There are lights here, small white, plastic globes of light floating down either side of a steel blue center. They're not bright, but to Jonas’ straining brown eyes they burn intensely.
Ears, he has ears too. And they work, though they might not be working well, if they’re hearing strange voices. They have nicely rounded tops. Jonas always though his ears his best feature. And these tops are tucked neatly within a knit cap. Not the bottoms, the bottoms are unobstructed so they can receive their sounds. And they do. And they’re working. They received a sound quite like the landing of a cushion of water when he awoke. After hearing those voices, as his mechanical keeper made another violent thrust forward.
Jonas takes a deep breath, his twin nostrils gulping the stagnant mix of sweat and snow-wet wool. And as that air fills his lungs, he comes fully back to the jostle of the boxy car in which he's stuffed. To this train that carries him through his daily circles.
“The time. What's the time?”
What's the day, for that matter.
Jonas’ left wrist wears a watch, but it’s been pinned till numb, and won't lift up without the aid of his right hand.
“Seven o’clock.”
He thought it was seven the last time he looked.
Square with rounded corners, the window beside him is backed by an early winter morning’s black, and gives out no clues if he’s gotten any farther on this journey.
“Does it matter?”
It doesn't. Suspended above the invisible scenes of troubled city blocks, Jonas lets his mind slip back to where sharp voices dull to mumbles, their words softening to the sounds of distance and long ago. His head falls forward, returning to its “yes,” and and the disturbance those voices caused go with it, back into darkness.
*****
That was simple enough.
And not very rewarding.
True, but things will pick up. It’s good enough for now. He won’t get through the next one so peacefully.
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