It is 8:38. The train was supposed to depart 3 minutes ago. It has not. I don’t mind this too much because just like my trip down to New York, I have gotten very lucky with my seating arrangement. The couple beside me just took off their shoes which I noticed before looking over. It feels nice knowing that even though we don’t know each other, they feel comfortable enough around me to let their natural pheromones free. It’s not every day that you get the question of what the feet of the people beside you smell like.
They look like a typical Montreal quebecois couple, the man sporting a mustache and an arm full of patchwork tattoos. Looking at him you can almost see the beanie that might rest on his head, surely rolled up above his ears. Traveling feels detached from reality, so this Montreal sight grounded me with the reminder of what I was coming back to.
I have no Wi-Fi, no data, and no phone. Luckily, my April playlist is 12 hours long and I’ve outsourced about ten albums to download. While most of you may see me as a super off the grid person , my lack of phone worries me. What am I supposed to do for this thirteen hour journey if not keep on refreshing instagram just to see the couldn’t load activity banner pop up? How can I cope with the spotty upstate service without checking my email over and over, knowing nothing will load?
Well, these questions are yet to be answered, but I do have lots on my itinerary.
In an effort to look at the positive, I began to think about the gum Georgia bought me sitting in my suitcase. I thought about rooting around trying to find it in hopes it might cover up the foot odor that all these minutes later still finds its way into my nose. There’s two packs of gum, one cinnamon and one bubble gum.
It’s 2 pm. The scent is mostly gone now. I get whiffs of it every once in a while but it’s like last day of a cold… it reminds me to be grateful for what I have. I am alternating between working on a mixtape and reading a page of my book. It is open in my lap and my feet are falling asleep.
The man with the feet has left his position in the row diagonal from where I am sitting. His girlfriend wanted to nap using both chairs and the train car is relatively empty. He decided, with this change, to move to the row directly in front of me. Once again, the tangy odor wafts backwards.
We are approaching the border. He stands up and I can feel him eyeing me. Does he want a pen? If he dares to ask I can only hope he puts his shoes back on before coming any closer.
He’s gone back to sit beside his girlfriend, and they both keep getting up. He’s in the aisle seat, so when she needs to move he does too. The disturbance in the air sends the scent right back over here.
The woman’s socks are deceivingly tan, I thought for a second that she took off her socks too leaving her bare feet to rest against the chair in front of her. This deeply unsettled me, and I hoped that the border patrol agents would see it as a threat against the nation, letting them in on the ultimatum that they behaved with decency and covered their sweaty feet back up.
I think he was listening to Niska. I rustled and rustled through my stuffed bag and eventually came upon some bubblegum. The scent reminded me of last winter and was a welcome distraction from the sour aroma I had come to know.
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