FREE ESSAY ON SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENS EVERY DAY

SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENS EVERY DAY

A man, Bob Johnson, leans on a cold, concrete pillar, silently waiting for the train to
take him to work. He waits as he has waited for the past seven years of his monotonous,
somewhat mechanical existence. He glances calmly at his wristwatch; thirty-seven minutes
past eight o' clock in the morning. "Damn," he thinks to himself. "Oh well, they'll have
to let me off," he mumbles to himself, "it's the first time I've been late in the seven
years I've worked there." So, Bob slowly makes his way to the edge of the platform so as
to get a good seat on the train.
Around him, people mill around waiting for the same train Bob waits for. Directly behind
him, a fat woman sits on a wooden bench holding her designer label bag in her lap, close
to her chest. She is obviously very self-conscious and she glances around nervously.
Nearby the fat lady, three African-American guys, aged around 20, dressed in ridiculously
oversized clothing, listen to a rap song on a portable stereo. To his left, a businessman
and his associate stand underneath a train schedule board discussing some important
topic. Near him stands a group of Japanese tourists, looking at a half-folded map, trying
to figure out the best route to arrive at their destination. Two of them are in a heated
argument, speaking very quickly in Japanese. Bob then catches a glimpse of a crowd of
school kids heading towards the platform with their chaperones; they are going on a
day-trip to the Natural History Museum.
While Bob is lost in his silent study of the Human-Being, the advance warning lights
lined along the edge of the platform where there is a six foot drop to the train tracks,
warning people that the train will arrive in just a few moments. Everybody hears the
high-pitched squeal of metal wheels on metal rails, and a sudden rush of air against his
face from the fast moving train brings Bob back to his senses. At this moment everyone
waiting for the train; the fat lady, the "homeboys," the business associates, the
tourists and the school group, in amongst a slew of other interesting people; begin
crowding the platform where Bob calmly waits to go to work.
In all the rushing, panic, and pushing of people, Bob Johnson, who was waiting calmly to
get onto the train, somehow gets jostled by the wave of people and topples over. He falls
straight into the middle of the tracks. Chaos. Somebody screams, everybody looks,
everybody screams, everybody runs. Bedlam takes over; no one knows quite exactly what to
do.
Bob, after what seems like an eternity, pushes himself slightly off the ground and spits
some blood to the gravel floor. Looking straight at the ground, still gathering his
senses, he is abruptly hit with a state of shock and confusion. He hears the growing
screeching noise of the trains breaks. He looks up and to his right and sees the train's
lights and bulking mass, bearing down on him.
At the moment just before impact, and Bob's almost-apparent death, some ones muscular
hand grabs him by his arm and pulls him off the path of his surefire demise, leaving only
Bob's briefcase to be torn apart by the quick-moving train.
Every single last muscle in Bob Johnson's body aches and he can't stop himself from
shaking. All he feels is adrenalin pumping through his mind, and his body. He finally
gains his senses back, and sits up impulsively, and looks around. A feeling of relief
floods through him where the adrenalin once did before. It was only a dream. He is now in
the comfort of his own bed, he looks over on his bedside stand, at his alarm clock, it is
five o' clock in the morning and the sounds of a city gearing up and preparing for a long
day fill his head. He gets up and starts his morning routine. He takes a nice refreshing
shower, and eats some almost-burnt toast and drinks a glass of orange juice, just as he
has showered and eaten breakfast for the past seven years of his monotonous life. As he
is getting dressed into his work clothes, he feels a strange aching sensation in his
neck, as if he had pulled a neck muscle, or pinched a nerve. At the same time, he has a
sore throat and his voice is very raspy. He coughs loudly and thinks nothing of it. All
he can think about is the incredibly lifelike dream that he had, so he decides to call
his mother just to say hello and to take his mind of the odd dream. He picks up the phone
and dials in the ten digit number, he is taken aback by the cold, machine-like voice of a
recording, "The number you have dialed has been disconnected, please hang up, and try the
number again." He instead tries another number. And another one, and another one. It's
all the same; they've all been disconnected. Finally he decides that the phone lines must
be down, or his apartment was disconnected for not paying their bills, and he walks out
his door.
The moment he closes his apartment door behind him, everything goes silent. No cars, no
people, no birds singing, no anything. "Peculiar," he thinks to himself, "people should
be out by now, where is everybody?" Bob walks down the cold, concrete stairs, and
everything just gets darker and darker until he finally reaches the floor of the parking
garage. At this level, it is pitch black and he can't see anything, but he decides that
along with the phone lines, there must be a power failure. He slowly and cautiously makes
his way to where he parks his car. Suddenly, Bob finds himself on the ground with his
briefcase by his side. He looks behind him and convinces himself he tripped on something
in the dark. He slowly pushes himself up off the ground only to be startled by a car
coming straight at him with its headlights on full beam, he hears the screeching of
breaks, almost like metal on metal. As the car hits him, the headlights completely engulf
him and he feels a moment of disconnectedness and a feeling of incorporeal like he is no
longer in his body.
Bob Johnson's body lay twitching on the subway tracks as the train came to a screeching
halt. He had been decapitated.
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