I hated working in the city, I hated the subway and I hated Monday’s, so naturally I was already in a bad mood. I scanned the chip hidden inside my wrist to get on the subway.

BEEP.

“Approved. Thank you Mr. Jensen.”

SWOOSH.

Another memory gone. The sad thing is, I can’t even remember which ones I lose. I used to write them all down and cross them off as they disappeared, but it was too much work and I had actual work to focus on.

I sat down in an empty seat. In the subway car was your typical array of citizens. The random drummer to the far right wearing a backwards baseball cap and a vintage giants shirt with his tip jar laid out in front of him; the woman with her baby to the left wearing leggings and an oversized sweatshirt; a few other business types like myself with their phones and briefcases or satchels standing or sitting; the old man across from me with his golfers hat and itchy looking green button down cardigan and khakis; all just your average morning commute company. I checked my watch: 7:45. I would have time to get coffee if everything went smoothly. Perfect. Maybe today will be better than I thought.

It’s almost like Karma herself could read my thoughts. The lights started flickering and the train halted to a stop. You have to be kidding me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the inconvenience, but there’s another vehicle stalled on the track up ahead at our next stop. We will be temporarily stopped until they can get this issue resolved. Please remain seated. I’ll let you know when we will resume our trip.”

PERFECT! I yelled in my head. The old man across from me must have seen my exasperated facial expression because he started laughing directly at me which made me furious.

“Is something funny, sir?”

“No.” The old man continued chuckling. “You just remind me of myself about 30 years ago. I would have reacted the same way as you are right now.”

“It’s hard not to be frustrated. I need to be at work by 8:30 and have a meeting at 9, so I was hoping to get a coffee first and now that seems to be a slim chance at this point.”

“Well, there will be plenty of other coffee days. Sometimes, you just need to embrace the unexpected. Everything happens for a reason. Why do you think you’re stuck here?”

The baby started crying and the woman holding him started rocking him and shushing in his ear gently.

“I don’t know, sir and I really don’t think that there’s a purpose for us being stuck here. There’s a stalled subway car up front and they don’t want us to smash into it, so I guess I’m stuck here so I can stay alive?”

He started laughing again. “But what does it mean to be alive? Are you living?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the issue has been fixed and we will now proceed to our next stop at 5th and Main. I apologize for the slight delay. Thank you and have a great day.”

I didn’t know how to respond to the old man so I just kind of stared at him for a minute.

“LeRoy. That’s my name. You don’t have to keep calling me sir.”

“Well, LeRoy, thank you for the wonderful insight for the day. I’m definitely going to take it into consideration and think about what you said. I hope you have a great rest of your day.” I was sarcastic and I wasn’t trying to be. It’s a downfall of mine. I can’t hide my emotions through my words. My mother always said it would get me in trouble.

The old man tilted his golfers hat, rubbed his whiskers and grunted lowly, “See you around.”

Doubtful. I have never seen this man in my life and I didn’t plan on seeing him again. We pulled into the station, the doors opened and I ran off. 8:05. I still had time to grab that coffee.

**********

8:28. I put my coffee on my desk, unpacked my laptop from the weekend, plugged it in and booted it up to print out my agenda for the meeting.

“Mr. Jensen, you have a call on line 3. I believe it’s your mother.” My lovely secretary couldn’t give me a minute to get settled before starting.