the entirely true story of Fancy Train

I kinda have a thing for the Loch Ness Monster.

Also for Bigfoot. And the Chupacabra. Pretty much any mythical beast I am a sucker for, truth be told. Also I really like an underdog, and if the underdog is a gigantic prehistoric sea-monster or a misunderstood twelve-foot hairy ape, so much the better.

If there's any sort of special WATCH THIS CRAZY PERSON TELL YOU WHAT THEY SAW feature on TV, I watch it. If our Netflix cue has some mystery-creature flick listed, I was the one who picked it. When that poor Bigfoot professor at that school in Idaho was getting picked on by all his fellow professors and they wouldn't let him play their professor games, I felt for him. I really did.

And while I might tell you it's because I'm a decent person and I don't like to see people get picked on (which I don't) really, REALLY, the reason is this:

I kinda want Bigfoot to be real. I want them all to be real. And they're not. But, BUT, I think I may have found the next best thing. An honest-to-pete, real-life mythical beast. It exists, I tell you. I have seen it.

What is it, you ask? Well, I'll tell you:

One of the brand-spanking new fancy trains running on the A line.

See, the trains that run on the A line are, in a word, yucky. Ooooky. Gross. Craptastic. Speeding bullets of nastiness.

There is a slight chance that I'm exaggerating, but not by much. When you go to the east side, the trains are all super nice and the seats are this really refreshing powder blue and the announcer voice isn't some disgruntled person with a voice sounding like a really mad grown-up on Charlie Brown and if you're a west side person, it makes you feel sort of short-changed.

So a while back all us west side people got really excited because new trains started showing up. Shiny, new, powder-fresh trains. And then they disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Until Tuesday.

I was on my way home from class, waiting to transfer to the A at 168th. I was reading my book and fantasizing about ice cream, when I heard the subway coming.

And I was happy because I hadn't been waiting long and I looked up and it didn't look like ANY train I had seen on the west side in FOREVER and then there it was, speeding past, practically trailing it's fresh new train scent, looking all sparkly and new and fancy and it was out of service and it sped away just as quickly as it came, going I don't know where.

I stood amazed, and then, just as quickly as the train, came emotions. Denial- surely it wasn't-surely not-

And anger- why? Why bring this glowing beauty so free of stinky smells and sticky spots into my life for so brief a time? And why am I not at home yet, because I really want ice cream?

And then, finally, acceptance. Life brought us together for this brief moment, me and the mythical creature I will refer to hereafter as Fancy Train. And there must be a reason.

Maybe it's so I can tell people. Yeah, that's it. I'll quit school and make a bunch of signs and maybe set up shop next to that scary guy who does the yelling at the Times Square station. Also I probably should have a gimmick, like I won't pluck my eyebrows until I see Fancy Train again.

It will be a lonely road from here on out. Now I will be the crazy person being interviewed for those documentaries. And nobody will believe me.

Where was it going? Where did it come from? Did the teenagers making out on the bench next to me even notice?

I guess when you walk the lonely road you have lots of questions. But the lonely road isn't so bad, really. Maybe I'll run into Bigfoot.