Residual Warmth of Life
The temperature dropped today. The rush hour wave, a multicolored mass of puffer jackets bumping into one another, swarms the platform and presses into Si’s body. When the train doors open, those on the platform rush on, and those inside the car brush at the blast of cold air. It’s packed to the brim in there. There is a strong stench wafting through the car. There is nowhere to stand. Si feels a headache come on.
It’s as if Si and the subway know each other from some past life. If she remains in the car too long, her insides revolt against her. Her stomach ends up in her chest, she feels like a cigarette already put out, head spinning. When the car is packed, it’s even worse. It feels like stuffing oxen into a beehive. Every time the train stops, she braces against the incoming herd, hornets intending to invade her body. Si feels uneasy. Her enemy–her enemy is a persistent fellow, who does not yield to sacrifice.
Si is crowded into the center of the car, in between the two rows of seats, even the burst of cold air from the opening doors cannot reach her.
Her face becomes flush and only by clutching the overhead handrail can she remain standing. The handrails at the front of the car form a passageway for blue, cold air to flow, swirling over people’s heads. But she is enveloped in puffer jackets; she can’t even extend her neck to feel it. Her lips purse, but don’t reach anyone else’s forehead. Her blood stops pumping above her shoulders. Her hands lose their grip. Everything goes limp, and the train, which continues to sway along, throws her to the ground.
The train once again stops for the persistent mob to board. Si doesn’t dare push out against the wave, and just shirks back to the clump of puffers, worried she might die of heatstroke.
She puts her head down and closes her eyes to accept her fate. But something new washes over her, but it does not come from within. In the priority seats directly across from her, a woman probably in her thirties, plump with pregnancy, sits stroking her belly. She stares daggers.
Si doesn’t recognize this woman. But this un-maternal, twisted-faced future mother angers her.
How can she just sit there like that? This stern-looking pregnant woman has such a fierce look on her face, but still gets to sit in those seats. It’s easy for other passengers to see this woman nibbling on her lip or stretching out her hands over her huge belly. But Si is being harassed by the train and the puffers. She can barely keep herself upright, gasping for oxygen. Who is there to care for Si?
The passenger sitting next to the pregnant woman has his head down, or he’s asleep, or he is pretending to sleep. Si runs through all the reasons why she should ask the woman to get up. After all, these are the priority seats, but, after all, these are the priority seats and other people like to help pregnant women.
The pregnant woman makes the first move:
“Honey, your color is a little off. Would you like to sit?”
Si feels a sense of defeat. The pregnant woman’s concern feels like the victor sneering at her competitor. It feels like charity to improve her social credit score.
“The kind expectant mother wants to help little old me.” Si wants to say.
But she doesn’t have the strength. She will die soon. She looks at the pregnant woman’s hair gently sway. She has to sit.
Thereupon commences the troublesome performance of taking the seat. Si steps on a nearby man’s shoe, pushes a middle school girl’s book bag, and wakes up the sleeping passenger next to the pregnant woman. He looks around in a daze. Si wants to make him get up, so that she and the pregnant woman can sit next to one another…but before she even finishes her thought, he has already dipped his head again. The woman grabs her protruding belly with two hands and deftly avoids touching anyone as she slides to stand where Si had been. One hand remains on her belly, the other outstretches, grasping the rail. She carries her role out perfectly. Si raises an eyebrow. She is already filled with boundless rage. How can this woman, by giving up her seat, reject the only warmth the train has to offer?
This act of kindness, this warmth, lingers on the stainless steel seat and seeps into her butt. It’s the pregnant woman’s residual warmth. Si can’t read the woman’s face, but by the look of her stomach she is seven or eight months pregnant. This is the warmth of someone who will soon bring about life.
The pregnant woman looks a bit embarrassed. She turns her body away from Si, unable to meet her secret gaze. The residual warmth is not dissipating at all. Si is still warmed by it. Suddenly, she realizes that there is a dark stain on the woman’s brown skirt. Si thinks back to the car’s awful smell. As the woman bobs with the train, the odor gets heavier. It makes Si want to vomit out a cough. The nearby man and schoolgirl both cover their noses with the collars of their jackets.
It is as if a pair of victorious eyes have spawned on the back of the woman’s head, sneering at her.
Si eventually gains the courage to rouse the schoolgirl’s attention, getting her to look at the woman’s skirt. The girl brings her hands to her face in shock. The nearby man gives a curious look as Si wakes the sleeping passenger–all of them are staring at the pregnant woman. Si slyly takes her phone out.
The train once again stops. It’s a big, connecting station. Everyone including the school girl and the sleeping man, as if they are running from a ghost, push to the door to rush off. The pregnant woman also gets off here. She turns and gives a look back to Si.
The cold air finally washes over her, cooling the entire car. Everyone has scattered off. Si takes a breath of fresh air. She has won this air, has won this seat. She has defeated the pregnant woman. The entire train is comfortable and cool. Only the residual warmth under her butt remains.
She laughs. Her churning stomach can’t wait for this stop. The pregnant woman was just an illusion, the new warmth is yet to be born.