My Point of View

I can smell the mould that grows in between each and every synthetic fibre that I am sitting on. Everyone is sitting on it, they just don’t realize it. Every surface that is accessible to hands is covered with millions and millions of microscopic organisms. The very air that I inhale is putrid with dirty gases, filthy germs from the very nostrils of commuting strangers and minute flakes of dandruff that could be mistaken for mere dust.

There is a man sitting two seats away from me. His breathing pattern is heavy through his nose though one nostril is blocked with hard mucus caught at the very tips of the hairs. He is between the ages of seventy-five to eighty-seven and leans on his left side because for some reason, his right hip is acting up again. He smells like furnace oil and must have been emptying out oil to give for some cottagers to use up north. He pulls out something from the inside of his leather jacket; I can tell by the crinkling of his sleeves and the screech of the folds that gather at his elbows as he moves. There is a very faint scent of eau de toilet trailing from the object. The delicate essence of lilac flowers after a light rain intertwined with the vines of violets weave it’s way to me through the aged Toronto air. It is a photo of his late wife. He sighs and wipes a tear away from his cheek, his gnarled dry fingers rubbing like sandpaper against his pleated stubble face, the single tear splashing onto the ground. Surprisingly, I can hear it, the ripples and the gentle sound of the water droplet collapsing on itself before flattening out into a small disregarded puddle amazes me. The car shakes a bit, slows down and then keeps going. He slips the photo back into his pocket. “Union station, the next stop will be Union station.”

Next, I move onto the lady sitting in front of me. She is young, probably between the ages of twenty-five to thirty. She just finished applying a thick glaze of strawberry flavoured lip gloss, the kind that smells sickly-sweet; the chemicals used to make it are raw in the air. I wrinkle my nose. Her left heel is ever so restless against the vinyl floor, tapping at a moderate tempo. Her heel is thin, probably the stiletto kind. There is a rough sound of ruffling pages, a newspaper perhaps? The odour of the ink is that of the Toronto Star and it quickly meshed with the underground tunnel air. She is chewing a mint flavoured piece of gum, maybe Stride because of the amount of aspartame I can detect. Annoyingly, the gum gives up to the pounding of her jaw, cracking loudly as if she took bubble wrap and chewed on it. She then crosses her right leg over her left, continuing the steady tempo. Her panty hose rubs together, fine mesh net to fine mesh net. Although, it sounds more like a child walking on a waxed floor with wet shoes to me.

Her phone in her bag is vibrating but she cannot hear it so I tell her. She starts an animated conversation with the person on the other line. Frankly, I cannot help but eavesdrop on their conversation. And please, don’t think me as a perverted creeper; it’s just what I do: listen. “We are now arriving at Union station; we are now arriving at Union station.” Suddenly, the car comes to a stop and the doors are pulled back with compressed air. Not many commuters enter from the platform. The doors close again and we are moving at a very rapid speed again. A strong scent of pine has wafted its way into the car. I turn to my side.

Now there is a little girl sitting between the old man and myself, licking an orange flavoured lolly pop. She swings her legs back and forth, back and forth. There is a balloon tied to her wrist, the helium slowly leaking out. It reminds me of my neighbours who, when using their barbecue, purposely let the propane gas shriek through the seams of the valve. Old wool. She is wearing a wool pea coat that smells like it was just taken out of a deep space in the closet in the basement of her home. There is ferret hair all over her coat. The pine scent tells me that she helped move some small trees her height. I inhale deeply as this is the only good thing I can allow myself to breathe. It is soothing and refreshes my nostrils, creating childhood memories spark to life. I imagined mother and father decorating the evergreen tree outside, hanging the lights and putting up the ornaments. The girl starts biting the lolly pop, her teeth crushing the pieces into shards. She swallows loudly, a big gulp. She proceeds to gnaw on the stick. “St. Andrew station, the next stop will be St. Andrew station.”

I shift my weight in my seat as my butt has fallen asleep. This is the world through my point of view, so to say. I see the world with my ears. I see the world with my nose. What you can’t necessarily hear with your ears or smell with your nose is crystal clear to me. I have learned that the gift of blindness is anything but a burden, I truly get to appreciate the hidden things that you take for granted. It’s simply another way of looking at the world.