And for my newest manuscript, I'm definitely going to hold off on starting anything too crazy. I'll get a very nice outline going. Maybe write some clips of it (and post them here if I don't write any shorts...). Probably come up with one or five terrible endings! I can't wait.
Anyway, I'm sure you've been waiting for the short.
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Subway
by Yours Truly
~800 words
Emily tugged at her earbuds and thumbed the volume on her
phone higher. She could tell that the music was loud, that the sound waves were
jostling for purchase in her ears, but the subway’s rails roared and
overwhelmed her music. She sighed and yanked the earbuds out. Emily glanced at
the rest of the riders.
They looked despondent and weary. It was the end of the
workday after all. The last thing any of them wanted to admit was that they
couldn’t relax to their personal music.
A businesswoman leaned with one hand gripping the overhead
straps, the other holding a folded newspaper. Whenever the train screeched to a
halt, she quickly shuffled to a new page. If she succeeded, a devilish grin
multiplied the creases on her forehead. If she failed, she scowled all the way
until the next stop, glaring at the pages as if they resisted change. Her
frustration visibly agitated some riders around her.
A bicyclist glanced nervously at his road bike. Commuters
crowded into the subway car and pushed up against his bike. He grimaced but
said nothing. Slowly, he resigned to staring at the floor or his hands. Emily
wanted him to look up, to look around, and find her staring at him. From deep
in her gut, she just wanted eye contact. But it never happened. When the train
came to a stop, he politely navigated his way to the exit.
A pack of teenagers giggled through the doors and stood,
huddled, beside two fat men slouched in the handicap seats. The boys hooked
their arms through the arm straps and flexed as well as they could without
falling. The girls rolled their eyes and laughed at things on their phones.
Eventually the boys did too. The fat men—hands perched atop their bellies like
hopping sparrows—chuckled from time to time.
A woman sat next to Emily. She looked middle-aged but
dressed younger. Her ring finger was bare. Emily turned and smiled as the woman
faced her.
“Hi,” Emily said.
“Hello,” the woman said. She smiled as if it hurt her face
and pride: a flash-cooked upturn of the lips and squeeze of the eyes. Hastily,
she drew a pair of earbuds from her pocket and clicked through her phone.
“My father just died,” Emily blurted.
The woman’s hands froze but her face jerked up in surprise.
Emotion filled her face. “I’m so, so sorry to hear that. That’s terrible. Uhm…”
Emily had no idea why she had lied. It had come to her like
a fit of déjà vu. Suddenly, she had just known that she had to say those words.
She knew her father was quite well, breathing as of their phone call not ten
minutes before she boarded the subway. The lie—for there was no other way to
feel about it—settled into her mind. It became a reality.
“Oh god it was so sudden.” Emily felt her shoulders shake.
What was that? It was a nice touch. The woman touched Emily’s elbow, but
carefully, as if there was an amount of contact she could not exceed. This is cinema, Emily thought. She hoped
that people were watching, eavesdropping, and taking videos.
“It was just ten minutes ago. I was just listening to music
when my phone started ringing. I just answered my phone through my headphones. I
didn’t even know who was calling me. It was my mom on the other line.” Emily’s
eyes started watering, and she was amazed. She might audition for her school’s
theater group.
“My mom’s voice was all cracked up like a joke, and she says
to me, ‘Sweetie? Sweetie is that you? It’s mom. I… ah… I have terrible news,
honey. It’s about your dad.’” Emily stopped to wipe at her eyes. She quickly
rubbed them against her jeans. She had no time to deal with tears. They were
distracting from the real show.
The woman was crying. Big gushing waves of tears surged down
her high cheeks, and her makeup was smeared around her eyes. There were smudges
on the back of her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a wreck, but I have no
business feeling sorry for myself while you’re dealing with your father’s
passing.”
Tranquility had seduced the subway car as every ear had
tuned to the misfortune of two riders. Someone coughed loudly and Emily and the
woman looked up. It was the businesswoman from earlier.
She raised an eyebrow at Emily.
“Oh, did I interrupt your little drama? Ma’am, I’ve been on
this train for fifteen minutes with this young liar. She was never on the phone with anyone
about any dead one. She’s a twisted little—” The train screeched. The
businesswoman rolled up her paper, pinned it under an arm, and gave one last
devilish grin.
-----the end-----
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