“On the Metro” by Philip Alcabes
Photo credit: Robert Cheaib
Not understanding that she listens to the world beneath and around her, especially to the flora, that is to the moody sighings of beech leaves and grasses’ rhizomes, the gravel-voiced thrusts of the roots of pittosporum, as well as the hiss of nitrogen fixation by the underground nodules beneath the clover and, too, the hum of earthworms’ and termites’ industrious feeding, and not even to the pizzicato march of ants, both red and black, as the teams go out to work and return, or the muted hum of decay, decay everywhere and always—her husband and son, the non-understanders, often wonder why the clothes hung out to dry, clothes that were nearly dry in the morning were, when they returned from school (the son) or work (the husband) are now wet once again, or why the tomato plants in the garden behind the house have been rearranged, the taller plants now next to the shorter ones rather than behind them, and the basil and rosemary plantings also moved to new spots, or why the work that she had said she was going to finish and pack up and take to the post office that day was still on her drafting table. Because they believed she was merely absent-minded, and in fact the two of them, her husband and her son, spoke together, out of her earshot as they thought, about her absent-mindedness—because of their idée fixe, or whatever it should be called, they were not surprised to learn that she had lost her cell phone on the Metro that day, or on the bus, it might have been on the bus because she took a bus to the Metro stop, but probably on the Metro. Actually saying (her husband) that she’s had “another episode of absent-mindedness” and (her son) that she might be able to use Find My Phone but, if that didn’t work, then there was nothing to do but get a new phone and try to be more attentive. Neither of them, disabled as their senses are, having any capacity to sense the symphonies and concerti that are playing underground and around, sometimes so loud that one can’t hear even the ka-thunk of a cell phone falling to the floor of the bus or train car. She loves them anyway, and knew they’d be pleased when she bought herself a new smartphone, a used one to be sure, as it’s cheaper, but one that functioned perfectly well, and it was just one day—one day!—after acquiring this new smartphone that, riding the Metro to deliver in person what she had not been able to send by post a few days earlier, she felt a hand reaching into the red-orange-white woven shoulder bag in which she carried her wallet and tissue pack and lipstick and hand creme, plus whatever book she was reading, and as the train doors opened she saw a figure dressed in a dark hoodie and baggie pants dart out onto the Metro platform, and that she had the presence of mind to follow him (somehow she knew it was a him) out of the train even though it wasn’t yet her stop, and grab onto his arm as he fast-walked toward the exit turnstile, at which point he turned to face her and, without thinking about it, she raised the new-old smartphone and took a photo of him, causing him, startled and frightened, to drop her wallet onto the floor of the platform, from which she retrieved it.
She will not tell her husband or her son about this incident, because, really, they simply do not need to know.
Artist’s Statement
I invented this character for a different story, and wrote “On the Metro” because I wanted to know more about her. She is an American, married to an Italian man, currently living in Rome. Her name might be Peggy, for Margaret, or Penny, or Patty. Here, I’ve put her into a situation that actually occurred on the Metropolitana, the subway in Rome, to a friend of mine.
Philip Alcabes has been a biochemistry researcher, schoolteacher, delivery driver for a blood bank, political protest organizer, professor of public health, gardener, biostatistician, and essayist. His writing has appeared in The American Scholar, LARB, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. His story “Unstill Life” appeared in MicroLit in 2023.