30-minute writing exercise: bones

The underground tunnel held few travelers at this time of night.  Cold fluorescent bulbs illuminated the station, but could never dispel the subterranean weight of a hole.  Somewhere in the depths beyond this urban platform rumbled hulking tubes of steel and glass.

Across from me sat a man.  I hadn't noticed him when I came down the stairs off 45th.  He was the city: a suit, erect posture, and a briefcase.  But this platform was also the city: litter, urine, grease.  Odd that a company man would need a train at this hour.  He seemed at ease, so much so that it was I who began to feel out of place.  My train remained painfully absent.  How could he be so content here?

I watched the man take his leather-bound case and rest it on his lap.  He released the clasps one after another and lifted the lid away from himself toward me.  When he closed it again, he held a white tentacle in his hand.  No, not a tentacle. Bones?! An entire spinal column of some child-sized creature draped limp over his palm!  I stared with fevered intensity as he tilted back his head an raised his prize into the air.  As he lowered it into his throat, his mouth worked back and forth slowly, not chewing, but easing each vertebra down his esophagus with the faint sound of sliding saliva.

I had to flee.  I needed to run, to be rid of this place immediately and forever!  Too late for that.  By some miracle, I had not been noticed yet.  I froze like a small animal.  The man returned his briefcase to the floor.  He resumed staring through the blackness of the tunnel.

A growing roar and gust of tunnel draft brought the train into the station.  The hissing of the doors startled me, my heart skipping a beat.  I dared not move as I watched the man stand up and walk to the nearest open portal.  Just before stepping onto the train, he paused.  He turned his head to face me, staring me straight in the eye.  Then he silently boarded.