Loud creaking and sharp squeals rip your ears. Soot and body odor threaten to choke out your life. A horrid, nauseating, gag-inducing smell infiltrates your nostrils. Your mind immediately recognizes the odor and you hold your breath. Someone on this train has the flu. Not the stomach flu. The kind of flu where your entire body aches, leaving every joint screaming. The kind where if you caught a whiff of their poison green, mucus laced breath the desire to turn and retch would seem by far the lesser of two evils. The kind of flu that makes your eyes feel they are burning in their sockets and your head threatens to implode with each tremor that racks your body from the splitting headache that plagues your mind. Bodies shuffle up and down the crowded subway, and you curse your stupidity and ill luck for not having brought your ear buds and music. So easily you could have drown out the sound of every human in this god-forsaken train. The train lurches forward and your body suddenly flies backward as your footing abandons you. You feel the soft cushion of flesh as your body, wrapped in cold weather clothes, collides with someone behind you. You scramble to get up, but your numb fingers fail to find anything to grasp. A hand appears in your vision and you immediately take it, glad to be rescued from every other passenger’s accusing stare. You glance up at your savior with full intensions of expressing your thanks. Your face falls as you realize who helped you up. An elderly man with a dirty handkerchief in one hand looks at you from under sleep deprived, dark eyes. He stuffily says,


“Are you alright?”


You nod yes and mutter your thanks as you turn to go. Staring at your contaminated hand, you walk away, grimacing.