He stands on the platform.

He stands on the platform.

He stands at the end of the train platform staring down the tracks. The rain drives hard against his jacket, soaking pants, and shoes, sending a chill through and through.

Lost in thought at the reckoning. Consumed by the sadness in the world.

He thinks If I can just make it one more day. One more day without this bag of rocks on my back. The weight of life courses through him, in his blood.

He has seen much tragedy in his forty-four years.

Enough misery to spread over entire swaths of people, without end. A thick layer for all to feel pain, yet not enough to make them long for the end, as he.

He carries this burden, not with pride or guilt, only grief of his life's work lost on the tracks.

He has ridden every rail line in New York City. He searched every station, every inch of track. All the storage rooms, the turnouts, and the electrical switch boxes, yet he cannot find what he seeks.

His obsession now has no bounds, but he longs for the answer.

He stares down the tracks, waiting.

His father worked the rails, nightsticks, and a thirty-eight. His grandfather before.

The same breed, with a blackjack and a pencil-barreled six-shot, and fearless courage.

An age when the city teemed with ruffians, thugs, and gangs of every color and sort.

Each had its turf, with border wars constant, and whose players understood no mercy, only violence. The uniforms rode to protect the innocent.

But never this.

He wonders if it started by accident, or a grand plan by some evil unknown. Who was the first to jump? He could think of many ways, none so painful.

He remains wondering; his thoughts distract him from the now.

He looks back internally, he understands that the iron dust was bred into him, his core.

A legacy of service here in the underbelly of the city.

He has ridden the rails as an instinct of family and service.

He knew of the pitfalls, the trips, and dangers long before he took the oath.

The threat of six hundred volts from the third rail, the disease carried by the rats beneath and atop every platform.

In time, he focused; he became addicted to his one search, his obsession.

He saw the end of people who chose to surrender their lives at the front of the train.

He thought he had seen it all, every switch, every room where the retched set up house.

The closed stations, storage rooms teeming with homeless addicts, where he stepped carefully for fear of a needle stick carrying some third-world disease.

He coughed, his lungs full of black soot after every tour, sometimes thinking it was the end.

His sleeves and collar stained black.

His face and hands, a raccoon mask in the mirror after a tour in the tunnels.

Sidestepping into the mantraps as the trains sweep past, anointed by the dust.

His left knee aches at the memory of a careless trip into the ditch between the rails as the ten cars passed so close, parting his hair.

A mouthful of vile putriment, the reward of a scream of panic.

The shower of sparks from the switch burned holes in his skin, a reminder of carelessness.

His team laughed at him, thinking, even if he died, it was funny watching the terror in his face as he tripped, landing in the narrow sump, the gallows humor of the walking dead.

The smells, the detritus of humanity forced into a confined space. Shedding clothes, sweat, and waste, all to the discomfort of the masses, forced. The city left no choice.

He thought back of the history of the transit system, a marvel of the ages when it carried men in top hats and women in flowing dresses to theaters, nightclubs, and Sunday services, when there was civility the norm. Not the cesspool of late.

Yet he stands at the end of the platform, looking at the tracks.

The rain does not wash him clean, for he is baptized in pain and grief, forever looking for answers.

He cannot remember when the inquiry came to him, only that it was there one day. He searched from high to low, and everywhere in between. Always, “The Why?

To no end, to know end, he mused.

Where will I find it? Where is salvation? Will there be a glorious ending, a rainbow of colors, a bright shining celebration, a reunion of friends?

Or will it be blackness, forever damned? An end in itself.

He heard the steady hum of D flat monotone.

It echoed through his mind, not sure if inside or outside his head. He heard it many times before, sometimes while praying for those departed below.

Again, he wondered of the spectacle, why jump, why choose to end your life in the midst of a crowd?

Would those nearby prevent that action if they knew what was to come?

Distracted in thought by the recognized steady hum.

Again, he looked in both directions on the platform, waiting.

Usually, thoughts come at night. The vermin inside his mind when hope is lost.

Not today, they are here present among us at every turn, consuming.

He never sleeps. His mind filled with horrors he witnessed—the never-ending sad.

Wait, is that bundle of rags in the wheels?

Is that a hat in all that mess?

That's a coat and a hat. Hard to tell from here. Why can't I move?

What is that sound? There it is again, that humming D flat buzz in my ears.

Wait, wait, I have that same hat, and that same coat.

There's a leg, that’s a sleeve, and an arm.

Those look like my boots.

How can this be, the same clothes as me?

Where is everyone?

Why am I so cold? Oh my God, why?

That poor soul. What drove him to this?

I hear the sirens approaching, the screams from the crowds, yet I see no one.

Where did everyone go?

He stands at the end of the elevated train platform, staring down the tracks.

The rain drives hard against his jacket, soaking pants, and shoes, sending a chill through and through.

He stands, a fixture in time. Frozen in the rain.