The Subway

I wrote this story as I was walking somewhere. It was foggy and the street lights were on, even though it was the middle of the day. That doesn't happen very often.

• Short story
• Poetry

								
A man with headphones walks on the street.
He would walk faster or slower according to the music he was listening to. 
He got into the subway. 
All of a sudden, his phone died, which made no sense since its battery was full. 
As he came down from being slightly worried and annoyed by it, he found boredom. 
He confronted his bored face in the window’s reflection
And then, to instinctively fight that boredom, his eyes started wandering around. 
He noticed how each face in that carriage was unique. 
He felt wonder and surprise by how unique each face was. 
As he observed with more and more detail, each face became precious. 
He looked at his own face in the window’s reflection again.
He felt that it lacked the quality that made all those other faces so special.
Maybe he needed someone else to look at him.
Maybe if he was touched by someone else’s attentive look his face could become alive like the other ones. 
Every day after that, he waited for someone to look at him on the subway. 
And every day after that, he looked at the other people on the subway,
As if his eyes had the magical power to bring them to live, to make their existences real, colourful and even important, and even meaningful.
He was convinced that, after being looked at, he’d be able to look at himself differently, as part of the lively colourful carriage people that were each so unique. 
As the days passed by, some faces would repeat themselves – on the same or different people. 
But there was always something new about them, even in repetition.
It was hard to pin down exactly what it was, but each face, on each day, was unparalleled.
When a face happened to be completely different – in the same or new people – he would take extra time offering it his eyes.
One day, after a week and three days, someone looked at him. 
It was a woman with strong curly dark hair and brown almond eyes.
The eyes were surrounded by hazel freckles. 
As soon as he was looked at,
He disappeared. 
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