Train

3:34

Pull my body up, slip from behind the seat in the shadowed train car. Wanting to be the first person out so I can run to the subway so I can run to the most important meeting of my life. Can't run, my feet are scissored by these old gold shoes that carried me to prom five years ago. Waiting for the train to stop, looking at the watch-face of the elegant yet nondescript woman next to me. She sees something on my bag, points. "Is this true?"

I stare. "What?"

She points again to my bag, this time at the button, which reads "I've Found Jesus!" and, in smaller print, "He was behind the sofa the whole time".

"I'm not religious. It's a...joke," I try to explain, silently willing her to notice the small print before I am forced to explain for the entire car.

All the fervor sweeps out of her. "Oh, that's too bad. For you. That's too bad for you."

I stare at my feet and bite back an "excuse me?"

I then scuttle to work, sliding around in my slippery shoes, wondering why my religious preferences matter to people like this. I appreciate their concern and all, but couldn't it be better directed at something that actually needs it? Like poverty?

My Sister Holly

Did you know there was about a thirty percent chance I would be triplets? I never had siblings, so just the idea that some people had sisters was, to me, akin to the idea that some people attend Hogwarts. Namely, impossible but wonderful-sounding.

When the nurse wheeled my mom out of the hospital, she whispered frantically in her ear: "You can still try for the next one, but make it soon. Try soon, or it'll be too late." You know, kind of like how we're combatting global warming.

My exhausted parents didn't try again. I don't have a sister named Holly, but I could have. My Mom has said it was a potential name for another girl. Maybe she'd even have math skills.

Maybe she would've persuaded our mom to put real ants in my ant farm. Then again, she might have let them loose over the whole house.

And then I think how much our lives would be different. We'd spin tales around each other, laughing through shadows, singing long into the night.