[A realistic fiction short story.]
Fingers of light poked through the tree branches, reaching through the glass pane of the 8th-story apartment, and running straight into Lisa’s closed eyelids.
She groaned and turned over. She knew she’d regret not closing the blinds last night, but she hadn’t wanted to get out of bed.
In any case, her alarm was about to go off soon – she could feel it. A sense of dread and foreboding building up inside her, waiting for the random song to blare out into the bright morning air.
She opened her eyes and unlocked her phone, intending to turn off the alarm before that – but the instant she did, of course, it went off. She winced, but then hesitated, her thumb hovering over the “Dismiss” button. Today’s random song wasn’t half-bad.
She lay there for a moment, enjoying the strange, lightly eery sounds, broken up by little “pips” and “beeps” and “whooses”. It was a strange cacophony of electronic instruments, whirled into a surprisingly soothing melody.
As the music began to get increasingly louder, however, as per her alarm settings, it became less soothing than it was grating, and she turned it off.
Sighing, she rolled over in bed, staring out at the sky through the window for a long moment. Then she continued rolling, until her feet first reached the air with no bed under them, and then her legs swung out to do the same, and she rolled a bit more, until her feet were on the ground and she was crouched by the side of the bed.
She stood and stretched, long and leisurely, yawning loudly. She stepped off the white, fuzzy rug by the bed and onto the cold, stone floor. Her steps quickened to the drawer full of socks, and she stuffed her feet into a pair one by one, balancing precariously on the other foot. She straightened, shrugged on a sweatshirt, and headed to the kitchen.
The same cold floor awaited her there, but she didn’t mind now that she had socks on. She began making some coffee at once, setting the water to a boil in the kettle, weighing and grinding the coffee beans, tossing the grinds into a french press. She leaned over and breathed in the aroma of fresh grinds. Once the water was in and the concoction stirred, all that was left was to wait a few minutes. The thick, almost chocolately scent of the light roast wafted slowly through the kitchen. Lisa breathed in again, sighing the air out with a satisfied smile.
As she waited for the brew, she perused her pantry for food. She was due for a grocery trip soon; it was sparse pickings.
The timer on the microwave beeped; the coffee was done! Lisa slid over to it, giving it another swirl, and pressed the filters down through the water. Orangey-brown liquid sprang up over them and pooled in the glass container, successfully separated from the coffee grounds.
She poured the liquid into a gray mug, watching its aromic cascade descend into the cup. Steam rose up to meet her, reminding her not to take a sip quite yet.
She sighed, setting the mug aside. Now, where was she? As yes, breakfast. An idea popped into her head, and she slid back to the pantry.
A few minutes later, she slathered some peanut butter on toasted bread and put it onto a plate next to some fruit.
“There,” she said triumphantly, to no one.
She picked up the plate and the coffee and headed out to the balcony. A little table awaited her there, the white-painted metal gleaming in the sunlight.
Lisa munched on her toast, looking out onto the city. This early in the morning, it wasn’t too busy yet, but the buses and trains were going, and small crowds of people in long coats and scarves hustled along the roads.
Well, Lisa couldn’t really see if they were wearing scarves this far away, but she imagined them that way. The brisk winter air needed sufficient armor to shield against it.
She took a bite of her kiwifruit and grimmaced. Sharp needles prickled at her mouth, spreading into a numbing burn on her tongue; the curse of the unripe kiwifruit. Perhaps not all of it was that bad though – she took another bite, and immediately regretted it.
“Ow, ow, ow, my mouth. Why kiwis, why?” she said to the fruit. The fruit didn’t respond.
Lisa sighed and got up to toss them out. She’d have to remember to wait longer before eating them next time.
Just then, a slight rumble zipped through the ground. Lisa blinked. Was that an earthquake just now?
She went inside, threw away the remaining kiwifruit, and googled it on her phone.
“Wow, that really was one. Neat.”
She spent a few minutes skimming the news for where it originated and what magnitude it was – out in the middle of nowhere and a 4.2.
Then she undressed and got into the shower, the hot water pouring pleasantly down her skin.
Another rumble, a little bigger this time. Not enough to unbalance her, though. She finished washing in peace before stepping out and toweling dry. She reached for her phone again, looking up more details. It originated much closer to the city this time (still out in the wilderness), but was only a 3.7.
Lisa hummed as she brushed and blow-dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and got dressed. There weren’t any more earthen shakes.
When she was ready, she headed down the elevator, through the nearly-empty lobby, and out into the crisp Winter air. She glanced at her smartwatch for the time, but the display didn’t light up. She frowned, until she remembered she’d put it on low power mode yesterday, and had forgotten to take it off once it was charged. She took a few steps to the side so as to not be in the way and fiddled with the settings until she found the right one.
That done, she set off again, not realizing she’d forgotten to look at the time. She made the train anyway though, getting there just as one slid to a stop along the tracks. She waited for people to get off, then stepped inside. It wasn’t busy at all, so she took an empty seat by the widow and looked out at the dimly lit station.
After a few minutes the doors slid shut, the chime chimed, and the floor lurched beneath her feet. She listened to the whirring hum of the train as it glided back up to speed.
How many times had she taken this exact train when heading in this direction? She wondered. How many trains were there along these tracks anyway? If she always got here at the same time, would she always end up getting on the same one, if they always ran on the same clock?
Out the window, dark, blurry visions streamed by too fast to see. Flashes of bright city interspersed by deep gray hues of stone halls carved under it. A glimpse of something green, a streak of red bricks, and then – just Lisa’s and everyone else’s reflections as they plunged back into the earth, a deeper and darker maw reaching out to swallow them.
The change was so sudden Lisa didn’t have time to avert her gaze and she was abruptly staring back at herself, directly into and past her own eyes, still focused on some distant horizon for the first fraction of a second before her eyes adjusted to the closeness of that gaze.
Inside the train car, Lisa stared at the startled young woman dressed in long brown pants, a green turtleneck sweater, and a long light brown coat. Her green eyes didn’t quite match the sweater, her brown hair didn’t quite match the coat. There wasn’t much that was remarkable nor unremarkable about her, as if her breath only disturbed the air as much as the next person, her exhales and inhales always in unison with someone else’s. It was as if she could reach out to brush the surface of a still pond but at the same time, a leaf, or twig, or bug would land on the surface exactly where she’d touched, making it impossible to tell if it had been her or the bug who’d caused the resulting cascade of tiny waves.
In that moment, the world seemed to pause, hanging on the thread of a second that had already passed.
And then the train rocketed out of the tunnel and into the daylight, and the image of the young woman vanished, replaced with a green field of grass and soft blue sky containing a few loose, drifting clouds that offered thin shade under the cold sun.
Lisa thought there might’ve been some dandelions interspered throughout the grass, shining like fuzzy sparks of gold speckled among the green blades.
So engrossed in the view – or her thoughts – she was that Lisa didn’t notice the train stop. But she did notice the familiar lurch of it starting again. She gasped quietly, looked at the map on her phone – yep, she’d missed her stop.
She sighed. Well, she supposed she wasn’t in a hurry. She was just taking the scenic route, as her mom always used to say. She could simply get off at the next stop and get on a train heading back the other way.
Except that next stop didn’t come for a long while. Lisa waited, ready to leap up the moment it showed signs of stopping. But if anything, it just went faster, shooting down the rail like a bullet.
Lisa bit her lip and looked on her map. Her eyes went wide. How could she have made such a mistake? This train’s next stop wasn’t until the next city over – almost an hour and a half away!
“Ugh,” Lisa said, massaging her forehead.
She’d just wanted to go to a new park outside the city, the one they’d just opened to the public earlier this week. But now she was headed to a new city altogether!
Well, Lisa thought. Maybe they’ll have a nice park there, too.
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