Nikolaj Volgushev
I was to meet my friend on the subway.
Does our town even have a subway? I asked, surprised.
My friend said yes, yes it does. There’s a subway stop close to your flat, in the alley behind the Burger King.
But where do I get a ticket? I asked. I had never been on a subway before but I knew that without a ticket you got a fine.
My friend said check your books, you are probably using it as a bookmark for one of them.
But I don’t own any books, I objected.
Well, then check the library.
So I went to the library and asked the librarian for all the books I had ever borrowed. She came back with a box containing barely a dozen novels.
Are you sure that’s it? I asked. I feel I’ve read more than that.
The librarian said that it was common to overestimate one’s accomplishments. She said it with a facial expression that made me think of a hangnail.
I sat and tried to come up with a book I had read that wasn’t in the box. I wanted to show the librarian that my accomplishments were in fact estimated just fine, but I couldn’t think of one.
Then I remembered that I was meeting my friend on the subway in an hour, so I got to looking through the books for my subway ticket.
I found it eventually, on page 56 of Crime and Punishment (this was as far as I had gotten in that book which reminded me that among the dozen books in the box, I hadn’t actually finished all of them, which meant that the librarian was even more right than she knew).
The ticket was a monthly pass, crinkled and smudged. It had seen better days but I guessed it would do the trick.
In the alley behind the Burger King, I bumped into a strange man. He was very tall and wobbly and dressed in a heavy trench coat. He was wearing a Fedora and shades. I asked if he knew where the entrance to the subway was.
The strange man squeaked.
I realized then that it wasn’t a man at all but a hundred rats, standing one atop the other, masquerading as a man.
The fake rat man wobbled past me, towards the Burger King.
I imagined the plan was to go and order a Double Whopper or whatever and hope that the Burger King employees would not figure out the disguise. I was curious to see how that unfolded, but I was already late so I rushed down the steps to the subway and barely made it on the train.
So where are we going? I asked my friend, once I had caught my breath and displayed my ticket to the impatient conductor.
My friend shrugged.
I have absolutely no idea, he said and so we just rushed on through the bouncy, roaring darkness, with no clear destination in mind.
NIKOLAJ VOLGUSHEV‘s fiction has appeared in the Cafe Irreal; Hoot; Cleaver Magazine; Cease, Cows, and other journals. He currently lives in Göttingen, Germany, where he writes, programs, and does other things along those lines.