Nostradoriamus

This is a response to a creative writing prompt, which is posted right here for your viewing pleasure.

CHALLENGE: Write about something unusual you will see tomorrow.

Got that? Sometime tomorrow, you will see, hear, experience something
unusual. OK? So take a few minutes to describe that right now. Don't
forget to include what you see, hear, feel, taste, and/or smell, and
what kind of reactions and emotions you have.

You may include other people and their reactions if desired.

And here is my response -

Sitting on the El, comfortably, as I was able to secure one of the coveted solo seats when I boarded at Southport, the train pulls into the Belmont station – a major hub for this form of public transportation. As expected, long queues of people form on either side of the door, suggesting some sort of West Side Story-esque gang war to the suggestible observer. Yuppies versus hipsters. Every day I get on the train, I secretly hope from Southport to Belmont that today will be the day that it happens. It never does.

Anyway, if there were any more foot traffic in this place, you’d have to call it a riot. People shuffle past each other, either shoving their way through or hanging their head down, getting shoved. A woman boards the train, her arm around a man who clearly is not in full control of his faculties. His head hangs down, but not like the others - this posture bears none of the signs of self-imposed societal alienation that I can see around me and in my own behavior. This man’s head looks like it hangs because that is all it can do.

He looks like a man that may have been an important scientist in the USSR before being deported to America and slipping into a soul-shattering depression. There is something very distinguished-looking about him, even underneath the helpless dependency, but also something very broken. In a pleasing bit of sharp contrast, the woman looks like she had a gig as a background dancer for a music video in 1993 and never changed her clothes, hair or makeup.

As the conversational din on the train noticeably grows softer, the woman helps him into a seat, his feeble legs barely assisting the process, then seats herself about ten feet away. He slumps down in the seat, every muscle in his body as useless as the ones in his neck. The body exerts just enough energy to find an equilibrium between the pull of gravity and the instinct that keeps us from falling on the floor. As this happens, greasy tendrils of hair slide down his face and leave shiny streaks on his skin. This is when I notice the blood.

There is not an obscene amount of blood – it is not dripping off his jaw and collecting in a puddle on the ground – but enough to indicate potential head trauma. Three dried drops near his eyes resemble crimson tears, but I begin to wonder if perhaps those aren’t dried up droplets, but tattoos. Has this guy murdered three people? Empathy overwhelms me, brought on by my pursuit of science in a previous life. I just want to fall to my knees in front of him and scream, “What happened to you, Mr. Scientist?!?!?”
I glance back over to the woman who helped him on the train and wonder why she is sitting so far away from him. They do not look like they belong together, but she clearly feels some responsibility for him. She tries to hide her watchfulness by looking at him with her peripheral vision, but the mixture of fear and disgust on her face betrays the truth. This wariness professes her belief that he could go from near-comatose to dangerously unstable at any second. I begin to think she sat there so she would be able to run away if he woke up.

At this point I can feel the eyes of every passenger on the train moving back and forth, wanting to stare but not wanting to be obvious about it. If those eyes were to open, it does not seem like you would want to be the first thing they notice. A palpable air of concern overtakes the atmosphere of the train, and I know that everyone on this train is thinking the same thing – “Is he ok?”

No one does anything.

I get off at my stop.