“Welcome to the new world.”
Harlie muttered as he stepped down from the train, its cold steel side sweating in the gloom. Operators, in ubiquitous cubicles marked data on cards in magnetic ink and whole worlds of possibility were shut off; rendered inaccessible to curious eyes.
Harlie suffered the pains of a normal man. He wore his clothes poorly, and had too little hair grown too long. He dreaded hardship, though he’d never been truly badly off. He cherished a love for a woman who knew him only as a line debugger. He pictured her in poses he’d only ever see in magazines. Her name was Vanessa and she took diet pills.
Up, up above him, Harlie could not see the trembling fingers of steel that held the rust-stained canopy of glass that was the roof of the terminal stop. Artifactual evidence of the work of skilled hands tied into arthritic knots and dragged beneath the soil and ground beneath train wheels for two full generations before Harlie came here to limp uncaring across the glistening concrete echoed their derision. Or was that just some effect of the wind? Patients in the hospital had seemed similarly confused. Harlie suspected something much more sinister.
At home, Vanessa would be tidying, listening to the evening news, and wondering what to do with herself. She considered changing her job. She shouted obscenities at a still photo of Yasser Arafat and changed into loose jeans to watch Dynasty. She considered the face of her last lover and tried wishing he would call. Operators, in ubiquitous cubicles, marked data on cards in magnetic ink and
Harlie crossed from the track and entered a cab idling there.
The end.