Schmidt Monday
The clock on the wall of the train reads 8:24 AM. With nothing but a coffee in his hand, Schmidt Monday sits on the metallic seat on his way to work. The city is far too busy for him to be able to travel by car; not to mention the fact that he doesn't have one. He only has a cycle he rides to work when the weather allows. Very few people own cars, though; why own one if you're not really driving it? All cars or motorcycles are driver-less vehicles.
Every few minutes the train would come to a stop and passengers would get off and new passengers would fill it up again. And every time, the passengers cringe at the feel of cool steel as they sit down. Schmidt never does though; he wouldn't dare let any stranger notice his discomfort.
A woman boards the train and sits next to Schmidt. The one thing Schmidt hated more than talking to people, was being close to them. Reluctant, he silently sighed to himself and faced the window to his right, trying to distract himself with the view of the city; and avoid any conversational contingencies with this woman who obviously doesn't respect anyone's privacy. People walk, ride, or talk. And the 3000 feet skyscraper tips were hiding above the clouds. All the buildings look like different lengthened needles; slick shiny and the closest thing to an edge is the deadly, spiked tips. The clouds are always grey. Always. Schmidt liked that the world is either silver or grey; no complexity or distractions.
For a small moment he forgot about the woman next to him. He thought to himself that he could probably get used to being closer to people, and his face felt a splash of warmth from satisfaction. Albeit, people usually have the habit of ruining things for Schmidt, and this woman is apparently no exception.
"Wow, these things go pretty fast, huh? I was always afraid to go on trains when I was young; I thought they went so fast they would blow up!", she said looking around but clearly directing her words to Schmidt. A muscle in his cheek twitched. "You seem pretty used to it, though.", she went on. "So does everyone else here. It took a long time for me to be able to breath properly on one of these. They are also just so high up off the ground and you can see things miles away. I suppose the distance is relative, though. After all this city isn't big at all compared to other cities; this one is like one grain of sand on an enormous beach. Which is why I never understood why people say 'It's a small world', if you run into someone from your job it's obviously because they live and work in the same area; then that would mean 'it's a small neighborhood'. Well anyway, my point is that this world is incomprehensibly huge! What's your name?", she asked.
The timing could not have been better. The train came to Schmidt's stop. He got up and said, "Excuse me.", and walked out of the train. There wasn't a snowflake's chance in hell he was gonna get sucked into this. He shook off the annoyance he felt from the sound of her high pitched voice and constant chatter, and walked into the hospital, across the street where he worked as an implant surgeon. Any sane person can guess what that means. The name speaks for itself.
--- This is a short story I wrote for an eighth grade Sci-Fi Language Arts Project. This is only the first short chapter. More are to come. Hope you liked. I'm not sure if this is what some people use this cite for, but here goes nothing.
