The subway is crowded and shoving her butt onto a seat is difficult, but possible.
She pulls out a book and when the train stops a whole new slew of people push through the door. She attends to her book.
The aisle clears and a suitcase slides down the aisle and jerks to a halt in front of her. It's orange and she looks around to see who it belongs to. No one comes to claim it so she returns to her book. After several minutes she looks up and the suitcase is still there. No one looks at it, however there is a person with a large grey duffle bag standing near the suitcase so she thinks it might belong to him. It's still not clear who is in possession of it.
A woman with a wig is leaning against the door. Her face is covered by her long dark hair.
Maybe the suitcase belongs to her.
Her mind drifts to that day in the park when a police helicopter circled over the reservoir and the wind from the chopper made giant waves in the water. The emergency vehicles came speeding on the bridle path creating a massive cloud of dust behind them. When she approached the north end of the reservoir a police man came up the path and pulled out the yellow tape to keep her and others from approaching. She watched as the divers unlocked the fence and made their way down the steep embankment to the water in search of a body.
The water was dark and murky and the helicopter was hovering at a precarious angle. The sound was whipping past her ears and she scoped the surface of the water to see if there was anything there. Nothing floating, no debris or divers. Her heart raced with anticipation and from behind she heard an emergency officer's walkie-talking. In a tinny electronic voice, "we got him."
Where she stood she could barely see the divers pull the body out of the water and place it on the floating gurney. But there it was. Still and alone.
The gravel path dusts up as she heads toward the emergency vehicles, also cordoned off and the divers peel off their wetsuits. The body is transferred into an ambulance which stands still for a while. Then the vehicles depart one at a time and the police tape is removed. She circles the reservoir one more time and when she approaches the spot where the body was retrieved a group of teenage school boys race past in a tight pack, naked torsos, wearing only their shorts and they are beautiful.
She thinks, "that is a lot of testosterone." Her heart aches seeing the beauty of young, alive flesh: before scars and blemishes mark time with wisdom and pain. Innocence is ripe and fermenting.
The orange suitcase is alone, but filled with something. Clothes, and she is quite certain someone will claim it as their own.
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