(no subject)
It was almost Christmas time. The train jolted away from the platform. Almost all the seats were taken. I sat in the aisle seat in a row of three seats. My seating companions were, I assumed, a nice couple: an unobtrusively beautiful woman, resting her head on a man’s shoulder. The man was an artist. He was sketching in a small pad, with blue ink. He drew a closed wooden door, that was shut in the drawing as well as in its aspect. But the thing about the drawing that really caught my attention was a shadow, which covered the lower part of the door and continued onto the ground. The source of the shadow was undetermined.
So there I was, sitting next to this man with a skilled hand and sketchpad, directly next to him, but wholly separated from him and his girl, in the way New Yorkers are; such close proximity literally, and yet such vast gaps between them. Increasingly absorbed in his drawing, I watched the picture develop from the corner of my eye. At any rate, it passed the time - the duration of my weekly trip to Penn Station was often subject to my overactive imagination. One hour stretches for days on end when there’s nothing good to read. A postulate of the theory of relativity, no doubt. That day, it was evident that the minutes would flow like seconds. I watched him draw, in anticipation of every stroke of his hand.
My tragic flaw is, without doubt, my garrulity. I almost said something to him once or twice, something that would have ended up sounding bland and trite, something like “I draw too…” But I sought and found, in some depth within me, SELF-CONTROL; self-control that I never knew existed. It probably didn’t exist. It was probably synthesized by a fear of crossing the communication barrier inherent to city dwellers while in commute, as well as a sense of respect for true concentration. Because this guy, this man, this artist- he was concentrating. Intensely. He was in a reverie - his hand and eyes the only parts of him that moved.
And then, The Darkness. The crackly conductor’s voice announced god-like from above, that we would be in Pennsylvania Station in ten minutes. I like the train when it travels through the tunnel. It’s a feast for people who like to imagine things. The lights flickered on and off, as they do in the shabby trains, but the artist continued, unwavering. And when he put his final ink slash on his picture, he initialed the corner and seemed about to close the book. The train was slowing. I knew the girl would wake shortly. For some reason my heart was pounding.
I then broke the unwritten statutes of city laws ( 1 - eye contact is a form of overt aggression, 2 - never speak to the strangers that you are surrounded by, etc.) and I turned to him and I said:
“Who was casting the shadow?”
He seemed slightly surprised. And a bit uncertain. Now that it had been said, I felt strangely at peace. He responded: “I don’t know - you asked ‘who,’ not ‘what,’ and I thought it might have been a bush or something.”
A BushOrSomething, oh. That was disappointing. It wasn’t an answer that reflected the quality of the drawing. I’m a romantic- I expect a great deal of passion and meaning from mysterious strangers on trains. But he continued.
“-But you’re right, it isn’t a bush, it should be you.”
Well, needless to say, I was a bit confused.
“You - as the viewer…” (he glanced at the door in his sketch)… “Are you starting something?”
The doors slid open and in the huge rush getting off, he was lost in the crowds of Penn station, 32nd and Broadway. His presence was the shadow, here, then gone, linking life to art. And I was the shadow to him, slipping away into the masses, as I quickly made the transfer to the 1 train local, uptown bound.
And then I realized what maybe the more obvious question had been.
What’s behind the door?
Well, that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it.