Therefore I Am

Shit. There's nothing I can do. I get on the train. It's packed with men with worn faces. I sit beside a man who might be sleeping. From my bag, I remove my small black journal. It's too crowded to add anything to my journal. The last entry describes my meeting with my banker. The smell in the cab is overwhelming. What I need is space and time. The description of the meeting with my banker is dull, I don't have enough money for him to care.

The man beside me has a duffle-bag by his feet. His hands are worn; dirty really. His eyes are heavy. I'm glad that I'm not him.

We come to a station in some small town that I don't really know. My dirty friend gets up, leaving his bag, and walks off the train not even thinking about what he might be forgetting. I wait. No one gets on the train, leaving me alone with the duffle-bag. Cheree plays in my mind as I wonder what to do next. I think of Daniel Johnston. I don't know what to do. I write what I'm thinking in my journal. It beats my banker entry.

So the duffle-bag. I wonder about it. What could be in it - should I touch it? Well with no one here to say anything, I decide to see what's in it. I lift the bag onto the empty seat next to me. It was green, but now's more brown. I unzip it from the top. The first thing that I see is a shaving kit. It looks unused; razor, shaving cream, mirror. I rummage around it and to my suprise I find money. Cash. Lot's of cash. Enough cash to make my banker happy. The money is wrapped making it easy to count. Twenty-thousand from what I count.

I look across the row. The near man is sleeping. The other man is looking out the window. He's tall with slicked-back hair. Out the window it's white falling with snow. It's quiet. Most people are sleeping. The next stop isn't for at least two hours. I zip up the duffle-bag. I describe the scene in my journal ending with a question of what to do with the money or more really, the bag.

A woman walks down the aisle. She has a small docile dog under her arm. A papillon, I think. She's dressed better than most on the train. Her hair flows down to her waist. She's thin. I can only guess that she's going to the toilet. I pull the duffle-bag close to me as she passes by. I don't know why. She smells nice. What am I supposed to do? I think about Born Slippy. I write in my journal what I'm thinking as she passes. The pounding bass the pounding bass. The smell. The pounding bass. And my heart is beating. She passes. And some minutes later she returns. She looks directly at me. I return her look. She could be speaking to me - It's that little souvenir of a terrible year... I can't think of the rest as she passes.

Out the window it's white falling with snow.

I take out the shaving kit and look at it closely. It hasn't been used. I decide to use it myself. I walk to the bathroom and lock the door behind me. There's a small sink with a mirror above it. I rinse my face in warm water and lather the soap. I cover my face in soap. I open the straight razor. It looks reflective and sharp. I proceed to shave. The train, being not to smooth, makes this quite difficult. In the end I'm clean shaven without a nick. I clean the sink and wipe down the mirror. I think about the woman walking down the aisle.

When I return to my seat, the woman is seated in the aisle seat.

"Good evening." I manage.

"I'm sorry. Is it ok if I sit here?" The woman asks.

"Of course. The man earlier got off at the last stop."

I slide past her square legs and sit next to the window. I slide the bag over under my legs and return the shaving kit. I think of Therefore I am - don't believe what you heard. It's distortion managing the sound. Me, I'm getting better every day. The distortion. The woman looks at me. Then down at my bag. I bundle the bag under my seat with my heels. I could be at the Boiler Room. The people on the train could be anyone. Dancing like Ian Curtis. Dimensional sound. Seriously.

I collect my journal and open it to a blank page. I notice the woman looking over. "I write notes. Bits of my life." I say without being asked. "Oh. I don't do that." "It helps." I say. I write "Therefore I am," "You see I've been around this world, why am a talking to you." I could write more. "Here it comes." Some Christmas song. The woman asks "What's Here it comes?" "Just a Christmas song." Her dog sleeps in her lap.

I don't know anyone who keeps the kind of journal I keep. It's all music and how I'm feeling and sometimes my bank manager. I don't have any friends, not a brother or sister who does anything like it. My parents are dead. There's no one who cares or would care if I stopped writing. For some reason I just keep writing.

We were coming to the next stop soon. I collect my book and the bag and wait. The woman next to me looks at the bag. Her dog sleeps. I look at her. I open my journal.