un dia

The man sitting next to Leila smelled faintly of parrot droppings. The rough skin of his arms was caked with layers of dirt, and even through the fog of her pre-coffee haze she thought to herself that an excavation of his epidermis might reveal some interesting tales. His shoes looked to have been blue at some point years ago, but by that morning had chameleoned into a moldy sort of green. Leila found herself uncomfortably close to the man, and she cursed the abundance of morning commuters. To make things worse, she was seated on the plastic blue bench, staring directly into the slacks-covered genitals of a portly banker man. She tried not to think about the stomach turning image beyond the layer of cloth in front of her, but it was hard to avoid the present. She’d never sit down on the subway again, she promised herself, never.

Floating heavily over the smell of guano were the pungent fumes of aftershave, the morning sweat, the sweet aroma of coffee and bagels and the general odor of piss (potentially emanating from the rivulets of unidentified liquid shifting along the floor of the car.) The stench of this amalgamation, combined with the looming paranoia of potential-maybe-could-be-probably-hopefully-not pregnancy, made Leila heave.

Her nausea was given an added boost when the car jerked to a halt at 53rd and Lexington. She felt the smells around her stir in the thick air as all the passengers’ legs tightened with the anticipation of escape. The car grew eerily quiet as everyone shifted and tensed, willing the doors of the train to burst. With a defeated swish, the metal retreated into the sides of the car and Leila was instantly and impossibly squished between the meaty belly of the man behind her and the twin-bed of an ass in front of her. They were surprisingly soft crushing materials and Leila thought briefly to herself how much she’d like to fall asleep. The amoeba crowd swarmed towards the set of steep escalators, and once again Leila felt the lumpy arm of the dirt-caked man, her nostrils filling with the scent of bird…

“Shit” she thought to herself, halfway up the escalator, still firmly sandwiched between protruding belly and bottom. “Shit.” And then, she passed out.

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I keep my eyes closed for a few seconds longer than necessary because it still smells of unwashed parrot. In these last moments of darkness I relive the only other time I’ve ever lost consciousness: the 4th grade apple bobbing contest. I was wearing my new brown dress and all would have been happy had fucking Sarah Jones not been the one who volunteered to face off with me in the apple tub. Sarah, my arch nemesis with the long black hair, and the pale pale skin. In my mind, she approaches. She kneels down next to me, pausing to tie her silky mane back with a hot pink elastic band. She places her hands at the base of her spine and crosses her thin, rice-paper wrists. She leans forward, her face is within inches of mine, both of our noses hovering just above the water’s surface. I stare down into the tub, trying to locate an apple to bite, and in the reflection of the murky brown I see Sarah stick her tongue out on me. I didn’t have the words for it at the moment, but whatever I was feeling then has long since been translated into a phrase for older teeth: “Bitch.” Devi Khan, standing above, blows the plastic whistle. My face breaks the water’s placid surface and I begin jerking my torso, mouth wide open and eyes scrunched shut. My lips touch the skin of 2, 3, 5, 6 apples but I can’t seem to sink my teeth into any of them. I can feel Sarah’s arm bumping mine, the soft fuzz of her hair tickling my elbow and inciting rising fury. The panic in me builds and even as I feel my lungs begin to burn I think to myself “just a few more seconds.” Then, blackness.

Suddenly, I can feel water on my face – and I’m startled into opening my eyes. Through the blur of my contacts I can see a faint figure, with pale, thin skin. Sarah? My stomach heaves for the second time this morning. I blink a few more times before I realize that Sarah is an old man, and behind him is a sign above a door:

Casa del Loro
Buenos Aires

The sign creaks and shifts faintly in the breeze, as the old man pitches another bucket of brown water onto me. I close my eyes again.