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Description
Most of the streets in New York City are arranged in a grid-like pattern, similar to the streets of Paris. Except thousands of Chinese restaurants and markets line the sides, not boutiques and little coffee shops where the French would sip from petite cups with their bony pinkies jutted out to show how upper class they are. The streets are rivers of noise and filth. Taxis fill the roads like cholesterol would clog an artery and the occasional heart attack would be a hitting a walking civilian who was too impatient to wait for the light to turn red.

Lyn watched the city flow before her large brown eyes. It was scary for a five year old from the suburbs. The homeless that dotted the sidewalks holding out rusty cans made her distressed.

“Mommy, why do they stay there on that card board matt? Don’t they have a house?” she asked pointing to a hunched over, toothless man.

“It’s because they are homeless, and will please keep up with us? I don’t want you getting lost.”

Lyn glanced over her shoulder and saw that her six other siblings were not behind her, but all trailing dutifully in front of their mother like an obedient flock of geese. As usual, she was located in the back with at least four strangers between her and her family. No one paid any attention to her, strangers and family alike. The strangers varied from business men in crisp grey suits checking their watches, a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and important papers in the other, to people who looked scraggly and had cigarettes hanging out of the corners of their mouths.

They trooped down into the dark underground of New York; the subways. Down a long a flight of steps that were encrusted in gum and dirt, they waited among the others for the train.

“Headcount! Headcount!” shouted Lyn’s mother above the noisy tumult.

Lyn watched as she touched her oldest sister Jamie on the head who was almost the same height as her mother at fifteen, then her brother Chase, the triplets Tracy, George, and Charlotte, her three year old brother Tom squealing in her arms, and finally tapped Lyn on her red-head quickly. She was the second youngest in the family and hated being so, because to her that meant five bullying older siblings and not having the privilege of being the “baby” of the family.

“You know Lyn, the subway is really a giant snake,” said her brother Chase appearing behind her. Lyn’s head knocked against his stomach. “It likes to eat little red-headed girls and since you’re the only one I guess we’ll have to sacrifice you.”

“No it doesn’t,” said Lyn turning and putting her hands on her hips. “They wouldn’t put that in a city.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked in an all-knowing voice. “And what makes you so sure? We had another redhead sister before you and we had to give her to the snake.”

“No, no you’re lying!” shouted Lyn but kept her distance from the painted yellow lines along the edge of the tracks. Overhead a violin echoed through the caverns.

“I’m sorry Lyn, you gotta go or the snake will come off the tracks and devour everyone. Even Mom,” he whispered darkly. “You’re gonna see it in a minute. It has a big glowing eye and it’s at least,” he stretched his arms out in emphasis “This big. It’ll eat everyone unless you give yourself to it.”

“B-but,” whimpered Lyn “I don’t wanna get eaten! Mommy loves me.”

This went on for nearly five minutes. Chase found reasons for all of Lyn’s disbeliefs and eventually she was convinced that she was going to be eaten. Tears were blurring her vision and the Rice Crispies she had eaten for breakfast started to go sour in her stomach. All too soon there was a sudden draft, the rats lurking on the tracks scampered, and people backed away a little from the yellow line. Then there was a monstrous roar and the enormous snake, tattooed in graffiti, flew out of the tunnel and slowed to a stop, breaks screeching. It opened its numerous jaws wide, wide enough to swallow five people whole.

Lyn gave a tiny squeak of “Oh!” turned on her heel and fled into the crowd. She shoved her way through the crowd, her head hitting people’s waists as she went. Up, up, up the stairs, back into the light and into the noisy, hazy streets. Cars honked and she rotated in a circle looking around for a familiar face. Nobody paid her any mind and merely brushed past her, even knocking her down to the sidewalk once.

Now she started to cry openly. Where were her brothers and sisters? And her mother? Had the snake devoured them all because she hadn’t sacrificed herself to it? Summoning her courage, she gingerly walked down the subway again. It was deserted, except for a lone, gigantic raisin sitting on a shiny green chair. She approached it cautiously.

Up close, Lyn realized he wasn’t a raisin at all, but a withered Chinese man. He didn’t look up as she approached, but kept playing a peculiar instrument she had never seen before. It looked like a violin, but the strings were stretched much farther and attached to a rusty can. It was held together by a dented piece of wood. As he drew the bow across the strings a beautiful, foreign sound arose from the instrument. It sounded enchanting and oriental to her ears, and it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Finally he looked up, grinned revealing yellowed, crooked teeth. His hair was a messy mop of black and Lyn guessed he was about twenty but she wasn’t sure.

“I’m lost,” she said biting her lip staring into his slanted eyes, “My mommy and brothers and sisters got eaten by a snake.”

She expected him to shout in fear or surprise from this horrific fact but instead he just grinned at her again and started playing. Lyn didn’t understand why he would not answer. Suddenly she realized he might not speak English.

“Hola?” she asked uncertainly poking him in the knee. But he ignored her and kept on playing.

Lyn didn’t know what to do. She was lost; she was lost in this cold unfamiliar city where people knocked her over and paid no mind to a lost five year old girl with tear tracks down on her face. This man was the only one who noticed her, who played captivating music, and seemed kind even though he didn’t understand her.
She swallowed and sat down next to his feet, her knees up to her chest and tried to control the sobs coming out of her.

Minutes passed. And then hours. The man kept playing, not looking down at her but occasionally patting her head in between songs. As for Lyn, she was exhausted from crying and wondering if her family had been digested in the belly of the snake yet. Had they even noticed she was gone? She bit her lip and a funny, metallic taste came from it. It suddenly occurred to her that she was hungry, and she hadn’t eaten since the cereal she had at breakfast. She sucked on her lip some more so that the taste filled her mouth. It was exactly like having a mouthful of pennies.

Suddenly the man stood up and packed up his instrument. He looked down at her and then started to walk away. The subway was much less crowded now, but it still frightened her and she had seen the snake pass by and gobble up people many times. Somehow this man gave her comfort and a sense of protection. She wasn’t sure what to do at all, but she knew one thing—she didn’t want him to leave alone.

She stood up and shadowed him. He hardly seemed to notice and together they started up the subway steps. The sky was now dark but the city was still alive, lights flashing everywhere like a neon pulse. He headed into a darker, murkier street where dogs howled in the distance, air conditioners jutted out of the cracked concrete apartments, and trash was strewn underfoot.

He entered an apartment and still she trailed behind him. She knew it was wrong to go anywhere with a stranger, both school and her mother had warned her of that. But what other choice did she have? They climbed a few flights of stairs, where spotted cats whisked around their ankles like furry breezes. He unlocked his apartment door stepped inside and she did too.

It was a dimly lit, gloomy apartment like the street, like the people, like the whole city itself. Tattered, red curtains fluttered gently from an open window and the floor tiles were white but stained. A tiny, Chinese woman, her hair tied up in a bun and her black hair streaked with ugly grey suddenly entered from a back room. She raised her thin eyebrows at Lyn and spoke some strange words to the man. He replied with sounds that sounded similar.

Confused Lyn stared back and forth between them. For the sixteenth time that day since the snake had devoured her family, she started to cry. The woman approached her knelt in front of her and touched her cheek. Her skin was dehydrated and withered, like an old shoe. Lyn assumed this was his wife, but there were no children running around. She wanted to say something but she knew that the man and his wife only spoke in strange noises and wouldn’t understand her.

The woman stood up, shuffled over to the kitchen area, opened an undersized cupboard and took a two navy bowls from it. She filled them both with rice from a small pot on the stove and handed one to the man and one to Lyn.

The rice was pallid and fluffy, like the kind Lyn’s Asian babysitter would let her make. It formed a small mountain and steamed a little. She noticed her rice mountain was taller than the man’s. The woman handed her two sticks, but Lyn could not get her tiny, unskilled hands to work with them. So instead she ate grain by grain with pinched fingers.

A loud clap of thunder filled the room and all three of them looked up. It was not thunder, but an enormous pounding on the door, not at all like a fist but more like an elephant butting its head against the door. Terrified, Lyn wrapped her arms around the waist of the man and buried her face into his hip. The woman stood up, trembling a little and opened the door.

Standing outside the door was a police officer, so muscular and tall that he looked more like a Great Oak Tree instead of a man. He seized a handful of the woman’s hair.

“You filth,” he hissed to her, “How dare you kidnap this child? How dare you keep her here and not notify the police? Get away from him!” he shouted to Lyn, whose arms were still tight around the man’s waist.

She was panicking and crying again. What was going on? A moment ago she was enjoying some food, starting to feel safe again, and thinking these people could be her new parents. The world was turning to fast, time speeding so fast it was creating a draft.

As the police man shook her back and forth still screaming at her, the man suddenly tore free from Lyn’s grasp and lunged at him. Then, everything happened so quickly Lyn barely remembered it.

An explosion from the silver instrument in the police’s hand. A horrible wail from the woman. A tiny tinkling of a broken bowl that had fallen to the floor, the rice scattering.

The woman screamed and came at the police man with arms and legs, pummeling him out of the doorway and into the hall. Lyn dived to the fallen man. He lay on his back, his eyes open but unblinking, his form stretched out in a star form like he was angel that had suddenly been pushed out of the clouds of heaven and fell miles down to earth. At the center of his forehead there was a hole and something like ketchup dripped from it and spider-webbed downward to his nose and cheeks. Lyn stared at it not understanding.

Was it a joke? She nudged his shoulder and whispered in his tiny ear “Get up, get up. Your wife is in trouble.” True, there will still shrieks going on outside in the hall, and the sound of opening doors, more people coming to investigate. But time seemed to be standing still in this ragged apartment.

Lyn put her forefinger into the circular puncture of the man’s head. It was warm and when she pulled her finger out it was soaked with the red substance. She tasted it, and was surprised to see that it tasted like the metallic taste from her own lip. She was about to taste again, just to make sure, but the police man had reentered the room.

“I said get away from him, you stupid brat!” he roared. There were crisscrossing scratches across his face and his nose dripped that all too familiar red substance. He grabbed Lyn by the arm and tore her from the room.

“Let’s go! Your mother is waiting for you at the police station. Oh my God good thing I found you. Do you know what they could have done to you? Don’t you know better than to run off with strange men? HUH?” he snarled shaking her a little bit.

But Lyn wasn’t listening. Her head was swimming; she couldn’t understand what had happened. Why did he take her away from the nice people, who gave her rice and let her stay in their house?

He was good inside. Lyn thought to herself staring up at the policeman, who was so much taller than her. She looked at the scarlet under his nose, which was now drying. Why does he think that man and his wife were bad? If we all have the same stuff inside us doesn’t that make us all the same? Such were her thoughts but she never said any of this outloud, to anyone, ever.

It was quiet outside, a rarity for New York. But maybe all the sound had just disappeared from the world. She didn’t know. Together they walked down the alley, the police man walking so fast with his long legs that she had to maintain a constant trot to keep up, making her red curls bounce up and down.

She stared at the redness once more, and wondered, for a moment, if it tasted like pennies, like hers and the man’s. Did everyone inside red taste the same no matter where it came from?
***
Fifteen years later, Lyn sauntered down the streets of New York, a cell phone in one hand and coffee in a foam cup in the other. She had been working in the city for three years now, as a secretary. Her red hair, which she had now dyed a deep black, swished behind her and her high heeled shoes made loud clacking noises on the asphalt sidewalk.

It was only 7 in the morning, but she and thousands of other early commuters were flooding the streets and the subways. She headed down to the nearest station and waited for fifteen minutes, as she was early as usual. Eventually the subway came, roaring loudly as always. The doors opened and she stepped inside, standing next to a short, balding man, who grinned at her. She reached up and grabbed the safety bar above her, as there were no seats open.

But right before the doors closed, before she had time to take a sip of her coffee, something made her stop short. It was the sound of a violin, but sounded much more oriental and mourning and it sent shivers up and down her. Her eyes widened and frantically scanned the subway station, but she couldn’t find the source. Her grip on the safety bar slackened and her hand fell limply to her side. The sound was familiar, something she had heard once before. From a dream, from childhood? She had no idea but it was so soothing and seemed to make her feel calm and safe.

“Do your hear that?” asked in a low voice to the man next her.

“Hear what?”

She was about to explain, but the jaws snapped shut, and the snake swallowed her whole.

Description
Most of the streets in New York City are arranged in a grid-like pattern, similar to the streets of Paris. Except thousands of Chinese restaurants and markets line the sides, not boutiques and little coffee shops where the French would sip from petite cups with their bony pinkies jutted out to show how upper class they are. The streets are rivers of noise and filth. Taxis fill the roads like cholesterol would clog an artery and the occasional heart attack would be a hitting a walking civilian who was too impatient to wait for the light to turn red.

Lyn watched the city flow before her large brown eyes. It was scary for a five year old from the suburbs. The homeless that dotted the sidewalks holding out rusty cans made her distressed.

“Mommy, why do they stay there on that card board matt? Don’t they have a house?” she asked pointing to a hunched over, toothless man.

“It’s because they are homeless, and will please keep up with us? I don’t want you getting lost.”

Lyn glanced over her shoulder and saw that her six other siblings were not behind her, but all trailing dutifully in front of their mother like an obedient flock of geese. As usual, she was located in the back with at least four strangers between her and her family. No one paid any attention to her, strangers and family alike. The strangers varied from business men in crisp grey suits checking their watches, a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and important papers in the other, to people who looked scraggly and had cigarettes hanging out of the corners of their mouths.

They trooped down into the dark underground of New York; the subways. Down a long a flight of steps that were encrusted in gum and dirt, they waited among the others for the train.

“Headcount! Headcount!” shouted Lyn’s mother above the noisy tumult.

Lyn watched as she touched her oldest sister Jamie on the head who was almost the same height as her mother at fifteen, then her brother Chase, the triplets Tracy, George, and Charlotte, her three year old brother Tom squealing in her arms, and finally tapped Lyn on her red-head quickly. She was the second youngest in the family and hated being so, because to her that meant five bullying older siblings and not having the privilege of being the “baby” of the family.

“You know Lyn, the subway is really a giant snake,” said her brother Chase appearing behind her. Lyn’s head knocked against his stomach. “It likes to eat little red-headed girls and since you’re the only one I guess we’ll have to sacrifice you.”

“No it doesn’t,” said Lyn turning and putting her hands on her hips. “They wouldn’t put that in a city.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked in an all-knowing voice. “And what makes you so sure? We had another redhead sister before you and we had to give her to the snake.”

“No, no you’re lying!” shouted Lyn but kept her distance from the painted yellow lines along the edge of the tracks. Overhead a violin echoed through the caverns.

“I’m sorry Lyn, you gotta go or the snake will come off the tracks and devour everyone. Even Mom,” he whispered darkly. “You’re gonna see it in a minute. It has a big glowing eye and it’s at least,” he stretched his arms out in emphasis “This big. It’ll eat everyone unless you give yourself to it.”

“B-but,” whimpered Lyn “I don’t wanna get eaten! Mommy loves me.”

This went on for nearly five minutes. Chase found reasons for all of Lyn’s disbeliefs and eventually she was convinced that she was going to be eaten. Tears were blurring her vision and the Rice Crispies she had eaten for breakfast started to go sour in her stomach. All too soon there was a sudden draft, the rats lurking on the tracks scampered, and people backed away a little from the yellow line. Then there was a monstrous roar and the enormous snake, tattooed in graffiti, flew out of the tunnel and slowed to a stop, breaks screeching. It opened its numerous jaws wide, wide enough to swallow five people whole.

Lyn gave a tiny squeak of “Oh!” turned on her heel and fled into the crowd. She shoved her way through the crowd, her head hitting people’s waists as she went. Up, up, up the stairs, back into the light and into the noisy, hazy streets. Cars honked and she rotated in a circle looking around for a familiar face. Nobody paid her any mind and merely brushed past her, even knocking her down to the sidewalk once.

Now she started to cry openly. Where were her brothers and sisters? And her mother? Had the snake devoured them all because she hadn’t sacrificed herself to it? Summoning her courage, she gingerly walked down the subway again. It was deserted, except for a lone, gigantic raisin sitting on a shiny green chair. She approached it cautiously.

Up close, Lyn realized he wasn’t a raisin at all, but a withered Chinese man. He didn’t look up as she approached, but kept playing a peculiar instrument she had never seen before. It looked like a violin, but the strings were stretched much farther and attached to a rusty can. It was held together by a dented piece of wood. As he drew the bow across the strings a beautiful, foreign sound arose from the instrument. It sounded enchanting and oriental to her ears, and it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Finally he looked up, grinned revealing yellowed, crooked teeth. His hair was a messy mop of black and Lyn guessed he was about twenty but she wasn’t sure.

“I’m lost,” she said biting her lip staring into his slanted eyes, “My mommy and brothers and sisters got eaten by a snake.”

She expected him to shout in fear or surprise from this horrific fact but instead he just grinned at her again and started playing. Lyn didn’t understand why he would not answer. Suddenly she realized he might not speak English.

“Hola?” she asked uncertainly poking him in the knee. But he ignored her and kept on playing.

Lyn didn’t know what to do. She was lost; she was lost in this cold unfamiliar city where people knocked her over and paid no mind to a lost five year old girl with tear tracks down on her face. This man was the only one who noticed her, who played captivating music, and seemed kind even though he didn’t understand her.
She swallowed and sat down next to his feet, her knees up to her chest and tried to control the sobs coming out of her.

Minutes passed. And then hours. The man kept playing, not looking down at her but occasionally patting her head in between songs. As for Lyn, she was exhausted from crying and wondering if her family had been digested in the belly of the snake yet. Had they even noticed she was gone? She bit her lip and a funny, metallic taste came from it. It suddenly occurred to her that she was hungry, and she hadn’t eaten since the cereal she had at breakfast. She sucked on her lip some more so that the taste filled her mouth. It was exactly like having a mouthful of pennies.

Suddenly the man stood up and packed up his instrument. He looked down at her and then started to walk away. The subway was much less crowded now, but it still frightened her and she had seen the snake pass by and gobble up people many times. Somehow this man gave her comfort and a sense of protection. She wasn’t sure what to do at all, but she knew one thing—she didn’t want him to leave alone.

She stood up and shadowed him. He hardly seemed to notice and together they started up the subway steps. The sky was now dark but the city was still alive, lights flashing everywhere like a neon pulse. He headed into a darker, murkier street where dogs howled in the distance, air conditioners jutted out of the cracked concrete apartments, and trash was strewn underfoot.

He entered an apartment and still she trailed behind him. She knew it was wrong to go anywhere with a stranger, both school and her mother had warned her of that. But what other choice did she have? They climbed a few flights of stairs, where spotted cats whisked around their ankles like furry breezes. He unlocked his apartment door stepped inside and she did too.

It was a dimly lit, gloomy apartment like the street, like the people, like the whole city itself. Tattered, red curtains fluttered gently from an open window and the floor tiles were white but stained. A tiny, Chinese woman, her hair tied up in a bun and her black hair streaked with ugly grey suddenly entered from a back room. She raised her thin eyebrows at Lyn and spoke some strange words to the man. He replied with sounds that sounded similar.

Confused Lyn stared back and forth between them. For the sixteenth time that day since the snake had devoured her family, she started to cry. The woman approached her knelt in front of her and touched her cheek. Her skin was dehydrated and withered, like an old shoe. Lyn assumed this was his wife, but there were no children running around. She wanted to say something but she knew that the man and his wife only spoke in strange noises and wouldn’t understand her.

The woman stood up, shuffled over to the kitchen area, opened an undersized cupboard and took a two navy bowls from it. She filled them both with rice from a small pot on the stove and handed one to the man and one to Lyn.

The rice was pallid and fluffy, like the kind Lyn’s Asian babysitter would let her make. It formed a small mountain and steamed a little. She noticed her rice mountain was taller than the man’s. The woman handed her two sticks, but Lyn could not get her tiny, unskilled hands to work with them. So instead she ate grain by grain with pinched fingers.

A loud clap of thunder filled the room and all three of them looked up. It was not thunder, but an enormous pounding on the door, not at all like a fist but more like an elephant butting its head against the door. Terrified, Lyn wrapped her arms around the waist of the man and buried her face into his hip. The woman stood up, trembling a little and opened the door.

Standing outside the door was a police officer, so muscular and tall that he looked more like a Great Oak Tree instead of a man. He seized a handful of the woman’s hair.

“You filth,” he hissed to her, “How dare you kidnap this child? How dare you keep her here and not notify the police? Get away from him!” he shouted to Lyn, whose arms were still tight around the man’s waist.

She was panicking and crying again. What was going on? A moment ago she was enjoying some food, starting to feel safe again, and thinking these people could be her new parents. The world was turning to fast, time speeding so fast it was creating a draft.

As the police man shook her back and forth still screaming at her, the man suddenly tore free from Lyn’s grasp and lunged at him. Then, everything happened so quickly Lyn barely remembered it.

An explosion from the silver instrument in the police’s hand. A horrible wail from the woman. A tiny tinkling of a broken bowl that had fallen to the floor, the rice scattering.

The woman screamed and came at the police man with arms and legs, pummeling him out of the doorway and into the hall. Lyn dived to the fallen man. He lay on his back, his eyes open but unblinking, his form stretched out in a star form like he was angel that had suddenly been pushed out of the clouds of heaven and fell miles down to earth. At the center of his forehead there was a hole and something like ketchup dripped from it and spider-webbed downward to his nose and cheeks. Lyn stared at it not understanding.

Was it a joke? She nudged his shoulder and whispered in his tiny ear “Get up, get up. Your wife is in trouble.” True, there will still shrieks going on outside in the hall, and the sound of opening doors, more people coming to investigate. But time seemed to be standing still in this ragged apartment.

Lyn put her forefinger into the circular puncture of the man’s head. It was warm and when she pulled her finger out it was soaked with the red substance. She tasted it, and was surprised to see that it tasted like the metallic taste from her own lip. She was about to taste again, just to make sure, but the police man had reentered the room.

“I said get away from him, you stupid brat!” he roared. There were crisscrossing scratches across his face and his nose dripped that all too familiar red substance. He grabbed Lyn by the arm and tore her from the room.

“Let’s go! Your mother is waiting for you at the police station. Oh my God good thing I found you. Do you know what they could have done to you? Don’t you know better than to run off with strange men? HUH?” he snarled shaking her a little bit.

But Lyn wasn’t listening. Her head was swimming; she couldn’t understand what had happened. Why did he take her away from the nice people, who gave her rice and let her stay in their house?

He was good inside. Lyn thought to herself staring up at the policeman, who was so much taller than her. She looked at the scarlet under his nose, which was now drying. Why does he think that man and his wife were bad? If we all have the same stuff inside us doesn’t that make us all the same? Such were her thoughts but she never said any of this outloud, to anyone, ever.

It was quiet outside, a rarity for New York. But maybe all the sound had just disappeared from the world. She didn’t know. Together they walked down the alley, the police man walking so fast with his long legs that she had to maintain a constant trot to keep up, making her red curls bounce up and down.

She stared at the redness once more, and wondered, for a moment, if it tasted like pennies, like hers and the man’s. Did everyone inside red taste the same no matter where it came from?
***
Fifteen years later, Lyn sauntered down the streets of New York, a cell phone in one hand and coffee in a foam cup in the other. She had been working in the city for three years now, as a secretary. Her red hair, which she had now dyed a deep black, swished behind her and her high heeled shoes made loud clacking noises on the asphalt sidewalk.

It was only 7 in the morning, but she and thousands of other early commuters were flooding the streets and the subways. She headed down to the nearest station and waited for fifteen minutes, as she was early as usual. Eventually the subway came, roaring loudly as always. The doors opened and she stepped inside, standing next to a short, balding man, who grinned at her. She reached up and grabbed the safety bar above her, as there were no seats open.

But right before the doors closed, before she had time to take a sip of her coffee, something made her stop short. It was the sound of a violin, but sounded much more oriental and mourning and it sent shivers up and down her. Her eyes widened and frantically scanned the subway station, but she couldn’t find the source. Her grip on the safety bar slackened and her hand fell limply to her side. The sound was familiar, something she had heard once before. From a dream, from childhood? She had no idea but it was so soothing and seemed to make her feel calm and safe.

“Do your hear that?” asked in a low voice to the man next her.

“Hear what?”

She was about to explain, but the jaws snapped shut, and the snake swallowed her whole.