...And to Forgive….Divine

The Temple of Forgiveness. Photofish12 (CC)

A short story....

Slid from the street into the subway on a black rainy morning to join the other black-clad human statues placed respectfully apart. Two minutes later all thrust together like chickens into the green train with no noise except the turning of newspaper pages an occasional smoker cough and an i-pod’s squeaky bleat. And the clatter of steel wheels on silvery rails.

Christopher hung onto the strap, swaying with the dancing train. The green-hatted woman facing him was reading the back page so he read the front page. A prison riot in Brazil – twelve dead. Yet another warning of imminent terrorist attacks. Cybercrime is up. Why do people read the papers? His gaze shifted to a badly dressed woman with blue-painted (blue!) fingernails and a tacky hairstyle. He looked around him. Oh, the young boy looking glumly at nothing with sleep-glazed green eyes, standing next to his mother who was holding his hand. They looked like they were on their way to a funeral. God, some people must live very happy lives, happy families I-Don’t-Think-So.

To his right he noticed a young woman wearing a thick dark overcoat. She appeared to be deep in thought. Maybe she was just bored. You never know what people are thinking.

The train pulled into and out of yet another station, the station before his, and Christopher watched the pretty-as-hell black-coated woman put her hand into her coat looking for something or maybe adjusting her bra-strap. She looked uncomfortable. Suddenly, the driver braked a little too hard and Christopher was thrown to his right and his briefcase banged into her knee. “Ow!!” she exclaimed. She glared pointedly at him and quickly pulled her hand from her coat to rub her knee. “Please forgive me,” he said with his winning charming bright-and-beaming blue-eyed smile, hoping to pacify her. Her beautiful doe eyes looked into his then her features softened a little and, although there were no words, she smiled slightly and nodded her head in a you-are-forgiven way that made him feel better. She had beautiful black hair and fine olive skin and a long graceful neck and no necklace. The train pulled into his station.

Off the train and into the wet street melting into the stream of people flowing like lava towards the large office building where he worked. In the lift, crawling up the walls, he thought about the pretty-as-hell young woman he had met on the subway. Someone had drawn a pretty butterfly on the elevator mirror with a red felt-tipped marker.

On the train she was thinking of him and his lovely blue eyes and polite manner. He was very attractive. Her knee hurt. She could hear his soft voice. She pictured his blond hair and remembered what she had been doing when his briefcase banged into her.

But she had whispered “I forgive you.” She had at least forgiven him.
She felt relieved to know that he was not there any more, so she put her hand back into her coat and the old man opposite watched her looking for something or maybe adjusting her bra-strap but no that wasn’t it at all her hand was searching feverishly and she was sweating breathing hard wild and petrified eyes and then she found it and she drew her breath sharply and held it hard and her body stiffened and she was scared so scared and she looked around her and thought of blue eyes and dying and said it was now because her bomber’s forgiveness had been granted and given so she closed her eyes and pulled the cord....

...And she, the green-hatted woman, the old man, the blue-nailed woman, the boy, his mother and the rest of her forty-six victims all ceased to exist in one shattering and eternal instant....