Metro Story

I was telling my sister how I always seem to be on the train cart with the eccentrics when she told me this little gem.

Erik Suidman's De Stofzuigerkoning

She said it had been just before dinner time last summer. She was en route from the shops downtown to our mother’s place in the east end when at Sherbourne or maybe it was Broadview Subway she was no longer sure which when an older gentleman rose and got off. Now, she swears she would not have remembered him beyond the next stop had a mid-aged fellow not called all their attention to him.

‘Take a good look at him,’ he said pointing to the man by then walking on the platform towards the stairs. ‘For it will be me that’s like him in a few years, going home to an empty flat and working well into my seventies for fear of the alternative which will be staying in my lonely apartment all day.’

To this little outburst someone said something like, ‘Don’t project your short comings onto a stranger cause for all you know he could well be married to his high-school sweetheart who has a hot meal waiting for him as we speak.’

To which the upset fellow said only, ‘Did he look to you like he was going home to someone?’

There was nothing else said, the upset fellow sat staring off and everyone else prayed for their stops or his to come soon.

My love my care,

Simone