Train writ: child with a danish

train 1:50PM departure, Tuesday, November 27th, 2009; on the train from Toronto’s Union Station to Bramalea, making all station stops; 35 minute train ride, arrival at 2:25AM.

busy morning – people rush in, people rush out. the swamp is drenched in coffee and glucose concoctions, choirs of tapping business shoes and high heels. it’s monday again.

it’s wake-up time. the patisserie finished its batch and it’s time to sell. 5 dollars. 7 dollars. pastries and quiche called upon by monetary units.

“what do you want?” tired baker has no dependable cashier.

“that mister. please!”
“i don’t know what you’re pointing at. stop wasting time. i have money to make.”
she couldn’t understand.

“the strawberry danish, frederick.”
“shut up and keep baking, deborah.”

she was too naive to know what anger was. mommy and daddy do it though so it must be normal, right?

“6 dollars, kid”
“fredrick! that’s absurd! why are you charging her 2 times the price!”
“woman, yer too stupid to realise. it’s 3 times. and i dan’t want no rat wasting my time.”
“here you go. take it.”
hesitantly, her fingers bloomed, hewn with scratches from sand and gravel. what was this little boy’s intention?

“scott! what thuh fuck are yeh doin’! i’m going to gut you a new one for feedin’ that hindu rat!”
“up it you, basta’d!”

she ran, danish in both hands as the crinkling of the paper sang with the vicious murmur of spectators.

she was used to these days like a chonic arthritis – painful in the mind but so unseen and dismissed. her superficial home was on sherbourne, her real home was in the tube station.

she found a seat on a green bench, perforated with designs but so rusted. you don’t find people on this side of the station anymore, especially since avian vehicles came to the metro.

munching quietly, she watches vigilantly. she can see you, but could you see sucb an invisible girl?

tired, head against the rotting wall, she hums the old tune her grandpa used to hum. her hindi is broken, but she tries to remember the old sound of bollywood she never lived her life to know about. kuch kuch hota hai. is god really helping her, or is he or she punishing her? all she knows is the taste of the cherry danish she munches on in nibbles. “never eat your berries all at once,” grandma used to say, “you’ll still hungry when you finish too fast”

she sees a man with a perverted smirk. she knows these folk. her wisdom is not reflected by her lack of linguistics, but the cuts on her fingers and the asphalt stains on her face.

“hello little girl” she hears. she takes a deep breath and gulps. she’ll have to run with her little, but agile legs.

“hey! this place is closed sir!”

with. a disappointed frown, he turns around. “sorry sir, looks like i got lost.” what an ugly cackle, she thought.

she walks onto the tracks with her little purple shoes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. that was as far as she could count as she walked up the stairs. it’s been 2 months before she sang those numbers on her makeshift birthday in kindergarten. too bad education isn’t under tax budget anymore – it’s all spent on botox factories and high heel infections.

empty tracks. not busy as it was so many years ago. water drips from the collapsing cerment. she walks to her little home in the old wating booth, still nibbling on her cherry danish in both hands, walking with scarred innocence as she watches the greyed sky, hoping for sunrise.

each step she takes, she fades slowly into the unstable light and the urine stench. slowly, like the clouds in the sky.