Shoulders Rather Than the View
On the morning subway, the view outside the window rushes past. I saw a line of shoulders like that person's. I rode one stop too far. That is how memory does its work. With no warning it appears at my back and takes me, for a moment, off onto a side road from where I was going. Around the time the scenery outside grew unfamiliar, I finally let out my breath. A scene where morning begins with the sound of the subway doors closing. On my way to work I often look at the shoulders of people leaning by the windows. With every closing of the doors, a different morning must be opening. I, too, have come to stand by the window now and look not at the passing scenery but at the shoulders of the people inside it. Each time the doors open and close, the shoulders shift a little. On glass steeped in the dawn air, someone's shoulder is reflected today too, brushing past.
Blue veins showed on the back of a hand gripping the subway strap. The old man next to me kept smiling a long while, looking out the window.
There was an evening when I waited for the door to open, watching the back of the hand of the person beside me reflected in the glass. That hand went down at some point, and in the opposite door, my own shoulder was reflected.
Each time the doors close, seeing the line of a shoulder reflected in the glass slip past, I find myself holding my breath. Before I know it, I've arrived at my stop.