Past the Midnight Hour

The midnight hour has just passed. This is when time follows a different physical dimension. Trains absorb the lethargic mode where each minute has ten thousand seconds, where there is no train stopping on Spring Street from 12:00AM to 5:00AM, except that no signs ever explained that by 12:00AM, they really mean 11:30PM, (or 11:15PM).

A certain strangeness falls at this hour onto this space, which we frequent daily at rush hour. A phantom old train made up of wagons of yesteryears and some other flat-bed car, carrying empty containers flashes loudly through the tracks towards some unknown downtown destination.

This strangeness does not even spare the night dwellers of these late subterranean places. The passengers gathered in this odd moment seem to behave even more strangely than usual. Some burping tenor belches a cavernous aria on the downtown platform across from us. I cannot see him, but I hear him clearly. The symphony is completed by a minute long, machinegun-like- fart burst bouncing back and forth through the on the walls and ceiling of the station, coming from the direction of the talented tenor who laughs at loud echoing in the stuffy air. The few witnesses seating on the bench to my right start to laugh incredulously.

I venture to call the booth attendant’s attention to signal a question about the absence of trains. She smiles absentmindedly nodding with her head as she continues talking and laughing obliviously with her Elvis Costello-Look-alike friend. Who knows what he is doing inside the booth?! He must not even work for the MTA!!

The uptown A-Train, finally showed his timid headlights far away in the tunnel, as it slowly approaches, as if in slow motion, the sound of the tracks gradually increases until it stops. It was pretty full at this time. It had that abnormal, yet familiar feeling of not belonging on this track. It was an express train on a local track, like a substitute teacher who is going through the motions.

The strangest did not subside. It increased as you could see the cast of characters populating the train, like a mixture of individuals that did not seem to belong together. Three hot black twenty-something kitties, overly made up, sitting widely on a seat, dressed in black, half showing their small breasts, which get lost over their large tightly dressed butts. Two of them are repainting their lips in flaming red to redefine the term “extremely made up”.

The more than 45 minute lateness of this train has obviously affected a sleuth of dwellers of the Friday night underground who are anxious to climb aboard and be compressed inside this weird train car. Somehow, I manage to hold on to my territory, next to the exit door. I fight my way out on 14th Street. The familiar yellow painted columns are a happy site. “I’d never realized how beige these yellow columns are!!”

I exit with the lower east siders and the Burg hipsters, yet the strangeness does not ease up.

“7 minutes To Brooklyn” announces the lit sign. I walked into my customary area of the L. I found my seat by the pole, which allows me to see my own reflection on the window across the isle. I observe the few people in my car now. Nobody breathes. It musn’t be necessary at this time!! Every one’s eyes are open, but nobody seems to be awake. Nobody seems to have life, no matter if they are plugged onto their IPods, or ITouch. They do not move a single muscle. They seem plastered by the force of this past-midnight strangeness that is all involving. I wonder how it is that I am exempt from it?!!
How is it that I am not affected? How did I get immunized? I look at the mirrored glass window across the isle. The almost black surface of the moving tunnel walls allows my eyes to see a slightly familiar image on it. Touching my face, I realize that this is in fact my reflection on that glass. As I touch my face and feel my skin, I am terrified by the feeling on my fingers, and the awareness that what I am touching is not really skin, but a plastic substance. It is smooth cool and hard. It is plastic!! With despair I look into that window pane, and finally realized that I had not been spared either. Like them, I appear to be under the spell of that strangeness. My face displays a horrid desperation, a frozen sadness. I fight and wrestle with my facial muscles to try to smile, even a fake one, to try to change that appearance, but my face seems to be operated by a distant remote control. I feel powerless, confused. Why??!! What the hell..???!!!...What is thiiiissss!!???

I touch may face again and I could sense with my finger a hard edge around the base of my neck. It seems to be the edge of a cover, a mask, yes!!, a mask, siliconed onto my face. I try to lift the edge with my nails but it is useless. It doesn’t budge. It is a mask, a mask, not me…!! I am so confused!!... I try to think, to understand, but nothing, blank!!
But I know this is not me, the real me!! It’s a mask!!. Isn’t it?

Does this strange force make our fears, anxieties and pains percolate outwards to the surface, when our daytime guards are quietly down….resting?!!? Are these doubts and anxieties real?! Is this just an illusion!??!

I look around now. Somewhere in time during this short trip, the train must have filled up with other bodies, other empty shells??!!
“Are all your faces also masks??!!!...I scream at loud….!!!!

IN PROGRESS

ACD
4-2-2010