Bleeding Fiction

I was on my way home today, riding the PATH train, which runs between Manhattan and New Jersey underneath the Hudson River, and my train started to fill with smoke. Not the pleasant smoke of a sizzling fajita, either. No, this was more the unpleasant smoke produced by heated metal rubbing against heated metal without the benefit of lubrication. Accompanying the smoke was the smell of burning oil.

The train stopped moving and all but the emergency lights went out. Every passenger around me ducked down or sat on the floor in an effort to get away from the rising fumes, and I followed suit. Along with the lowered postures came a lowering of noise and a heightened expectancy. What was going on? What would happen next? I was desperately hoping we'd have to evacuate the train and walk out of the tunnel on our own two feet. Or, better yet, climb one of the emergency access ladders to whatever lies above the PATH tunnel. It must be something more than water, after all.

We waited, in the dark and the silence, for minutes as the smoke grew thicker around us. Passengers from other cars bustled into mine and remarked, with the sort of surprised wonder usually reserved for children seeing the first snow of winter, "oh, this car is filled with smoke, too." No shit.

Finally, the train got moving again. In a matter of half a minute we had pulled safely into the Hoboken terminal. We were let off without explanation and the next set of passengers was told, simply, that the train is not in service.

One of my fellow passengers commented "well, at least this wasn't our fifteen minutes of fame." For my part, though, I was disappointed.