Johnathon Morris's shadow.

Today was another lonely morning for Johnathon Morris to wake up and get ready for work. It was early. Very early. So very early that the sun had yet to rise. But his job as a computer engineer and teacher at the local community college had a morning class, and driving there is out of the question when one does not possess an automobile. So Johnathon had to catch the Subway to work every day. The first one that left in the bleak hours of the morning, of all things. So he had to wake himself up, pull himself to get ready, and depart to the station in the chilly fall air so he could catch it. The walk from his apartment complex to the subway station was cold and refreshing for him; he had a smoke and not a soul was on the street. It was quiet and peaceful for his head, something he needed. But every morning when he got his coffee and made his way into the first cart on the station, he hoped to be alone. But always there like a ghost haunting the train, that familiar woman stood in the same cart with him. She would almost always initiate conversation with him, only to flounder through it, attempting to end the discussion as quickly as possible.

"Why are you always following me around?" he would ask, starting to get mildly bothered. A kind and stifled voice made its way through the checkered black and white scarf she adorned.

"I'm just going the same way you're going. Please pay it no heed." Her politeness was difficult to begrudge, even for somebody as young and embittered as Johnathon Morris.

"You say that," he began, "but every single day for the past three weeks you've been following me to work." He blew on his hands from the cold and massaged the glint on his finger before rubbing his hands together. "Seriously, you're always here when I get on, when I leave, and I never see you coming and going. It feels like I'm being stalked."

"Well rest assured, you're not." She brushed her chestnut bangs away from her soft eyes. An innocent glance passed through Johnathon Morris and he quivered a bit as he pulled up his brown and musky coat to reserve himself.

"...You're always looking at me." he refuted.

"That I am." her gentle voice affirmed, reflecting no regret or denial.

"Outright admitting it, huh? Seems a bit shameless, don't you think?"

"Not at all." Her curious angelic smirk didn't falter amidst the crude accusations Johnathon Morris made.

"Oh for the love of..." As soon as he arrived at his stop, he stopped for a bit and glanced at the woman. She was pretty. She dressed simply, but it allowed the attention to be focused more on her features than her attire. He paused for a bit. She let out a calm and sweet smile that made him flustered, so he left the cart to his job. And as 10 hours had passed, he returned to the subway. The carts weren't that crowded despite it being well into the evening. He eventually worked his way to the back where there was an empty cart. Or at least so he thought. He peered around. To the left, then to the right. Then back to the left of the carriage, and there she was, sitting casually in her seat eating ramen noodles from a local restaurant.

"Hello."

"WHY?" he shouted.

"Why what?" she calmly asked.

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HERE?"

"I did not ride this particular cart yesterday, I merely rode it today."

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FOLLOWING ME?"

"I believe I was here first." Johnathon Morris attempted to talk but he stuttered and stammered and blurted out tongues before articulating coherent thoughts again.

"I JUST LOOKED WHERE YOU WERE!" he proclaimed. "NOTHING WAS THERE! THEN I LOOKED BACK AGAIN, AND THERE YOU WERE!"

"You sound as if your mind is slipping." the woman responded, crossing her legs as she slurped her noodles. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't find words. They were lost, running around inside his head and he wasn't able to catch them through the myriad of other thoughts he was fighting his way through. He simply sighed and sat down in the seat opposite of her.

"Everywhere I go, fucking people there." he muttered. "Just some time to myself would be nice. That's all I ask for."

"You must really want to be alone." commented the woman as she continued to eat.

"Yeah, you can't possibly begin to imagine..." there was a snide tone to his voice. There was a long pause. "...You aren't going to leave, are you?"

"I believe I was here first." she reiterated. He shook his head and rested it on his palms as the lights of the subway tunnel flickered in through the windows.

"Good god, just sometimes..."

"God doesn't seem very good to you from the sounds of it." the woman replied.

"Oh... you have no idea."

"Not a religious man, I presume?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Any reason why?"

"None I'm willing to disclose." His cold disposition wouldn't budge. The woman's cool aura faltered a bit.

"That's a pity." A hint of disappointment that was present when she spoke was laced with a slightly condescending twist.

"God ain't done a damn thing for me, and for all I care he can keep it that way." A pious absence in his voice echoed throughout the train. "I'm doing just fine without him, thank you very much."

"You don't seem to be." She said. Johnathon's eyebrow twitched while a coy smirk crossed the young woman's face. She was perceptive.

"Well don't you think you know a lot?" his voice raised. He was getting angry. "So tell me what else you know, why don't you? If you're so damn slick." Her detached demeanor wasn't shaken as he stood up in front of her. She continued to eat her noodles as a long silence permeated the empty carriage, until she finally decided to speak.

"Is this not your stop?" she pointed with her spork at the door opening. It was his stop. Johnathon sighed a bit, and stormed out of the cart back to his empty home. He didn't sleep well that night. He had more misanthropic thoughts before finally losing himself to the night. This was the cycle that Johnathon had with his passenger virtually every single morning he got on the train. Just when his mood hit rock bottom and wanted to be alone, of all coincidences the friendly and gentle commuter started showing up. Her young voice never had ill intent, but it still served to pester Johnathon whenever he saw her during his morning travels and on his way back home. He seriously considered other means of transportation to avoid her, but the financial crunch he was in didn't permit any other alternatives. So he simply tried his best to avoid speaking to her whenever he could. And if she started talking, he would often have a snide quip at the ready to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

"Hey, it's my commuting buddy."

"Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you're here like always." he drearily muttered as he sipped his morning coffee and took his seat.

"You always seem to find your way to my cart. Is it not you perhaps who is seeking me out?"

"Don't flatter yourself." he drank more of his coffee as the glint on his hand caught a few sparse rays of the rising sun. In clear defiance of the 'No-Smoking' sign tacked on the wall of the rattling subway, he pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He then pulled out a sharpee and wrote 'Last Pack' on it in big bold letters.

"Those things will kill you." she pointed out.

"No shit, they will."

"Then why do you continue to smoke them?" she said as he lit a cigarette.

"Because it's one of the only legal and enjoyable ways of committing suicide that I can think of." he smugly remarked.

"That's a rather dark thought to have."

"I'm in a rather dark place to be having those kinds of thoughts."

"Ho hum, fair enough. But just because nobody else is in here doesn't mean you should be smoking."

"...You're a nosy woman, you know that?" Johnathon coldly remarked, inhaling from his cigarette and letting the smoke swirl inside his chest a bit before expelling it. "You're like my mother." She blushed despite his voice being riddled with venom.

"Oh, I'm flattered." she abashedly responded.

"I hated my mother." There was an unrelenting forwardness to his rude voice as he stood up and looked out the door, watching the morning scenery stream by.

".....Well, I'm still a bit flattered, though." was whispered under his breath.

"Hmm?" Johnathon turned around,and there she was, leaning in slightly towards him, remarkably close to his face while a hint of bliss was on her own, almost as if she was relieved.

"You remember me fairly well, don't you?" she continued leaning in, oh so careful not to touch him while her warm breath in the cold air was illuminated by the passing sunlight through the windows. His face began to flash with that sort of timid brightness and quickly turned away from her.

"You're always here, meandering around. It's not like I could forget. It'd be like forgetting a landmark." Smoke fizzed out of his nostrils as the brightness faded. The smoke went right through the woman without minding her in the slightest.

"Well, I'm just saying that's nice that you remember me, that's all." Her delicate cold hands began to slowly reach for his as he turned away again. The passing sun through the windows lit up the room and she caught the light on his hands and pulled herself away while she continued to talk.

"Being remembered is nice, isn't it?" she asked him.

"No, not really."

"Why not?"

"Like you." he spoke, continuing not to face her. "You're an irritating person who doesn't notice that I just want to be left alone. Remembering you isn't necessarily a good thing." She didn't mind the malicious intent behind his words much.

"Well I think your own fault for choosing to remember the bad things, is it not?" He didn't say anything. He didn't have anything to say. "I bet a lot of your problems would be solved if you can just choose to forget the bad things that happened and focus on the good things happening now."

"Are you a Jehovah’s Witness by any chance?" Johnathon sardonically asked. "I almost feel like you're trying to recruit me into a cult. All this talk about religion and remembrance and optimism. If I give any more time of the day, you'll probably bring up Jesus."

"Spirituality doesn't necessarily have to be tied to religion." the woman politely refuted. "This is your stop, by the way. Enjoy your work." She almost began ushering him out the door, but with a simple grunt he acknowledged her and shuffled out to work on his own. Forgetting would do Johnathon Morris a lot of good. The thoughts in his head slowly began to shift throughout that day, though. The anger was slowly purged during his entire day at work, slowly being replaced with a bleak emptiness that was swallowing up the anger. When he got on the train, lo and behold he saw the woman sitting down in a cart by herself, her face dripping with liquid from the burger she was ingesting.

"...Classy." he muttered as he sat down across from her. Her face had a big smile on it despite it being slightly mauled by her meal.

"Did you not notice what you did just now?" her voice a bit giddy.

"What?" he submissively responded

"I didn't talk to you. You engaged me first in conversation."

"......Hmm." was the only noise that made its way through the haze in his throat.

"I think this is the first step towards us becoming friends."

"I don't want friends, I want to be left alone." There was a lack of sharpness in his voice.

"Well, you can't be alone forever." she remarked. "It's a bit childish to feel that way, no?"

"I'm a bit of a childish person."

"Oh I believe you are, absolutely. No doubt." She was eager to agree. That irritated him a bit. "But people aren't always alone, you know. And I doubt you were, either. But I suppose time changes those kinds of things, don't they?"

"Hmm."

"Of course it can fix those things as well." She paused a bit. "But I suppose you know all this. You're a childish person, but I don't believe you're a child." He didn't respond. The majority of the train ride was in silence. The woman knew not to say anything this time. She kept her voice to herself unless he was ready to speak. When they arrived at his stop, he stood up near the door and just stared out for a bit.

"There's always a lack of time, isn't there?" A smile briefly crossed her face.

"Never a lack of time, just an impatience for how slow it can be." He just nodded and walked off the subway cart back to his empty house. The emptiness that night was stronger than usual. He felt exposed even in his own home, almost as if a wall was knocked down to subject him to the elements. He shivered a bit in his large bed as he fell asleep. As he awoke, he shook himself off a bit, almost pulling himself out of his own head for a moment to breathe. He stretched and massaged his dim, lonely hands for a bit, and he pulled himself out of bed to get ready for work. When he left his house, he began his walk to the subway. He ran out of cigarettes and didn't have a smoke this walk. It was odd for him. When he got on the subway cart, there was the woman again, dressed warmly with her brown hair poured out onto her shoulders. The cart had a few people in it, but Johnathon settled down.

"Good morning." he coldly muttered, slightly irritated from the nicotine withdrawal.

"Good to see you're not smoking this morning." Her voice sounded encouraging. He grunted as he shivered from the cold a bit. "You seem to be in a slightly better mood than usual."

"I'm managing." responded Johnathon, sipping his coffee and holding it gently with his bare fingers.

"You know, for all the time that we've seen each other, I don't believe we've ever even mentioned our names yet."

"Probably because I was hoping that eventually you would've given up on me and left me alone, but that clearly didn't work." His snide quip was absent of his usual hostility. "Fine, I'll bite. Introduce yourself."

"My name's Anselma."

"Johnathon."

"So does this mean we're friends now?" she politely asked. He sneered a bit at the question.

"Liberal use of that word, but I'll humor you, Anselma." She smiled and stood up. The sunlight illuminating the window behind her gave her the appearance almost of a seraph as light bloomed behind her like wings.

"I'm grateful for your generosity, Johnathon," her sincere voice swelled with a subtle yet slightly mocking joy. "I believe we should celebrate."

"...I'm already regretting this." His dripping sarcasm attempted to hide a smile creeping up on his face. The cart made a stop as the doors swung open.

"Although I have to leave, ironically enough." she remarked. "This is my stop for today."

"Right then. I guess I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, Johnathon." She stepped off, the doors creaked shut, and the cart started moving again. It was peculiar with her absence on the train, even with the other people in the cart he felt alone. He didn't like it. Not liking it was refreshing for him.

"...I suppose she'll be around." He sighed and laughed a bit, curious as to what he might've just gotten himself into again.