Next Stop….The Smell That Traveled

Next Stop Stories/ Short Stories

Cashapp: Cheesiepeesie

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Let's have a real conversation because nobody talks about this part of the metro experience enough. The smells Now you might get a little perfume, maybe some food. Cool. But sometimes you get something that don't belong to this world. So I get on the train and everything is normal for about thirty seconds. Then it hits. Not a light smell, not a maybe smell. A what is that small smell? Now everybody reacts the same way, but differently. You got the nose scrunchers, the window lookers, the subtle shirt over the nose people, and then you got the investigators, the ones trying to figure out who did it. Now I'm sitting there holding my breath doing mental math like how many stops do I have before I pass out? But then the smell moves. Yes moves because the source has entered the train. This man walks in like everything is fine, sits down, and the smell sits down with him. Now people start shifting seats opening up like it's an emergency evacuation. One lady gets up so fast I thought the train was on fire. And the man unbothered, pulls out a sandwich a sandwich. Now I don't know what was stronger the smell or my confusion. Because how do you smell like that? And still feel comfortable eating. Eventually people start getting off earlier than their stops. I'm talking about sacrificing their commute just to breathe again. And when my stop finally came, I didn't walk off the train. I escaped, took the deepest breath of fresh air like I just reentered society, and I realized something. The Metro will teach you patience. It will teach you awareness, but most importantly, it will teach you to always be prepared for the unexpected, even when that unexpected is airborne. I'll never look at a normal ride the same again.