Tales of the Tunnel - continued

The 33rd Street train descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Earth. After leaving Pavonia-Newport it slowed, then stopped, deep beneath the Hudson. It was ready to negotiate the switches that would send it to 33rd Street.

As I dozed, into my sleep-deprived awareness burst a fart; an epic, godawful fart, a product of beer, onion soup, broccoli, brussel sprouts and the like. There was no noise - this was a threep, an SBD, a noiseless fart. This miasma of hell spread throughout the stopped car.

The sheep grew restless, wanting to panic and run away, but not knowing which way to run. It was too crowded in the herd to run, anyway. Their eyes began to roll back and forth, trying to sense the wolf who unleashed this on them. But they could not find it.

Suddenly they stirred in a peculiar way, seeming to shrink in on themselves. They appeared as if each one now wanted to shrink into a volumetric singularity, pop, and disappear.

The train began to move slowly, screeching and grinding its way through switches, picking up speed. As it did, the air conditioners did a miracle that the Catholic church would be proud to have witnessed. The fart slowly faded and disappeared, just in time to pull into Christopher Street with everyone alive. There was no indication of the death train it could have been, with souls fleeing through the windows.