N.

When you’re standing on the subway platform at 5:47 in the morning, surrounded by other people in numbers and neon shirts, the train comes in on the tracks across from yours. Through the windows, you see people with places to go, even this early on a Saturday, in clothing that covers all of their limbs. Reading newspapers. Taking naps. Maybe still drunk. Maybe wishing to be drunk.

You’re not nervous. Not yet. The train rolls past, still a novelty to you, country girl, and as the sparks strike against the track and the steady blue bleats against the tiled walls, you’re not sure which one is the lightning and which one is the thunder.