“Maybe Mable”

The subway was bustling with people. I was lucky to have found a seat and I sat, my backside indignantly plastered to the hard metal chair. I often wondered if I’d ever be able to lift my weight off the seat, and when I wasn’t contemplating the possibilities of me getting up in time for my train, I was watching the people around me in the subway.

There was a mother dragging her two children behind her, desperately urging them to hurry up. I wondered where the father was.

“So many broken families these days,” I thought.

Then there was an old man who was being fussed over by a woman wearing several layers of make-up and too little clothing. She seemed too old to be his daughter, and too young to be his wife.

What people do for money.

A middle-aged father passed me by, talking to his unresponsive daughter that was too busy poking at her mobile phone.

These teens are too self-obsessed.

A train whooshed into the subway and there was a crowd that swarmed at the doors of the train. That was the 9 o’clock train. I knew most of the people here were the 9 o’clock train people. The grumpy old lady sitting next to me shambled away, taking her god-forsaken floral handbag with her, that smelled mysteriously of cow-dung. I relaxed in my seat, letting my back slump a little. I watched the train leave the station – the adults sitting busily and the children pressing their faces against the glass creating rather dramatically comic clown-like expressions.

Just as I was comfortably dozing off, a pretty young lady came up to me and said “Would you mind if I sit?” I sat up at looked at her through my groggy vision.
“Not at all,” I said, motioning towards the seat beside me. She smiled and set a heavy black suitcase down carefully, sat down and tucked her feet beneath the seat and started shuffling through a sheaf of paper. I sneaked a glance at her hand.

No wedding ring. Looks old enough to marry. Maybe a bit too old. I wonder why? Divorced perhaps?
“Are you from around here?” she asked, startling me.
“Huh? Yes, yes, I am,” I said.
“Oh, well, I suppose you could help me then,” she said apologetically.
“Sure,” I said. Much to my surprise she asked me where she could find a post office. “You’ll have to go to the town for that. The train I’m taking – the 9.30 train will take you to the town centre. You’ll be able to find a post office from there because its well in sight.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, and turned back to her papers.
A reporter? But that doesn’t explain the huge suitcase does it? A spy? Probably. Most likely. I decided to question her.

“So, where are you from?” She looked up.
“Not from around here of course!” she said laughingly. “I work in foreign relations,” she flashed a set of perfect white teeth at me.
“Where are you based?” I asked.
“Greece,” she said. “What about you?”
“I work in finance, on my way to work right now,” I said. “Pretty but so unnatural,” I thought. “What’s your name?”
“Maybe Mable,” she said, a rather dry laugh lacking warmth escaped her lips.
“Maybe Mable?” I questioned.
“Yeah. You could call me Mable,” she said, her tone now distinctly distant. “I’ll go get something to eat, she said, hefting around the large suitcase up as she stood.

“Maybe Mable” appeared a few moments later carrying a large bag of popcorn.
Popcorn? Couldn’t she have found something more filling?
“Would you like some?” she asked, almost thrusting the bag in my face.
“Thank you,” I said, rather uncomfortably. I scooped up some popcorn and watched her as she sat down. She smiled a smile that now seemed so fake and plastic to me. I quickly popped a kernel in, queasy under her eagle eyes.

A sudden drowsiness overtook my senses like a foggy veil of paralysis. I fought to keep my eyes open, but something was forcing them shut, like hands on a dead man’s eyes. I opened my eyes one last time to see her cover my head with a jacket that I didn’t see her wearing.