Coma

Susan needed no more encouragement. She switched the nurse’s uniform parcel to her right hand and squatted down at the edge of the platform, placing her left palm on the edge. Then she vaulted the four feet down onto the tracks, landing on her feet but allowing herself to absorb the shock by bending her legs. In an instant she was up, running into the tunnel.

Panic flooded over her and she stumbled on the wooden ties. She fell sideways toward the third rail. Instinctively she let go of her parcel and grabbed for one of the I-beams, managing to deflect herself enough so that she missed the third rail by inches. As she landed, her left hand hit a small piece of wood, which flipped up and landed against the third rail and the ground. With a blinding flash of electricity and a popping noise the piece of wood was incinerated. The acrid smell of an electrical fire filled the air.

Scrambling to her feet despite a sharp pain in her left ankle, mindlessly clutching at her package, Susan tried to run again on the ties. Just within the mouth of the tunnel, there was a series of switches, creating a maze of tracks and a bewildering pattern of rail and ties underfoot. With no time to figure out the intricacies of the track, Susan stumbled ahead.

But her dragging left boot snagged between two rails. She fell again.

Expecting her pursuer to be on her at any second, Susan struggled to one knee. Her left foot was jammed fast between the two rails. She pulled to try to extricate herself, straining forward with effect. All she managed to do was to aggravate the pain in her ankle. Bending down, she clutched at her leg with her hands and pulled in desperation. She didn’t allow herself to look back.

Suddenly an agonizing screech filled the air, forcing Susan to let go of her leg and gasp for breath. She thought that something had happened to her but she was still alive. Then it happened again; a noise so loud in the underground cavern that she instinctively covered her ears with her palms. Even so, the noise caused a sharp pain deep within her middle ears.

Then she knew what it was. It was the train! It was the shriek of the train whistle.

Susan looked up into the blackness of the tunnel and saw the single penetrating light. She began to feel the thundering vibration of the tons of steel bearing down at her at great speed. Then there was another sound, deeper yet even more penetrating than the whistle. It was the rasp of steel against steel as the wheels of the oncoming train locked in a vain and desperate attempt to stop. But it was useless. The momentum was too great.

Susan had no idea which track her foot was caught in, nor could she tell which track bore the train. The light seemed to be coming directly at her. With a desperate, manic jerk she pulled her foot from her boot and wrenched herself in the direction of the outbound track.

Her outstretched arms and hands cushioned the fall as she sprawled across a rail. By reflex she pulled herself into a ball and covered her head with her arms. The vibration and the rasp came to a crescendo and with a whoosh the train passed some five feet away.

Susan didn’t move for a moment. She couldn’t believe what had happened.. Her pulse was racing and her hands were wet. But she was alive and, except for some bruises, she was all right. Her overcoat was torn and several buttons had popped off. There was a band of grease across it and part of the white lab coat she wore beneath it. Her pens and penlight were gone, scattered in the tunnel. One of the earpieces to her stethoscope was bent at right angles.

She stood up and brushed off the larger pieces of debris and reclaimed her boot. By merely depressing the heel and lifting the toe, she extricated it with ease that belied her earlier difficulties. By the time she had it on, she could see several men running toward her with lights.

When she was helped onto the platform, the whole experience already seemed like a total figment of her imagination, as if she were totally out of control. There was no man in a dark coat. There was just a large crowd of people who excitedly shouted with each other about what had happened and what should happen. Someone found her parcel on the track and brought it to her.

Susan denied injury. She thought about saying something about the man, but then again she was unsure of her own grasp of what had been real and what had been imagined. She had panicked and was still overwrought. She couldn’t think and she wanted to go home more than anything else.

She had to spend fifteen minutes assuring the train crew that she had simply slipped off the platform, was now perfectly fine, and definitely didn’t need an ambulance. Susan insisted that all she wanted was to get to Park Street to catch the Huntington line. Finally Susan and the others entered the train, the doors closed, and it pulled out of the station.