“Today is Monday, April 11th, 2009. The temperature is 87 degrees, with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. A hospital was bombed in lower Afghanistan…”

The seats on the train are metal and nylon. They’re the type of seats with sticky-outy threads that scrape against your thighs like a constant reminder that you’re leaving.

The girl was pretty. Or, at least, she had been pretty. Maybe even beautiful. Now she was just a shadow of herself in a mustard yellow Old Navy sweater dress. She collapsed on train 276 with the practiced relief of a body beaten into limp submission by time. Biting her lower lip with crooked teeth, her shaking hands fumbled at the top of a bottle of ice tea. I felt secondhand embarrassment for her and willed myself to look away, suddenly busy with my cuticles.

Eventually, the train stopped. It bumped to a screeching halt that made the girl cringe. She hesitated, then began to gather herself, and shuffled into the hall towards the door. Her feet tripped over one another in her one-size-too-big brown suede loafers. She fell again, and then turned around to sit back down. I passed her on my way out, and caught her eyes for a fleeting moment. They were grey and round and large and I felt them. But just for a moment. I continued on my way.

“Today is Tuesday, April 12th, 2009. The temperature is 85 degrees, and the humidity is 77 percent. There was a train crash yesterday. There were no survivors…”