What frustrated Ember Ross most about public transit - buses, subways, airplanes - was the lack of ambulatory agency. Certainly one could walk the length of the cabin (or car or bus as the case might be) provided there was space and that no warnings to remain seated were issued, but this agency extended only so far as the confines of the transportation vessel.
Macrocosmically, he mused as the obese car salesman to his left shifted his briefcase painfully into Ross' outer thigh; macrocosmically there was nothing, short of declaring
or manufacturing some manner of emergency, that one could do to affect the course or duration of the journey. Declaring an emergency if none existed would be inadvisable, nearly as much so as manufacturing one, given the powers that govern transit and law enforcement had had what sense of humour they could claim severely curtailed by the threat of explosives in the underground and airplanes consciously directed into large buildings. And anyway such a course of action would be at best inexpedient, as emergencies were most often cause for further delay rather than a faster and more efficient trip.
Sweat coalesced uncomfortably in the narrow expanse of skin between Ross' shoulder blades. He was itchy and sore from standing more erect than usual for seven stops at last count. The subway car, it appeared, was sweating along with him. Condensation formed on the windows from the foul exhalations of far too many commuters. Ross had no inkling as to the capacity of a single train car, but he was willing to bet that maximum input was exceeded significantly on a regular basis. And this particular afternoon was proof positive of this claim.
Awkwardly, and with great care borne of a desire to avoid as much physical contact as possible with his unwelcome neighbours, Ross shifted his shoulder-slung carryall left and right, trying without much success to redistribute the unstable weight of the bottle of cheap English gin contained in the bag. The gin, it seemed, maintained its own right to ambulatory agency within the confines of its glass prison: the bag shifted left and the liquid went right, indignantly throwing its owner off-balance and preempting every attempt to compensate; prophesizing in erratic motion, perhaps, the inevitably unsteady gait Ross would perform upon its consumption.
The train had slowed, as Ross feared, to a crawl, inching through the blacked-out tunnel like some great sightless worm cautiously burrowing through the earth. More sweat shone on his upper lip, tracing its way in rivulets through the forest of a two-day beard to collect in the corners of his tight lips. The car salesman to his left had joined forces with the four-foot myopic octogenarian to his right: as the train continued its slow perpendicular shuffle, Ross was alternately assailed by the sharp corner of the salesman's briefcase digging slowly into his thigh, and the methodical bumping of a veiny, withered but altogether right-angled elbow into the line of his ribcage, left necessarily exposed as his right hand grasped the undoubtedly unhygienic upper handrail.
The air was already thick and sour, heavy and warm like a stale soiled blanket carelessly draped over the captive commuters, and it seemed to Ross that the unwashed, sticky atmosphere closed in even further until it lay like cellophane over every square inch of his exposed skin, as with a disconcerting grinding tone the train lurched to a dead stop in the nameless limbo between stations.
Outside the windows, oppressively close and blank, could only be seen dull, water-stained concrete and thick black power lines that ran like meticulous surgical incisions parallel to the tracks below. A slow panic dripped acid into Ross' stomach.
Walled in, a voice said, like the fool who sought Amontillado. A fate, Ross responded silently, I might endure if only I had the cool solitude afforded Fortunato. But to be trapped, crushed in to suffocate amongst strangers? To watch them empty and waste, to hear them moan for lovers and mothers, and even at last for a breath of air that came not from their own lungs and the lungs of each greedy prisoner who gave it only grudgingly? To watch them, feel them, finally slump exhausted and defeated against him? To never be free of their flesh and their stench and their stupid, docile despair?
Like it always did the acid took hold and turned his veins into electrical conductors, his breath to napalm, every muscle to uncontrollable spasmodic retaliation against real and imagined stimuli his brain refused to process and summarily dumped, whole and raw and radioactive, into his tattered nervous system. His eyelids slid shut, sandpaper despite the wet heat, and he saw purple and black explosions opening, expanding like superclusters, alive with white veins like lightning. Ember Ross stood before a great hungry mouth that shrieked like a thousand subway rails, grinding metal on metal, and the mouth smiled and spoke and only Ember Ross heard its words.
With a jerk and a slow groan the train resumed its meandering, sluggish progress towards the next station. Ember Ross blinked as sunlight washed over the car, the horrid slate of the tunnel walls giving way to green grass and street traffic as the subway surfaced like a Nautilus from the hollow stone depths.
With trembling hands Ember Ross snatched headphones from his pocket and fastened them to his ears. His left hand rose unsteadily to his face as he pressed the hot, clean flesh of his wrist to his nose, determined to focus on the subtleties of soap and mild cologne gathered there. His right hand sought the volume control, pressed and held it until the hiss of dead tape sounded in his ears, until the smooth arcing of a classical guitar filled everything he could see and hear with calm white light.
And as it always did, the fire in his belly subsided to a slow, barely perceptible burn; the explosions in his eyes faded to leave only a purple corona on the edges of his vision, the tremors that ran along his skin and through bone and blood vibrated slower, slower, and were replaced by the calming vibrato of plucked nylon strings ringing through every filament of his singed consciousness.
The train glided slowly into the station; the Nautilus submerged once more. When the doors rattled open it was as though the great worm released its own rancid, long-held exhalation, and Ember Ross was jolted into halting half-steps that expelled him and the other passengers like so much placenta from a steel womb. As he walked his feet and legs slowly regained their confidence and mobility. And his breath came easier with each step. His clothes clung damply to his skin, but the sweat was drying, dissipating into the dry recycled air of the station.
And as always, Ember Ross uttered a silent prayer that this would be the last time, that he had conquered the shaking nightmare and the acid in his veins. It was a fervent prayer and it was hollow, and it was lost to the girdered ceiling and the slow rush of fans, and it was silenced by the crush of stupid, docile despair that sounded like silent thunder through the station and through him. The slosh of gin at his side was more comfort than hindrance, now; perhaps its consumption would earn him peace, or at least silence in wide open places and in solitude.
With the prayer fled Ember Ross walked on. And in that, at least, he took a measure of control. In that, he took a measure of joy.
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