“Excuse me,” said Fabulosa. All that elicited were a host of side-eyes from other straphangers. Some of the commuters she’d caught huffing and puffing at the looky-me’s lack of consideration now seemed to be huffing and puffing at her.
“There are others on this train,” Fabulosa declared, nose-to-nose with the looky-me.
“Yeah?” He smirked.
“Yeah –– and not everybody wants to hear your music.”
The looky-me shrugged. He went back to staring right through Fabulosa, and flew right back into his off-key accompaniment.
Fabulosa swatted at the eight-bit abomination hovering above his head as if it were a mosquito. The avatar phased. Her backhand whistled past the looky-me‘s ear. He ducked theatrically to evade the symbolic gesture of her blow.
“Hey,” he whinnied. “That’s assault.”
The eight-bit abomination re-projected itself on the looky-me’s opposite shoulder and returned to crooning.
“What you’re doing’s an assault on my ears,” Fabulosa insisted, “the ears of every passenger on this train car!”
Her mind edged toward the little trigger in her head. A strong enough psychic could put the brakes on the entire line––even send them back to Point B Station. The looky-me had done enough damage. She would not allow him to foil her entire trip.
This was her time –– her ticket to a second chance. A ruckus rose from the far end of the car. Fabulosa stormed back to her spot on the bench, the spot now co-opted by the ninjutsu straphanger. He tugged on her belt loop.
‘Consideration,’ she thought, ‘at last.’ She bent her knees, poised to swap spots with him. He did not budge.
He only shook his head and tsked, indicating the looky-me and warning, “You ought to be more careful. You never know when you’re going to be dealing with a certified crazy nowadays. Best not risk it.”
‘Sheep,’ thought Fabulosa. She could feel the smog of all their uncertainties, the psychic sprawl of their collective neuroticism creating gridlock in her brain.
One simple push would wipe the slate clean. Give her a little breathing room. The ruckus at the far end of the train grew louder. A solitary voice. Shouting. Drawing closer.
Salvation, thought Fabulosa. A like minded passenger fed up with it all just like she was. She was certain those shouts were the shouts of someone who’d had enough –– another stubborn goat among the sheep, bleating, horns poised.