© Copyright 1993, by Diane Fenster
We Took the Train Together to My Apartment (107K gif)

WE TOOK THE TRAIN TOGETHER
TO MY APARTMENT
Story by JEFF BRICE (396k .mov)

It was a year when everything seemed to be going my way. It was that year I met her. I had just started this company, and we met at her job. We did business together. It was that year that they removed the guilded clock from the Biltmore. We did lunch. Russia was the wolf at the door. Synthetics continued to be improved. We went out a couple of times: to the park, to a movie. It seemed like the beginning of something serious this time. Apartments were scarce in the city. Everyone had roomates to help pay the high costs of the rents, even for the rat trap I lived in. Someone had tried to shoot the president. She had a roomate. It didn't mean they were lovers. Scientists discovered a global warming trend. I made my intentions no secret. The moon was to be full on June 6. A study found no difference in intelligence between delinquents and non-delinquents in the suburbs. We heard constant reports of terrorist activities in other countries. I invited her over to dinner one night. We took the train together to my apartment. Running this business was giving me opportunities that I never enjoyed before. Detection systems using bars of aluminum, niobium, silicon or sapphire were implemented to discover the nature of gravity. We ate dinner. The dollar was up. Newspaper charts showed the Warsaw Pact as black icons and NATO as white icons. Black was ahead. After dinner she told me that she was in love with her roomate and they were lovers. Astronomers discovered the possiblility of a black hole in the center of my universe, where gravity was so strong no light could escape. We walked back to the train station. It was a long quiet walk. Later that year my business partner had a heart attack, our investor stopped investing. As we said goodbye at the train station I knew I would never see her again. The buildings blocked out the night sky as I walked back to the lonely apartment.