2 minutes

By Chie Theresa Fujioka

Jeanine turned her lips up with a smirk as she withdrew the smouldering paper tube from her mouth. She tossed her greasily subdued hair, dropping the cigarette to the station floor, and smothered the blossoming black rosebuds floating from the tip with her boot. The dust-blackened green plastic clock suspended from the ceiling read 11:40. In two minutes, the last train would pass through the station, vomiting its hordes of overused women and drunk business men onto the platform. She'd watch as they would crowd into the grimy escalators and stumble through the gates, fumbling with their little magnetic tickets.

The night air was brisk and smelled of the coming winter; she hugged herself in an attempt to stay warm, her faux black leather jacket being little protection against the chilly wind. One glance at the outside would show her the same tired scene of neon lights, and semi-deserted roads paving their way into the black gaping mouths between skyscrapers. But she just closed her eyes.

Click. 11:41. The black speakers blared out a short jingle before announcing "Mamonaku, ichiban sen ni densha ga mairimasu. Abunai desu kara, kiiroi sen no uchigawa e, osagari kudasai." Soon, a train will come on line number one. Because it is dangerous, please stand behind the yellow line.

Life circled the station. In and out, day by day, every kind of people and unpeople imaginable flowed in an everlasting stream by her. Some of them would meet but once. Some would die the next day. Some would get mugged by the person sitting next to them years later. Some of them would spend years on the same commute and never speak. The sado-masochistic chain smokers who hung around the ad-boards would get black lungs. The homeless infinitely slept unregarded on the dirty floor. The cute little girls would still mindlessly speak cruel words to each other. The tough big boys would go home to cry. The young ladies in the fur coats would run into debt at the pachinko parlor. The fragile old women would trample each other in the mad rush to leave.

Just last week, she recalled, some man fell flat on the platform and died, making only a temporary dent in the crowd. The only people who noticed were the station conductors who lifted the man away. He was, after all, only one of a million.

A small scrap of paper blew across the way, catching desparately on a pillar before being carried off again.

Click. 11:4... WHOOSh.

Always on time as usual. Time and trains, the only reliable things, never cared for the miniscule molecules of humanity.

The doors snapped open. Out staggered her husband. Intoxicated.
Across the platform. Off the platform. In the way of an express train. Too drunk to know.

But that was years ago, no trains come through now. She turned away.

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