Catch Fire
By Catherine Storch
The reflection in the train window is a sunset I won't see a few minutes from now. A man passing behind me stops, conceals the view. I want to watch the ending and clap like a clown when it’s over but he's standing there, crotch centered in the frame. I turn around. Yes? I say. He tells me I look like a celebrity, Marilyn Monroe, someone from another era. It’s funny because I have tattoos and black hair but I just nod and say: I feel bad for celebrities. I turn back to the window and apparently he thinks he’s been invited to sit because he slides his leg around the chair beside me and says: how do you mean? He literally could not be slicker with his leg uncoiling like a cat’s tail across the leather seat. I swear he flicks the tip of it as he’s positioning himself to sit. I slip my open computer into the narrowing gap between his ass and the seat and say: too much spotlight. His ass cowers away from the white screen like it’s hot. Just a computer, compadre. We’re passing through Albuquerque. He whispers “basic bitch" under his breath and walks away. I have a friend who can deliver the most impressive precision when she’s swearing. Every word shoots clear as fluorescent light, manages to make people look both exposed and dull at the same time. “Basic bitch” isn't it—I look wiped from waiting tables all day and I’m wearing a miniskirt. Much more trashy than basic. I feel bad for the guy and his stale imagination, honestly. I look out the window where the sunset was playing, the ending of which I’ve now missed thanks to one man’s hard and fast determination. Outside all the trees are burnt with thick trunks and too many tiny limbs that look like capillaries. I think I’d find them attractive if I weren’t so thrown off by the debris the guy left around me. It’s funny how some men can leave the feeling of their cum everywhere without actually hosing the place. Suddenly I want to procure a black light and scour the seats and the walls and the ceiling with it, then scorch it all till the trees cry out in delight. Join us, they’d say. White paper glows under black light—something about the way it’s treated—but trees don’t. Nothing to hide. They’re still burned alive. Aside from the trees there’s an adolescent girl a few seats down speaking to her dad as if she’s his parent. She keeps saying: daddy, honey, and petting his bicep. He looks sad, easy to fold, a shelved paper airplane. Their dynamic is one of the most disconcerting things I’ve witnessed in a while but then I think it probably has to do with the whole day—the job and the guy and the fucked-up trees and the impression of it all on one person. Catch fire, the trees whisper. Go on, catch fire.
THE END
Author Bio: Catherine is an MFA candidate at the University of Wyoming, and a new writer of fiction. Her stories explore feminism, art, queerness, and intersectionality. Her art and writing can be found on Instagram @kswank8.