The sound of skinny tires gliding along pavement, like an athletic symphony, plays in her ears. Never mind the cacophony that's actually blasting all around. She's sitting on the edge of a CTA train seat, the Red Line, headed South into the Loop. It smells like the perfectly imperfect blend of ammonia and homelessness that only the floor of an El train can know fully. The person next to her has no problem taking up their own seat and hers. But she can't say anything. After all, it would be so awkward.
This is every single week day now.
But she can hear it, anyway--hear the way a road bike sounds, smoothly dancing down Dearborn street from Chicago's North side on southward. As summer pretends to start, bicycles unsteadily enter the grid-like stream of the city. She can see them from the train, nervous for them, nervous for those riders, the ones who are safe, the ones who aren't, and the cars that can't tell the difference.
And just like that, she remembers what it's like out there; Chicago's impenetrable humid air somehow able to create a breeze beneath her body, whizzing down city streets. And just as quickly, she remembers that feeling of pure fear as doors are flung open, as cars turn right without a second thought, as pedestrians run in a lane designated for someone else. And. the. list. goes. on.
So, she sits on the train, thankful to get a seat, knowing the person next to her could not possibly want to be there any less than her.
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