“The Night Worker (The D Train)” – Microfiction March Madness Contest HONORABLE MENTION
by Richard P. Mayer
Punching a tattered time card, robotically, her life is completed in small portions each night. She is a time-worn book nearing its final chapter, faded with age and with a predictable ending. Sunlight floods the inside of the subway car, illuminating the decayed margins of her life. Sitting alone, slumped on a blue plastic seat, she is unaware that her life is shared with un-suspecting witnesses, who casually read the furrowed lines etched on her face amid their crumpled newspapers and random thoughts. It is a simple story, told by many others: this day is just the end of another night.
“I started writing in my twenties, sporadically (mostly brain dumps.) Many years later, I started reading contemporary poets and began writing more consistently. My writing style is not complex and is at the cutting edge of nothing. I hope the story will do the heavy lifting and that there will be an emotional derivative that will resonate with the reader. I have been fortunate to have been published in several journals. I live in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn with my wife, Patty.”
