#53

The train was mercifully I crowded that morning. He was still groggy from not enough sleep and grew tired as he watched the woman across from him sticking and pulling a threaded needle up and down on a white circle cloth. The thread was a deep purple color, like the veins he could see in his own hands.

Flowers. She was doing a needlepoint of flowers. Of course. He could see where the green stems would eventually go. What were those purple flowers called? Not violets. Those were more round than the long things she was working on. Poppies? Peonies? Pansies? He struggled to find the word, resisted taking out his phone and looking it up. He closed his eyes and tried to hear his mother’s voice pointing to the purple petals that had unfolded while there was still frost on the grass. She called them grape flowers, but that wasn’t their real name. Why did she call them grape flowers if she hated the smell? They smelled like funerals, so she never allowed them in the house. But she loved grapes. Always had a big bowl on the table. Lilacs? Lavender? No. He inhaled deeply, crinkling his nose at just the thought of the cloying scent and what it was there to cover up at her funeral. The smell of death. He regretted not knowing more scientific names of things.

“Shit! My hyacinths.”

That was it. Hyacinths! His eyes opened searching for the purple again. He found it, but it was now spotted in red. Blood red. The woman must have stabbed herself with needle. That’s the risk you take doing something like that on the subway, he thought.

He watched the bloodstain blossom wider and wider as subway jostled to a slow stop at the next station. The woman got up, still swearing, leaving tiny drips behind her on the blue plastic seat. The man crinkled his nose. He hated the smell of blood.