I take a subway, a train and a bus to get to my job. Today I'm coming home from work, (taking a bus, a train and then a subway) and the bus driver is one of those heavy on the gas, heavy on the break drivers and it's starting to make me feel sick as the bus lurches towards the train.  Once on the train, I feel even worse. I clench my teeth and push my tongue against the roof of my mouth in an attempt to keep everything still. I check my phone to distract me from the lurching in my stomach and I open an email from a friend who's on a book tour in Europe. He's in Edinburgh, he tells me and tomorrow he's off to Barcelona. But he's sent me something he wants me to read: a dirty story.

As I read it I become less aware of how awful I feel and more aware of the man next to me reading over my shoulder.  We both read about fingers in assholes and hands around necks. Together we read about lips bloodied on pant zippers and dirty fingers leaving muddy trails on perfect breasts. It's a good story; it's a love story.  I’m feeling much better at this point. I finish reading and I look up at the man next to me but he quickly looks away.  We make eye contact for much too short a moment and I'm disappointed. I wanted to share a moment with him. Not a perfect moment like in the story we just read, but a moment neither of us will probably get again. The awkwardness and intimacy and uncomfortableness and excitement of reading a dirty story with a complete stranger on a train. A moment we both pretended couldn’t exist, a moment we’ll never tell anyone about, a moment we are ashamed of and exhilarated by. Just a slushy moment based on frantic consumption and the promise of embarrassed half-smiles.

But he looked away. We shared nothing, our one-of-a-kind, haphazard, sloppy moment had come and gone and neither of us were able to appreciate it. Neither of us were able to understand the potential of what that moment could’ve been.

I realize I’ve been staring at him while lamenting the total loss of our moment, but look a little longer at his profile as he feigns a deep interest in the advertising above the train door. I look back at the email on my phone, it says, “The End.”

I stand to get off the train and the nausea comes crashing back. I need to sit down before I get on the subway that takes me home. I eat a mandarin orange, they're in season now, you know. I watch as people rush onto buses, off of subways. I lost sight of the man from my train the moment we stepped off. I have no idea in which direction he went, and realize it can’t possibly matter. I cannot hope for things to matter when they only existed as potentials in the first place. I board the subway and write this. And it's now time to get off the subway.

I'm Katie West and this is my first post to latenightfeelings.com. Very nice to meet you.