Fiction
The Secret to a Good Night’s Sleep
Kindness abounds in the darkness of the subway
“So, a few weeks back, I saw a guy sleeping on the train.”
“I see that all the time.”
“Yeah, but this guy was sleeping on a girl’s shoulder.”
I’d seen this, too.
“And she was looking at her phone,” he said. “Probably playing Puzzle & Dragons or something, while the guy slept. Gentle breaths, in and out. That awkward posture of a person sleeping in a cramped space.”
He took a swig of his beer. Watched memories swirl near the bottom of the mug. Continued.
“I looked at her, and I looked at him, and I figured they were together. I remember thinking how nice it must be to sometimes have a shoulder to sleep on.”
“Instead of just sitting there with your head back and your mouth wide open, looking like an idiot?”
“Right, right. But then the train stopped at Ikebukuro, and the guy woke up. He turned to the girl, muttered an apology, sumimasen, and then he was out the door. She nodded, watched for a moment, and then just went back to her phone.”
“They weren’t together?”
