something I wrote in workshop a little while ago:

The station was hot, ripe & oddly empty - no sound but water dripping somewhere & the occasional squee and squeak of a rat.  There was a stream - water dark & oddly fast moving flowing along the tracks on one side.  He wondered if it was some underground river pushing its way through subway tunnels all that long shifting hot darkness all the way to the East River with its angry gulls and slow moving tugs, fat tourists and the many many bones each with its own story.  His feet hurt.  His new shoes had given him blisters - a large one on his ankle.  He longed to be barefoot in soft sand, maybe facing a day of surfing at Laguna and not a long hot train ride followed by a crowd of faces - all strangers.  His stomach hurt at the thought.  He fingered his father's wristwatch, his thumb tracing the engraving.  Every time he held it he thought of Benny Goodman, he thought of the library towers their shadows massive across the sun-filled space that lead to the dining hall.  He thought of the dip and sway of the sailboat, its graceful rail skimming just above the water and his terror of falling, his father's laughter and the way he recoiled from the sound.  The subway train came.  He stood although the car was mostly empty.  Soon he was on a northbound commuter train, fingering his ticket stub, the watch carefully hidden, the sounds of jazz faded.  He sneezed loudly and closed his eyes against the day rushing by outside the train windows.  He closed his eyes and he dreamed of library towers and hot sun of too many books to count and of his father, tall, broad-shouldered laughing loud in the too-bright sun.