On my commute to work

( I take the train )

I was bored.

I didn’t want to play word games on my phone

I didn’t want to read my book or eat a snack or look out the window

and watch the grotty landscape whiz by.

Instead, I checked out my fellow commuters:

 

I noted what they wore, if they were asleep or awake

if they were on their phones or drinking coffee or picking their nose

( there’s always a few of them)

There weren’t a lot of people on the train so my little game of ‘look over here’ ended

quickly.

 

Bored and left with nothing to do,  the thoughts sort of creeped into my head.

How many of my fellow commuters thought about taking an ax to someone they hated,

how many of them wished that their neighbor who left their garbage cans on the curb

three days after pickup  would just die

how may of them were thinking about death and decay at this exact moment?

 

On this boring train that number was zero. I was sure of it.

Oh. But that’s not true- I told myself.  One person was thinking those dark thoughts.

One for sure and she blended into that Sea of faceless commuters staring out the

window or into their hands and playing with their phones or pretending to sleep.

One. For sure.

 

Inspired by FOWC With Fandango: UNCONVENTIONAL