Trapped

This afternoon I get on at the City Hall stop. I am doing errands after work and when finished I find myself closer to this stop than Fulton Street. I actually have never gotten on at City Hall before- I’ve never really had a reason to. I do know that it is the last stop on the 6 so I can take it straight to 68th street. As I descend down the stairs I see the train with its doors about to close- I rush in right before they shut. I think to myself how not-crowded the car is.

Once I look around I realize that there is NO ONE in the car. Not in my car or any of the others as far as I could see. Feeling sketched out, I uneasily take out the New York Times Sunday Styles section leftover from the weekend and start to read. The car lurches forward and starts crawling along, ascending away from the platform into the darkness of the tunnel. Then it stops. And it stays stopped.

I keep waiting for the announcement from the conductor saying there is a delay. Except there isn’t an announcement. Because I now realize that no one is supposed to be on the train. As the normal whirling noise from the train shuts down I feel tears sting in the back of my eyes and panic creep up my neck. I start pacing back and forth around the car and look out the windows into the blackness of the underground that surrounds me.

This is like a horror movie. I keep excepting some crazy subway monster, half rat-half homeless man to suddenly appear. What am I going to do? Of course I have no cell phone service down here. I have visions of myself getting out of the car and stumbling through the miles of scary scary tunnels of the New York City transportation system trying to find my way out. Or having to sleep in the car all night long- alone and underground.

Right before I am about to have a complete breakdown, the train starts to finally move, and I see light again, rolling right up to the platform into civilization and still at the City Hall stop. Apparently I was just at the other end of track, the wrong end where I guess you are not supposed to get on. It was probably stopped only about 10 minutes, probably just the conductor shift change at the end of the line or something, some maintenance maybe. However it had felt like light years and as my racing heart finally slows down I now have a new appreciation for what's above....what's above the street that is.