“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.
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