{"id":8526,"date":"2022-01-30T18:30:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T01:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8526"},"modified":"2022-01-30T18:53:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T01:53:20","slug":"subway","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8526","title":{"rendered":"Subway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nikolaj Volgushev<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was to meet my friend on the subway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does our town even have a subway? I asked, surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend said yes, yes it does. There’s a subway stop close to your flat, in the alley behind the Burger King. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But where do I get a ticket? I asked. I had never been on a subway before but I knew that without a ticket you got a fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend said check your books, you are probably using it as a bookmark for one of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don’t own any books, I objected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, then check the library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I went to the library and asked the librarian for all the books I had ever borrowed. She came back with a box containing barely a dozen novels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you sure that’s it? I asked. I feel I’ve read more than that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The librarian said that it was common to overestimate one’s accomplishments. She said it with a facial expression that made me think of a hangnail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat and tried to come up with a book I had read that wasn’t in the box. I wanted to show the librarian that my accomplishments were in fact estimated just fine, but I couldn’t think of one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I remembered that I was meeting my friend on the subway in an hour, so I got to looking through the books for my subway ticket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found it eventually, on page 56 of Crime and Punishment<\/em> (this was as far as I had gotten in that book which reminded me that among the dozen books in the box, I hadn’t actually finished all of them, which meant that the librarian was even more right than she knew). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ticket was a monthly pass, crinkled and smudged. It had seen better days but I guessed it would do the trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the alley behind the Burger King, I bumped into a strange man. He was very tall and wobbly and dressed in a heavy trench coat. He was wearing a Fedora and shades. I asked if he knew where the entrance to the subway was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strange man squeaked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realized then that it wasn’t a man at all but a hundred rats, standing one atop the other, masquerading as a man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fake rat man wobbled past me, towards the Burger King. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagined the plan was to go and order a Double Whopper or whatever and hope that the Burger King employees would not figure out the disguise. I was curious to see how that unfolded, but I was already late so I rushed down the steps to the subway and barely made it on the train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where are we going? I asked my friend, once I had caught my breath and displayed my ticket to the impatient conductor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend shrugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have absolutely no idea, he said and so we just rushed on through the bouncy, roaring darkness, with no clear destination in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

NIKOLAJ VOLGUSHEV<\/strong>‘s fiction has appeared in the\u00a0Cafe Irreal; Hoot; Cleaver Magazine; Cease, Cows,\u00a0<\/em>and other journals. He currently lives in G\u00f6ttingen, Germany, where he writes, programs, and does other things along those lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikolaj Volgushev I was to meet my friend on the subway. Does our town even have a subway? I asked, surprised.  My friend said yes, yes it does. There’s a subway stop close to your flat, in the alley behind … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8523,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8526","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2dw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8533,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8526\/revisions\/8533"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}