If you have ridden the train, you know you hurry onto the TRAX car.  You look quickly, I mean VERY quickly for a seat.  I have to scan quickly for a seat hubby and I can sit in together, across from each other with no one else on the seats.  It is a game we play every morning.
Today the front of the car is full, dang!  I scan quickly down the center aisle.  I think I spy an empty pair of seats about midway down.  Must hurry because if the car starts up before sitting down my hubby is always thrown off balance and I don't want to have to pick him up off the floor of the train car.  (Funny, I never worry about me falling ... hmm).
Anyway, as we sit down, I notice that we are right behind the mid door off the train but there is something on the floor by the door.  I wonder if someone dropped something.  So hubby turns around, leans over the seat and stares for quite a while.

"There is a guy lying there on his bag" he says.  "Is he dead?" I ask.  

"I don't know" he hesitantly answers. 

Now other people begin to bend and look over.  But no one does much else but look.  

I do see slight movement of something, maybe an elbow so I figure he is not completely dead.

"Was there a pool of blood or anything?" 

"No" hubby replies.

Then we are at the next stop and people get on from that mid door and cautiously walk around the guy on in the stairwell slumped over his suitcase.  Everyone stares and shrugs their shoulders or takes a second harder look.  

Someone a few seats from us asks, "What is it? Did someone drop something?"  

Now hubby explains and everyone on the train listens and is now talking about it.  

"Is he dead?"  is heard up and down the car.

'No, look he is moving a bit," someone adds.

By now it is many stops later and many people have come and gone by that mid door. 

I remember thinking, "Wow, how amazing that no one really cares about this guy or wants to bother him or themselves to see if he is ok, including me."

It's our stop now. 

 "Let's go out the mid door also so I can see him", I say.

As I stepped around this slight of build, moderately well dressed young man I studied him intently trying to get answers.  

All I know is he is olive skinned, short haired with an odd hat on his head and he is lying with his head on the suitcase which he is cradling as if the suitcase were a lover.

And he seems to be deeply asleep.

photo is merely to show position of young man's body on his suitcase -this is NOT him.

What's the story? 

 Why sleeping in the stairwell and not on the seats like everyone else?

  I'm afraid it is a mystery forever.

The Oxymoron

I saw this car in the TRAX parking lot.  It was beat up very badly.  The bumper is really bashed in. I thought "boy, no wonder you ride TRAX, you can't drive!"

I scanned my eyes down the side of the car seeing how dented the side was when

I noticed a locking device on the steering wheel called "The Club".  Having owned a few in my time, I knew this one cost about $40.00.

I had to laugh.  Who would want that car?  I couldn't resist looking into the car's windows to see

if there was gold on the seats or something!  

Nope, absolutely nothing of value in view. 

Well, rest assured owner, NO one will take THAT car!

I had to ride home later in the evening on TRAX by myself the other night.  I wasn't scared or nervous... let's just say, I was "cautious".
I had my car keys threaded between my knuckles so I looked like Wolverine from the X-men movie.  If someone tried to accost me I would scrap the keys down their face then police could search for the deeply scratched man and I would recognize him as my attacker.
I kept one eye out for everyone around me even though I was pretending to read my Nook.
There were several boys, late teens or early 20's in several of the seats in front of me.  They were loud and laughing, their pants sagged, and they had ball caps screwed down tight on the top of their heads.  Worst of all, they all were wearing dark hoodies!
And yes, some had darker skin color than me...

One came around "just asking a brother for some change for some food".  I didn't know what I was going to say when he got to me.  Say "no" and then get mugged?  "Yes" and then have them all see me fumbling with money so I would just end up robbed?  Thank goodness he didn't ask me.
  Then at the next couple of stops, most of the young men got off.  I didn't look up, I just kept pretending to be reading because I noticed one larger black young man alone, sitting two seats in front of me.  He was playing his music loudly so ALL could enjoy (?) it.

 When suddenly I heard a voice say, "Ma'am?"

I let it go, I ignored it.  I am deeply reading, can't he see?  I feel my keys in my hand. I feel my heart rate  increase a bit.
"Ma'am?"  He says a bit louder this time.

I had to.. I had to look up to see if it was me he was calling to.
And he was looking right at me.  He had turned around in his seat and was looking right at me.  Dark ball cap, dark hoody jacket, loud music.
"Yes", I answered in my most sweet old lady please-don't-hurt-me-I-could-be-your-mother voice.

"Is the language in this music to harsh for you?  Sometimes they sing with some pretty bad language and I wouldn't want to offend you."

 I stared at him for an eternity before all my senses came back to me and I answered, "I teach junior high school.  That language, which I can't even hear, is probably not anything like what I hear in the halls at school".
"You're kidding", he answers.  "They get away with bad language in schools here?"
 "Well they shouldn't but when they think no one old is listening it really flows out",  I answered.

"Well I apologize if this offends but I really like the music and you have a nice day now, ma'am", he says back to me so sweetly that I carefully put the keys back into my pocket and started to really read my book.

I'm frankly speechless.  

Should I be impressed with indiviuality 

or

saddened by insanity