The Main Character Is Startled Awake By… [FICTOID]

…a subway roaring through his apartment.

At first he blinked, then thought:  This must be a dream!

It proved to be no dream but a solid reality.  

“How in hell did they build a subway through my bedroom at 3am?  And I live on the fifteenth floor!”

No one answered his rhetorical questions so the ex-sleeper donned his robe and slippers and went looking for one.

He found an access stair and climbed up it to the gate level.

An elderly man with wild hair stood there; by the flag in his hand and the emblem on his cap, the former sleeper assumed the elderly man’s occupation to be a subway inspector of some sort.

“Excuse me, but what is this subway doing in my apartment?”

The elderly man whirled with an equally wild grin.  “A fine subway, isn’t it?  Isn’t it?”

“I agree, but -- “

“We don’t build ‘em for those swine downtown, oh no.  This is a fine subway -- fine subway! -- and it’s here to move people to their jobs.

“That’s not the problem -- “

“’Problem’?!?!?  There’s no problem -- everything’s perfect.  Perfect!”

“No, no problem, just…who is in charge?”

“The great unseen hand,” said the elderly man, laying finger next to nose.

“You mean God?”

“No!  Don’t be daft, lad!  The unseen hand of the marketplace.”

“’Marketplace’?  Then where are the passengers?”  The ex-sleeper emphasized this by spreading his hands to gesture at the near empty platform.

The elderly man’s poised demeanor seemed to falter.  “An…an evergreen question,” he said.

“You’re stalling.”

“So I am, so I am.” 

Another empty train screeched into the station.  The elderly man leapt aboard but stopped the former sleeper.  “You need a ticket,” he said.

And with that the doors slid shut and he roared off.

© Buzz Dixon