Aging

She waited casually, standing with her shoulder blades against the pillar, smoking another Virginia Slim. The train was idling but the doors had not been opened, but she could wait a while longer. Her smoke was only half gone. No sense in it going to waste.

Her eyes were vacant, slightly watery from the smoke, and they focused barely outward at nothing in particular. As did her mind. She really thought of nothing at the moment, content to simply let the nicotine flow pleasantly through her head, soothing her from the concerns which might have otherwise agitated her.

Her age, for one. She was middle-aged, well past fifty, her body doughy and hair long since gone gray. But as long as her mind didn't dwell on aging, hers or anyone else's, none of it would bother her much.

Which made the sight an irritant. Her slumping, thoughtless reverie was suddenly broken as an even older man, leaning heavily on a cane, stood in front of the closed door, peering in eager anticipation through the window for a conductor to let him inside.

Like a dog whining at the back door in the cold, she thought to herself.

But her relative superiority over the man only satisfied her for a moment, for now the sight of him only annoyed her. Though his posture was pathetic, worthy of her disdain, the feeling was soon replaced by thoughts of her own advancing age. Her years were rapidly accumulating, too, and she realized she was looking at herself in the not-distant future. After all, this hip of hers seemed to be getting worse by the week.

She knew the train door would open in only a minute or so. She pulled out her lighter and lit another cigarette.