/lit/ - Literature

The subway doors closed in front of me with a muffled click, and I desperately waved to her from the window. Time decelerated in those last seconds. I experienced each of them slowly and tenderly as they one by one dismantled me from the inside. Even so, they went by in an instant just as the summer had. It had been our last together. My heart sank as the enveloping darkness swept away her image, and I understood, with the sort of alarming swiftness that comes with this type of agony, that it was over. My stop wasn’t for another hour and a half, so I shakily slumped into an empty seat. I knew that I couldn’t come apart in front of everyone, but I was quickly reaching my limit. I clenched my fists and stared at the filthy floor of the train. After several seconds of struggle, I slowly angled my gaze upwards. It wasn’t until then that I truly noticed the faces of the other subway goers. On that dismal afternoon, I discovered that they all seemed mournful. I imagined that their lives must have been like that summer at some point: where time is presumably frozen, permitting you to dance for eternity in the dazzling rays of life, only to be abruptly cut short and reminded that it had simply marched on without you. They must have. Why else would someone look this severely heartbroken? I began to realize that I, too, was one of those somber faces. It was there, in that dimly lit subway train, that I felt the gravity of it all.