The Reckoning
An editor of crossword puzzles has an encounter on a train that changes his life.
By Eric W. Gershman
Literary Fiction, 15 minutes | Courtesy of Hive Avenue Literary Journal
After the pandemic, the number 3 train was all that was left of my social life. It was the one place in New York where I could gaze at all the girls I'd never have the nerve to approach.
But then came Jenny, riding that train and jolting me off my tracks.
Firstly, you can blame my ex for my confidence level. Who drops the ball that you're breaking up with someone on New Year’s Eve, and then leaves before midnight? I can honestly say that after 17 months I am finally over her.
“No more Marci talk. Simon and I are tired of hearing of her,” my friend Rob says to me over the phone, while he gets the drip at the Mayo Clinic. I literally am not allowed to say the M-word anymore. He and my friend Simon just want me to move on.
My lack of a social life is not my fault. I go to work where I go to work putting together crossword puzzles, then I go to lunch where I go to lunch, then I go to the gym where I go to the gym, and then I go home. It’s a life that is just not conducive to socializing, and New York is really tough for meeting people anyway. So transient, you know?
But Jenny was a different passenger.