six are the days I never set an alarm at all. Some days there's the smell of spoiled kimchi on the table instead of milk, some days the face in the mirror looks strangely unfamiliar, and on those days, when I step outside, the wind is always cold.
The day that wind was cold, I closed the window and drank one more glass of water. Maybe it was because I didn't want to let it pass as if nothing had happened.
Bus stop, eight in the morning. A coffee left behind by the person ahead steams on the bench. The fine grime on the handrail, a hardened expression. I waited for the bus to come. A face like yesterday's resembled the mirror. The smile merely brushed past, like air.
If the face in the mirror is the same as yesterday's, it means I too am unchanged. Until the bus comes and the doors open, I'll stay right here.
At the subway turnstile I tapped my transit card three times and the gate wouldn't open. Only on the fourth try did an attendant come over and tell me to tap the other side. I flipped the card and went through.
That evening, I took the transit card out of the dresser drawer and checked the back. There was a single small scratch, and my thumb passed slowly along that line. The moment I saw it, I thought I understood why the morning's gate had stayed shut. She put the card in her wallet and decided that next time she would flip it first.