Timetable

After three blocks he finally reached the subway station and realized he was completely exhausted, but he had some urgencies on his mind. Barry didn’t carry any money. How would he pay for the metro fare? He went down the stairs cautiously, holding himself on the ramp, praying that none of his comrades had followed him and spying on him. Every change of altitude was a torment, bursting the pain in his shoulder and rib cage, but he forced himself to pick up speed when he located the perfect accomplice for his next task. Barry reached the end of the stairs and distractedly matched the itinerary of an old lady carrying a box of papers, until they arrived at a swipe-in turnstile and he glued himself to her back. The little doors slid apart very slowly as she presented her transportation card to the scan and as they went through. Barry rushed in to avoid being crushed by them and bumped into her, almost lost his footing under an assault of cramps inside his chest. They collided and she spun to face him. “Young man?” she angrily looked up at him but, when she saw his face, her expression changed and her eyes enlarged as saucers, “are you okay?”

“What?” he couldn’t think very well, preoccupied by the pain in his body and the sensory overload of the place

“Do you need any help?” she lodged the box she was carrying under her arm and snapped her fingers in front of his face, “are you sick?”

“What no” he chuckled, sniffled, “thank you for letting me go through, I forgot my pass at home”

“Go get some food, and water, stay hydrated” she shoved a five dollar bill into the left pocket of his puffy coat.

Wow. On the plus side, he had been able to enter the subway station without paying a dime, and he had made some easy money. On the minus side, it was apparent that he looked like either a hobo or a drug addict and, in any case, someone who was not well. The lady nodded at him gravely, with an air of understanding, “I was once lost too” she added ominously, “and then I” That was enough. Barry felt the air become tight at the back of his mouth and he rushed out of her sights before she could go on. He found temporary respite against the sticky wall of the metro hub, distancing himself from the crowd and their mad pacing, the ambient noise. Sweat was pouring down his back, dripping on the sides of his eyes.

Everything was so similar to his last encounter with a railway station, specifically, Grand Central on the day it had been scratched off the city map with him in the middle of its collapse, as if something was telling him, listen, he stretched his neck to make sure the old lady with the box and the born-again tale wasn’t after him. Everything, the buzzing, the high ceiling and the dusty rays of sun crackled into glitter particles in the hall, the trembling of the concrete at the journey of the wagons under the floor. He had not anticipated that he would feel so much. I’m a child, he thought, heartbroken, I’m a wimp.

The air was heavy, moist, smelling of humans, cigarette, drink, it was rancid, polluted, stuffed. He closed his eyes and forced himself to visualize the trip to Eugenie’s house, his home. Yes, it was also his home. She had said so many times that he also lived there, like, forever, pretty much, wasn’t that right. The pulsating of the pain under his right shoulder was burdening him, blasting up to reach the top of his skull, roll around his ear, strangle him at the throat. Come on, it’s just one metro commute, he encouraged himself. Staring through wave of the crowd in front of him, he pictured Eugenie White’s face between the hurried passer-bys, her lovely features, the pink of her cheeks, the indolent drop of the curls that continually escaped her ponytail against her face, down her neck. Why wasn’t she more skilled at putting her hair up neatly, or at ponytails in general? Barry pushed himself forward and grunted through the agony. He went down a new series of stairs promising a train tearing through town, swallowing the distance between him and this Eugenie White’s face.

Hasn’t she explained on countless occasions that he also lived there, where he was presently going, and specified that it was not necessary to keep her in the loop of his comings and goings, that it was how roommates lived together? Why bother with negative thoughts, envy, debilitating jealousy while he could just be grateful and blessed? Barry’s heart was flying as he entered through the doors of the last wagon of his train, located an isolated seat at the back next to a poster advertising Cirque du Soleil. Thankfulness would save his life, acknowledging how lucky he was would carry him through. Through anything, he saw. Now, there was a faint taste of vomit reaching his back teeth, so he buried the bottom of his face inside the opening of his winter coat and went into a micro bolting. He couldn’t shatter the fabric of space and time with extreme velocity in his current state, but he could still twinkle, speed things up inside, and feed from it. The darkness of his shut lids lit up with some graceful blue iridescent spaghetti strings and he focused on them, on their rejuvenating light.

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The shriek of the brakes awoke him suddenly and he realized that he had missed his stop by one station. Barry cursed through his lips, “fuuck, can you just” but he felt better already, as if he had gulped a big glass of warm milk with stirred honey at the bottom. He caught up with the stop, “concentrate” he told himself, steadied his breathing as he was holding on to the handle from the ceiling of the wagon, unbothered by the chatter around him and the chaos of people standing up and sitting down and making space for their luggage and wriggling to let others pass. Leaving the underground behind him, he allowed himself a pause while the escalators rolled him upwards to the surface with a soothing humming background sound. An impatient commuter bumped into him and apologized. His shoulder and arm hurt so much, it was sending waves of fire down his right leg, stinging his toes, it was ringing inside his ear. All the same, he thought. Was it better to stay at Hobbes Lab with those superheroes jumping around and ridiculing him or behaving like overprotective parents?

The backpack he was carrying with his socks and medicine and the tea would have to go, he saw, everything that weighed more or less on him was flattening him and threatening his launch into this mad voyage. Both the straps were draining his back and the top handle, well, he didn’t have enough hands to use it. Why was everything so fucking difficult?

Detach, go with the flow, Barry sighed, it’s not important, and he nicely placed the backpack on top of a ticket machine, excited for the person who’d acquire it next, who’d discover the rows of painkillers that Alphonse had had shipped from Korea. Enjoy, he sent the message to the world all around him. Someone laughed behind him and he spun tediously, faced the origin of the sound, saw that no one was there. Was he losing his mind? No, Barry inhaled some dried air. No, he was not. He basked in the sunlight once out of the station, let it shine on his face, harden the layer of sweat on his cheeks. He was feeling extremely lucid.

Why does one get into a perilous situation, then unite with a crush from high school? For sure, the reason was heavenly, molded by the hands of some good stars shining in the night sky, and invisible, but still floating there, in the diurnal sky. Why would one and another one find themselves trapped into an even stickier situation, then embrace at the threshold of life and death and fuse in despair and blood, hold on to each other in regained hope? If only she could read the pages he wrote as an ode to her inside his brain, Eugenie would see that no other man was a match for his life force. If only she heard what he told her all the time, silently, she could comprehend everything and stop pretending she wanted anything else.

Barry had the feeling that when he was becoming philosophical like this, he probably was getting a fever. He had to hurry up now.

He arrived at Eugenie’s door a complete mess. The pain was munching at him, menacing to devour him, and he had a headache, and he was furious. He blew some hot hair going up the stairs and stood in front of the door, realized that he had abandoned his winter coat on the way, probably at the exit of the bus line, when he had almost passed out, and he wasn’t carrying his key anymore. You stupid fucking dumbass, he thought. Nevermind, all was well. He hovered his hand on the door handle and inserted in some bolting energy, felt the latch slide to the side and open. He stepped into the apartment.

Who cared about keys when you had superpowers? The first thing he noticed was the smell of roasted vegetables and warm bread dough. He had thought the entrance corridor of the flat would be dark but it was lit, the fatigued light bulb quivering on the ceiling, before stabilizing and rendering all that was familiar there, the cup in the shelves that held some coins, some of them useless because they were from Qatar or Poland, a crumpled dollar bill from Canada, some old candy from the honky-tonk across the street. The coat hanger and its under layers of summer jackets that Eugenie never thought to confine back to a seasonal closet, a scarf a student had gifted her ornamented by an enormous marijuana leaf, which she never wore. An old painting of lake Ogle, hung crookedly inside a raw golden frame.

“HELLO” he heard, and Barry jumped on his feet, in the blink of an eye, seized a boot from the floor and held it forward, blinked wildly.

“HELLO” he answered.

A man was standing there, at the end of the entrance corridor, wearing an apron on top of a black tee shirt, his short clean cut hair graying at the temples, his face soft and expressive at the same time, one eyebrow down while the other one was up, an air of curiosity on his face. A man was standing there in Barry’s own home, so he held on to the shoe, shakily, because he was so tired, “hands where I can see them!” he ordered.

The man obeyed as if the boot was loaded with some explosives, and he shook his head, meaning, no trouble, and Barry understood. That was Jimmy, or Jackie. “Where is Eugenie?” he asked

“Eugenie?”

“You heard me, what did you do to Eugenie?”

“You mean Eugenie White, who lives here?”

“I LIVE HERE” Barry shouted

“You what?”