Chapter 31: The Stranger

“The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The quiet lake was brilliantly reflecting the city, its neon beauty rippled by an occasional wave every now and then. He was sitting at the edge of one of many piers of that huge waterfront, letting his legs dangerously close to the cold autumn water, staring thoughtlessly at the distant island lights. Let us refer to him as The Stranger for the rest of the story, for convenient’s sake. Behind him, stood the city, so tall and bright, decorated with various coloured electric lights, bearing numerous stripes in her stomach in the form of intersections and residential streets. She was silently observing him, not just him; everything that was going on beneath her; everything from the fact that it was a cold and windy sunday night. Winter would be at the doorstep unannounced, anytime soon. The streets were almost empty, except for a few boring cars and their drivers, anxious to get to their quiet homes, to get their six hours of sleep in order to perform exceptionally well in their respective jobs or schools. The stores and bars were closed for the day. Rolling beer cans along the sidewalks painted a complex picture of yesterday’s party scene.

But none of that concerned the stranger. He was still staring at the distant island lights and his gleaming eyes reflected the well lit boat that was returning to the dock. Few hours ago, the stranger would have smiled sarcastically if anyone had said to him that he will be sitting at one of the secluded part of the city’s waterfront and staring emptily at the island. He was hurriedly returning home from a late dinner party that his coworker had organized. He wanted to get to his cozy king sized bed as soon as possible because he had an early client meeting the following day and he would be mental to not get his full night sleep before a client’s meeting. He needed to be as fresh as possible. He never had time to stare at lakes and islands in his life. He always had someplace to go to; meetings, parties, functions and such. He was a busy man, an early sleeper and an early riser. He had no business whatsoever at the waterfront in the middle of that freezing night. He always thought that the waterfront was for hooligans and stupid teenagers who wanted to drink and make out. But, what changed today? It looked as if he was dead inside.

He was quite “normal” until that damned subway ride a couple of hours ago. He bid his farewell to his friends and colleagues and raced towards the subway in that pale orange city taxi. It was half past ten when he arrived at the station. There were no proper lights around the station and as a result it was extremely dark except for the dull light highlighting the word Subway. He waited exactly seven minutes on the southbound platform to get into that old grey city train. When he entered, he glanced around to look for a spot to sit. There, he found it! At the front end of the car there was one spot left near a guy who was sleeping with his mouth open. He checked once again to see if there was any other seat available. Unfortunately he couldn’t find anything. Normally he would never sit near a guy with smelly rugged clothes, dirty hair and was clearly passed out, alcohol probably! But he made an exception for only once, as his legs begged him to sit. The train rode smoothly inside the dark tunnel, swiftly passing through the tunnel lights, one by one, which made it look like an endless parade of flashing white lights. For the longest time, he never looked up to see his fellow passengers. He kept looking down at the bolted lower end of the red pole. There was nothing to look at anyways.

Everyone in that train was either sleeping as a desperate attempt to put an end to that day or they were staring at particularly nothing with their empty eyes hoping that the ride would come to an end. Even if someone accidentally made eye contact with a person sitting in front of them, they immediately receded their sight to somewhere else, usually to a door or an advertisement poster which didn’t confront them like the eye contact. The ride was quite long and uneventful. Somewhere in the middle of the ride there was an announcement from a hidden speaker that that train would be out of service at the last station. It didn’t concern the stranger one bit because the last station was his stop. People were getting off and getting on at all the little stops that the train was making. What he didn’t notice was that the number of people getting off the train was always greater than the number of people who actually got on the vehicle. Eventually, as the night progressed, nobody got on. As the journey was nearing to an end, there were only three people left including him.

A middle aged Hispanic woman and the young man who was sitting/sleeping next to him with his mouth open for the entire ride were the other two. Soon the train came to a complete halt. He got up from his seat fairly quickly and walked towards the door to get out and get on with his life, without noticing that the young man who was sitting next to him never got up urgently to resume his life from wherever he paused it. In fact, his mouth was still open and he never made any attempt to even slightly move towards the door. The train doors opened with a chime and the stranger stepped out of the train and let out a huge sigh. ‘Never again, should I do a late night anything’ he thought to himself. Just before he decided to step on the escalator to get out of the station, he heard a shrill voice stopping him.

“Excuse me!” it was the hispanic woman from the train.

“Yes?” the stranger replied politely.

“I tried to wake the guy up, you know, in the train. He is not getting up. I think he is drunk and passed out. They are announcing that the train is out of service and the doors might close soon. Would you help me get him up?” her pleading voice and innocent face did the trick for him. It still didn’t do the trick, actually. He just pretended. ‘Why would I help a drunk guy to get out of the train. I’m not responsible for his poor life decisions’ the stranger would have argued under a normal circumstance, the one in which a pretty woman wasn’t involved. But he couldn’t let her know who he was inside. So instead of his true response, he watched himself saying this:

“He was still inside? Wow, ok! I’ll try and get him up” the stranger was pleased with himself as he impressed her with his compassion. He, once again, stepped inside the train, with the woman by his side, of course! As the stranger approached the young man, he started noticing many things that he hadn’t noticed before. His face was extremely pale, unusually pale. His eye lids were not fully closed. It was almost closed but the eye balls were still visible.

“Do you think he is unconscious? ‘Cause I asked him to wake up. He didn’t even flinch, not once! But I didn’t touch him.” the woman by his side whispered. Since the young man hasn’t responded to anything, the stranger made his mind up and decided to tap the man’s shoulder.

“Hey buddy, wake up! This is the last stop. The train’s out of service” he repeatedly tapped the shoulder. But he got nothing in return. They didn’t know what to do. They were standing in that empty train surrounded by an eerie silence. Finally the woman broke the silence and said “Ok! I’ll go up and call for a station agent to help. You keep trying to wake him up. I’ll be back in a minute.” without waiting for a response she raced towards the escalator. The stranger didn’t like how the scenario played out. He wanted to impress the woman but this was not his intention; to wait for a long time to wake up a drunken young man. As a natural next step he repeated the same words above and started to shake the young man’s shoulders in a desperate attempt to wake him up. But then something poignant happened, something that would change him, that would shape his life for years to come; something that would bring the stranger, the observer within him, outside; something that would haunt him when the nights fall; something that would make him stare at the distant lights, at times, for hours and hours and make him into this thoughtless being who just observes the shift, the change, the blinks in those lights, like the city herself who has all the consciousness in the world but who is just another observer witnessing the laughter, the tears, the joys, the successes, the failures and the tragedies that occur within its transparent body.

As the stranger shook the young man’s shoulder, his head freely dropped on his right shoulder leaving the young man’s partially opened dead eyes to stare at the stranger. It must be something in the eyes of a dead person,which always announces effortlessly that the person you are looking at is not there anymore, he/she simply does not exist or used to exist. The stranger is no dull man, he immediately recognized that he was staring at a dead person which in turn led to some other gritty realizations. The young man was dead the whole time. The stranger was riding the subway for a long time, unaware that he was sitting next to a dead person.Another thing that he noticed was that the young man had no nails in any of his slightly blood stained fingers. The stranger was filled with horror. An unrecognizable and uncomfortable fume arose from underneath his stomach, fear? sadness? guilt? shock? the stranger never explored. Even the dullest of minds would be able to tell that it was a clear sign of a ruthless torture and murder. But the young man looked so spotless, like he was still alive, he seemed to be just tired and asleep.

The stranger, fully aware that the man in front of him is dead, very slowly ran the tip of his finger across the man’s breathless face hoping that the young man would wake up suddenly and thank him for waking him up. But he never did. The place seemed even more quiet and eerie. He never knew how long he stood there watching that still, lifeless face with an opened mouth, which looked like a beautiful statue. Soon he heard a pair of footsteps approaching the motionless train. It was the woman and a station worker in an stripped orange uniform. “He’s dead” the stranger said to the woman mechanically. She freaked out and almost a second later, started to sob uncontrollably out of fear, shock and other perfectly blended emotions. The stranger strangely wanted to cry, but nothing came out. It was unusual for him to have had access to that particular emotion because he was never a crying person. Several minutes later, the place was filled with cops, medics and station workers.

Nobody noticed the stranger slipping out of the subway station. Frankly, nobody cared. Everyone in that station were talking about the dead person and shared theories about how he must’ve been murdered before being dumped in an empty train on the other end of the line. Some even considered the possibility that the dead man might have travelled back and forth in the train for a long time. But the stranger wasn’t there to hear all the speculations. He was walking south, on a dark, empty road aimlessly; his face stunned and his hands cold, he kept walking until he reached the end of the city; the waterfront. He saw the dark lake that was spread for miles in front of him. He looked behind and saw the magnificent city silently looking at him and suddenly out of nowhere an immense and intense sadness hit him. “Oh, you poor thing!” he whispered under his breath to the city. He looked at the lake again and at last the island lights caught his attention. It was there, seemed so far away, those glittering dots seemed unattainable.

‘People must be sleeping inside their cozy homes, in the island, in the city, resting for the night and the lucky few would actually open their eyes to resume their life where they had paused, and some, like the young man in the train, would have woken up this morning for one last time, unaware of what’s around the corner, lurking for them ! Yet, life goes on, earth revolves around the sun, without a pause, day in and day out, people die, new ones were born, the city keeps watching whatever that’s happening underneath it. Bizarre!’ he thought, the very first time he allowed himself to have these kinds of thoughts, unfiltered and unrestricted.

He sat there for a very long time looking at the still water and the distant island, not minding the cold winds and the city behind him. Hours later, what seemed to him as minutes, he witnessed the early morning pink shades from the horizon. Soon the sun followed the pink shades sheepishly and revealed itself completely with all of its beauty and ferocity. The lake glittered in the sun light and revealed the distant fishing boats approaching the city from the island signalling the beginning of another day, another life, yet another dawn.

The stranger?

He was still thoughtlessly staring at the island, the lake and the sun, except that there was a fixed smile in his face while glistening tears reflecting the golden sunlight, ran across his cheeks, a sign of relief, as if a weight or a part of himself was lifted from within him.