Push

“Everyone kills.”

I force a smile.

Not a grin, nothing cheeky, just a polite upward movement of each end of my mouth. Letting her know I am not rude, but still, not interested.

“No, seriously.”

I hate it when people say that, like I’m not listening hard enough.

“Even vegetarians, you think plants aren’t alive?”

Her tone changes.

All I wanted was a quiet Saturday morning trip to the market.

Saturday morning, it’s part of my weekend routine, I go to Kensington market and wander around. I move through the shops and let the smells guide the decisions I make. Buying teas I may never drink, food I might not eat. I say I want to try something new every week. But really, it’s the ride on the streetcar I enjoy the most. A cup of coffee and a window seat. Staring at the people who walk into the streetcar. Staring out the window at a street filled with early morning pedestrians. I can safely look at people outside without the self-imposed obligation of saying hello. It’s like being invisible, I like that.

“You think you’re living without blood on your hands, but you’re not.” She continues.

I can tell by the way she is talking; she thinks she is educating me. She has trapped me by the window seat. I could get up, push past her and sit somewhere else, but part of me wants to see where she is going with this. “We’re a bunch of hypocrites, everyone one of us.” She adds, turning to face the chair in front of her, letting her odor-a-la-halitosis drift forward and not in my face.

I am familiar with these conversations…you see, I am a nut magnet. I have a look that says, please, yell at me for a while…I’ll take it.

I have one of those soft, eager to please faces.

If they only knew…

“People are harder to kill then you think.” She talks to the back of the chair in front of us. “They don’t just fall down, like in the movies.” She shifts sideways, folding her legs out into the center of the streetcar aisle. “They fight, even if they do it to themselves.”

She stares at the empty seat across the aisle. While she looks away, I sit up and open the window beside the seat in front of me. I drink in the warm air that pushes against my face.

“We’re all just bits of flesh, trying to move on.”

She’s starting to really bum me out, I flirt with the idea of changing seats again.

“I’m waiting to move on.” Her voice sounds tired now, a confession.

I stare at the back of her head. She is frightened container with the misfortune of being wired a notch above the rest of us. She travels near us, but not with us. She has been given a costume that doesn’t fit, a mission she can’t complete.

“I can’t stand it here.” She says, “I’m on the wrong planet.”

She looks around, an unhappy tourist.

Someone gets ups to pull the cord for the next stop as she leans back into me.

I hold my breath.

“Will you kill me?” she whispers, softening the blow of a hard request. “I don’t need a lot of help, just a push maybe, to make it quicker.”

She turns her head towards me, and I make eye contact for the first time. Her eyes are so brown they are almost black.

“Do you know where the Atom bridge is?”

I shake my head slightly; I know where it is and its reputation.

“I’ll be there at midnight.” She gets up and walks towards the exit, not looking back.

I’m angry now. I lost the whole trip. My coffee is cold, and I didn’t get one moment to myself.

But I’m really pissed because hate being out at midnight.