I’ve taken the 6 train more times than I can count. Each day, tired and not untalkative, I’ve waited two minutes, four minutes, ten minutes; through the freezing cold, the wretched heat, always with a bad mood, which only grows worse as I ascend from the 51st Street Station Subway, face the daylight, walk another two blocks, and enter the office.
It’s life, I tell myself. It’s something I have to do. But fuck, I think to myself, why do I put up with all of these people stepping on me and over me, and what about any of this has to do with the reason I came here to begin things.
A dream? Yeah.
But what happened to it, and where am I now?
I am an ordinary thirty-one year old man, recently married. I have a lot to complain about, a lot to thank my lucky-stars about. But why am I so miserable on the train? Why can I not stand my reflection on the window as I stand up and meet eyes with myself as I weave around three people standing idly by the door . . . ?
God knows, but I’m still here.
So there it goes, off to work again. But why, dear why? Oh, can you not relate to those mistrustful difficult, quarrelsome faces?