food for thought in a hole in the ground

The concave walls of the hallway are reminiscent of the architecture of a tunnel at the aquarium. I call to mind past elementary school field trips, shared Valentine’s Day dates, and long afternoons of reflective solitude. The wall on the right is colored blue depicting scenes of life underwater, further alluding to my recollections of the aquarium. The hall is long and great. Sound, like the people walking, travels quickly in the large space. The noise bounces from wall to wall and off of the arched ceiling creating vibrations like the thunder of a summer rain.

There are three narrow strips moving on the floor, transporting people from one end of the hall to the other. We are just items on a conveyor belt at Safeway. I choose the middle aisle and begin to walk on the left side, forgoing the option to stand on the right. The girl in front of me pauses to fix her shoe and I stop, just barely, on the tip of my toes to prevent from crashing into her. She shifts toward the right giving me leeway to pass by and smiles sheepishly. She has long copper hair and I automatically decide that if she were an item on a conveyor belt, she’d be a carrot. The couple the carrot steps behind is locked in an amorous embrace; I glance openly at them catching a glimpse of a kiss notoriously named after the French. They don’t seem to have any restraints on public displays of affection here, or PDA, which my friend has coined to actually stand for Put Dat Away. Perhaps this pair would be a couple of Hershey’s Kisses. I shake my head; no, they’d definitely be two unsliced Genoa salamis. I shiver at the thought of standing next to two unnaturally oversized slabs of meat on the slim walkway and embarrassingly scurry away, no longer looking at anything save for the flickering light at the end of the tunnel. I am on my way to lunch, my appetite now eaten away by nausea. I decide there should be no food for thought in the station of a metro.