Pat's Travail Home ?

Pat should have just gone home

Pat shifted the briefcase and Victoria’s Secret bag from her left hand to her right to once again check her watch. She’d been standing nearly an hour on the platform. After court today, she should have gone straight home to polish her opening argument, incorporating today’s negative rulings on their final motions, but couldn’t resist Vicki’s semi-annual sale. Now rush hour was in full bloom and she was caught in a press of elbows and feet jostling for position as they waited for trains to transport them out of the working world. She shifted from one foot to the other, the weight of the work she was not doing growing in increasing proportion to the time she waited to get to it.

Pat spotted an open seat and approached, figuring the old woman wearing a hospital band across her wrist was harmless, shuffling packages and humming to herself. Pat walked over to the seat and gingerly set the Vicky’s bag across the seat before lowering herself atop it shielding her best suit, okay, her only good suit. She could always press the new blouse once she got home. The old woman greeted her by sending her unadorned aroma wafting through he station. Pat jumped, but not quickly enough to avoid a rush of water running down the back of her leg.

Disgusting! She wet the seat! My suit must be ruined! She yelled, reaching to grab her bag. The old woman looked up at her and laughed as Pat stopped short. She could only stare as the contents of a recently full colostomy bag ran in meandering rivulets to the platform from atop her bag.

The blare of the train’s horn sounded the final death’s knell to Pat’s planned evening of writing, punctuating the end of a perfectly rotten day.

© 2006 manga_kate

Prompt ~ Something horrible or comical in a subway station.

For Daily Flash Fiction ~ word count, 300