Thread: Any Old Friday

It was any old Friday morning and I was making my silent and solemn two hour trek to work. Lack of sleep and a diminished vigor for my job were both my afflictions as I observed the few other tormented souls traveling alongside me.

All the interchangeable characters of a New York City morning came and went. My only companion, small white headphones, danced softly with their vibrations in my ears. My mind was falling more and more behind me. It lay comfortably at home, in bed, under the covers and in the warmth of any old morning (sans alarm clocks).

My head was connected to the all to familiar metallic bar of the train car, bouncing with the movements of the train upon its track. This ironically echoed the desire to rhythmically connect my forehead with the desk upon arrival to work.

I nonchalantly observed my fellow "Good Samaritans". Beside me sat an aged man mastering the crossword puzzle in today's AM New York. I looked at the newsprint and his weapon with a bit of envy since this was usually my choice of killing time but alas I could never successfully obtain my prey on any old Friday morning.

My eyes darted to the inky spoilers as the man expertly drafted one letter after another in the columns. I proceeded to spy like a hawk while convincing myself that I was not retaining any word. This was merely a taste of the pass-time on the off hours in the office should I chose it.

My curiosity spiked when I noted that there were no longer any virginal boxes left for his pen to conquest. This was the climax, the anticipation, the high point of my representational film. Would he continue to inflict ink upon the Sudoku squares? Would his interest lie in the numbers and text of the horoscope stars? We were on the bridge, there was no escaping our metallic prison now.

The old man's eyes rose to our partners in the steel box. However, that clever hand of his held fast to the pen and swiped straight across the stars and the incomplete numbers. Anticipation rose inside me like a flower budding in the most eternal and magical of forests. I was to be privy of being an audience to something wonderful. The pen kept swiping over the print, its mark no longer confined to boxes or blank space. It scratched and etched expertly as the man elegantly and slowly wagged his head a fraction of an inch here and a fraction of an inch there.

The black began to take a form, a reflection of a figure across from us. The girl was sleeping, unaware of the strange audience of a starving artist and a masterfully wise drawer captivating her attention. The flow of my music, the old man's drawing, and the girl sleeping peacefully went on uninterrupted. It was a meditation of elements only fed by the random glance of the old man at his intricate wrist watch.

Then my voice made the odd journey of traveling from my heart all the way up to my throat. I wanted to talk to this wise tutor. What was his story? What was his tale? How could I pay him for this wonderful lesson that he was providing to my world. Sound was trapped in my throat and the corners of my lips tugged into a smile as I looked to the girl being represented. I wanted her to see the developing simplistic beauty that was being created before my eyes. Suddenly I just wanted to share and that was all. My eyes scanned the stops glowing on the LED screen. Our journey was to be short lived.

The man fidgeted in his seat, a sign to an expert New Yorker that his stop was approaching. I timidly turned my attention to the floor, the drawing was done and his interest turned to skimming the sensational stories retold in the paper. The meditation was broken and I must have lost my sense of setting for a moment as well because when I came to, it was quite a different tale. No one sat beside me, the girl's sleep was finished and she was as half attentive as I was. Except, my fingers started to tremble and my heart to pound in excitement. My neighboring seat was taken up by the paper! Without the man's presence I guiltily picked up the thin sheets with all the care in the world. Was this really what I thought it was? It looked mangled, some of the pages missing pieces of their original shape. I turned carefully to the crossword page and couldn't suppress the joy that washed over me. There it was, the finished puzzle with expert crudeness, and the drawing of the girl....the latter character left on my journey. I looked to her and then the drawing, folding the paper I got out of my seat and crossed the small space between us.

"The man sitting beside me drew you and left the paper, I thought you should have it," I smiled. In return I received a flow of gratitude such that she could not express in words. Her culture must have not allowed to converse with strangers so as to not invade upon traditions and her unfamiliarity I returned to my seat as I reciprocated the warmth and powerful emotion behind a full smile. I occupied my time with contacting work, and, through glances, I observed her amiably looking at her portrait.

It was any old Friday morning and my stop had approached. The girl had left a couple of moments before. And as I stepped off the train our story officially ended, leaving room for new happenings to unravel with unique impressions of their own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this brilliant piece of writing. You could have a career ahead of you in this field.

A couple of things I noticed:

I was to be privy of being an audience to something wonderful.

You have made a noun out of the adjective “privy”. Its correct usage is “I was to be privy to something wonderful.”

Pass-time = pastime

And I didn’t understand the reference to Good Samaritans, even with the quote marks added.


Keep up the good work.

What an enlightening, beautiful and well-written piece. Your descriptions are so clear and make me feel like I am standing right next to you on the train witnessing everything for myself.

I agree with Ox on the little nit-picks - I did not come across any other errors.

Very well done!

Ox is right, nicely written. There is nothing further I could pick up on that could be classed as "error", but I could make a couple of suggestions.

I was making my silent and solemn two hour trek to work.

"I was making my silent, solemn, two hour trek to work." The alliterative stresses following one another give it something of a "silent, solemn" quality.

Look at the words you start paragraphs with,
It, All, My I, My, My, The, The, Then, The, The, It.
Apart from the repetition, which is great in the first and last, they are all words of a type. There is nothing 'wrong' with that, but it is a good exercise in awareness to try and catch these things and adjust slightly, for example "Nonchalantly I ..."

Public Transport provides me with inspiration for a lot of my writing, the involvement is so much greater than in a motor car.

Thank you all !!

Backward Ox, I am so glad you picked up on that, I will correct it in the final and also keep that in mind in the future. Somehow I feel like this isn't just one mistake but a bad habit.

Thank you Jinxi, I'm glad that what I intended to be the feel of the piece came through !

And thank you Olly for all the wonderful suggestions and help, I will take your words to heart and attempt to polish myself in that manner.

I agree with you on the public transport note of course, especially after studying sociology.