Edward Mullany

Tired, I get out of bed in the morning. I brush my teeth. But then I get back in bed, and accidentally fall asleep for another hour. "Where are you?" my boss asks when he calls. "On the train," I say. "It was delayed." "How can you be on the train?" he says. "There's no reception on the train." The truth is I'm still in bed. He woke me when he called. I get out of bed, brush my teeth again hurriedly, and soon am really on the train, which is less full than it is at my usual hour. "I brushed my teeth twice this morning," I say to an old woman next to me, and I grin at her as if I'm a little crazy. "Whatever for?" she says. Then she says, "You young people are all the same," and she gets up and moves to the other end of the carriage. The train slows as it enters the station at which I usually get off. But it doesn't completely stop. I look out the windows and see the faces of other commuters as the train passes the spots on the platform at which they've chosen to stand. Then the train is in the tunnel again, and out the windows I can see only wall.

If you stood in the garden, and looked up at the windows on the second floor, you could see it pressed up against the windowpanes.

He lived in an apartment in a part of town that was close to the rail yards and that always seemed to be cold and wet.