Offness

A sharp hit to my ribs jolts me out of my deep sleep. I don’t remember falling asleep at Connor’s place but I guess I must have. My hand jumps to the sure-to-bruise spot. Maybe Connor let his dog in from the cold. Maybe it jumped up on the couch with me and took my breath away with its pouncing paws.

I blink once. Twice. The world that was slowly fading in around me is suddenly focused at full speed. I’m not alone.

And I’m not at Connor’s. Not even close.

I’m slumped in the seat of a bright, crowded train car. The people with me, at least the ones not just waking up like me, are running around frantically, hence what was likely an elbow catching me in my now tender side. The eyes I catch in the other seats are confused, while the ones running around reflect fear.

“Connor,” I mumble almost involuntarily, still under the impression that I’m having a dream in his living room. That I’ll wake up any moment. In this bizarre dream I’m having, I would very much prefer to conjure up my boyfriend and have that comfort—him sitting in the seat beside me telling me everything was okay—at least until I could find a way to wake up. But the pain in my ribs felt so real. The fear in these eyes looks so real. I turn to my left, to the seat I hope to find a dream-state Connor in. All I see instead is a small Asian girl. No more than four years old. She wears an almost sackcloth material cut haphazardly into a top and long bottoms.

When I look at myself and then around the car again, we all wear the same.

I stand, still getting jostled by the runners. “What’s going on?” I ask but my voice is even quiet to my own ears over all the chaos. This is real. I can feel it in my train of thought. Things don’t make sense but not in the same way they wouldn’t in a dream. I’m not trying to run or scream and failing. I’m not riding in an ice cream truck with the lead actor from that new action movie.

The eeriness and offness of this makes it real. Where am I? How am I here?

An alarm is going off, not just the one in my head warning me that I need to fight or flee. A real, piercing tone rings out in short bursts. I raise my hands to cover my ears, but they don’t even make it past my shoulders before the train slams to a halt.

People fly everywhere. Forget the bruise on my side, I think my head is cracked open on another person’s. And my nose might be bleeding. I have the vague presence of mind to search for my tiny seatmate. She’s lying in the seat still—how she managed to stay put, I have no idea.

Her cheek is red, like maybe it was pressed hard against part of one of the seats. She’s in better shape than me, that’s for sure. “Hey, hey.” I approach her, trying not to be frantic as I step over other groaning bodies. I reach a hand out for her, and she slinks further against the wall of the train, where a window should be but is not. Canvasing the metal tube I realize there are no windows on the train. The nearly-blue fluorescents are the only lights. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The other passengers have started to rise again from their positions, yelling out once more in pain or the name of a loved one. I could try shouting for Connor, but something inside me tells me not to. Not to show my cards. Not to give anything up. But why? To who?

Covering her ears from the cacophony of people and the still-blasting alarm, the girl scoots ever so slowly toward me on the seat. Finally, she takes my hand. I hold her hand tightly. “I’m going to protect you. Okay?” She doesn’t even nod, just stares at me.

I’m crouched in the foot space of our seat, blood dripping down onto my coverings. I had to get out of the aisle before someone broke my legs from stomping on them.

I don’t understand why everyone is trying to run.

As far as I can see, there is nowhere to run.

The girl squeezes my hand, catching my attention again. She points to the seat next to her, then to me, back to the seat. Then she raises a finger to her lips, a shushing motion. When I only look at her in confusion, she points to the seat again and then scans her eyes across the crowd. I see now what I didn't before. Many of them are sitting in their seats, unmoving, not thrown by the events, silent. Like the girl.

Maybe she knows something. Maybe the ones like her, too. Maybe they know something we don't.

So I follow her lead, with my aching bones and pounding eardrums. I sit in my seat and shut my mouth. And I wait.