Sometimes one train slipped into a station across from another train like they were two silver fish of the same school. But just as often, one train would enter the station with just enough time to give its passengers a glimpse of its fellow disappearing into the depths of the tunnel. You could not assume coordination. Yet no matter the vagaries of the weekend subway, Alfonzo would hear static from his father should he arrive late.

A notification flapped at the station entry. Leaves and garbage swirled as Alfonzo tried to decode it. In multiple languages, the sign alerted passengers of track work, delays, and buses filling in for trains out sick. He slowly assembled the words into a plan. The R wasn’t running, so he would take the K to Jay Street and then transfer to the A. Okay, okay, okay, he hummed.

He thought he understood as he descended into the underworld. But then no. A rat family dressed in matching blue as if on a team chattered in the corner of the platform. They, like him, looked into the tunnel expecting, no, yearning for the yellow lights of some train, any train to appear, but none did. The K was supposed to be running over the R line, but no K ever came. At the end of his patience, Alfonzo climbed the stairs and doubled back to the nearest F/G/H station, only to arrive there just as an F was pulling away. As he silently cursed the rolling disaster of infrastructure funding, an H arrived. He calculated and felt relieved. He would still make it. He transferred from the H to the P, then after a few stops to an A, and found a place to sit in the corner of the car. Only forty-five more minutes to Ozone Park. He crossed his toes.

The train ride lasted the length of two New Yorker features. The first detailed the workings of an international criminal group known as the Fancy Bears, who were thought to be responsible for the biggest maple syrup heist of all time. Despite the comic sound of their crime, multiple beaver and elk had been kidnapped and abused during the theft. The Fancy Bears did not sound like nice creatures.

The other article was about Ocean Melt Greenland (OMG), a government research initiative to study ice. According to the article, Earth’s ice was melting at a much faster rate than previously predicted, and the animals aboard an OMG research ship were extremely worried. When they attempted to share their findings with the government, OMG funding was abruptly canceled. Since their initial trip, two of the researchers had died, one by drowning and the other by choking on a twig. It was sinister, but the officials interviewed insisted it was all unfortunate coincidence.