I know now why I prefer to cycle to work.
I had left home that wintery day on my trusted bicycle, but circumstances had ordained that I was to forget my keys at home. No fear, my wife would be at home on my return from work, but alas, on account of arriving late at work and catalyzed by the same circumstances that had caused me to forget my keys at home in the first place, I hurriedly locked my bicycle around a pole on arrival, not thinking that I would not be able to free it at the end of the workday for want of keys. My fate sealed, I determined to commute home on public transport after work and, ticket in back-pocket, I took my place on the 16:04 train from Hütteldorf to Helligenstadt, with the rest of Vienna.
The young man sitting diagonally opposite me immediately caught my eye. He was average in looks, or he so he seemed at first. Nothing in particular seemed out-of-place with him at all. Yes, I remember distinctly that he was blond, with no outstanding hairstyle, aged between 25 and 30, with light brown eye-brows and clear blue eyes, slightly enlarged by the optics of his rectangular framed glasses. He was dressed in a relaxed middle-of-the-way sort of fashion, or rather without particular respect to fashions of any form. But there was one other thing, a shining beacon calling for attention. Namely, the intent with which he was going about chewing the nail of his right index finger.
It was a sight to move the dead. Either his gloves were of that finger-tip removable variety or he had chewed straight through the end of it to get to his fingernail before my taking my place. Contrasted white against the worn blue wool his finger protruded a three-quarter inch ending presumably in the offending nail. The nail was however not visible, nor was it ever visible for longer than few erratic split seconds at a time, the problematic unguis otherwise permanently caught between the young nasher’s teeth. He had a good grip on the offending talon, and was not going to let go of it until he had ripped it (possibly root and all) from its bed and position.
The nail, though, seemed of the hardy sort, not prone to easy convincing, a nail of particular conviction and confident in its right to scratch and annoy as nature intends. Or maybe, generally, this ruffian posses as a rule strong and sturdy nails, or information may come to light that he routinely and purposely conditions his nails by clawing industrial strength hooked velvet, but what was strikingly obvious was that flapping abnormality of dead skin was there to stay. Why, why, for the love of God, he felt it necessary to tackle that unrelenting scythe there and then on the train in full view of the common commuter, men, woman and children equally un-spared, we will never know.
A contortionists of average ability would have found difficulty in keeping up with the range, scope and variety of positions assumed by this idiot as he expended all energies and efforts in the offensive. There were moments where the carriage held its collective breath in the belief that the tussle was nearing an end. Something would have to give, nail or tooth or digit must come off. The magnitude of the forces pulling pressing and resisting each in their own way could not be maintained for long without damage to the very fibre of one or the other. Gratefully the were no power-tools at hand. I shudder to think what injurious surgery he would no doubt have performed to himself, to our, the onlookers, silent horror.
What I am hoping to convey within my poor means is to which extent I was being annoyed by his remonstrating. I felt him, his irritating presence as acutely as ones knuckles rubbing down the course side of a conventional cheese grater, as potently disturbing as the stalest and smelliest of all the blue cheeses in Tirol and Burgundy combined.
I know that things like this are likely to happen, and probably occur behind curtains all around the world everyday. Maybe your neighbour is abusing a nail of his even now as you read this. I suppose even this very moment just behind the feeble parapet of your living room wall, the inhabitant of the cute bachelor flat you had actually intended to secure for your daughter before he had moved in, is leaning possibly against said partition with his foot up on his kitchen table doing untold and unspeakable crimes against his very own humanity with the help of a pair of pernicious hooked scissors. But say you, he does so behind closed doors, in the privacy of his own and home, and so let him be. This is the respect we give ourselves naturally and feel we deserve in return, failing which, common decorum considered, never another child would be born to this world. But the unscrupulous events described above, I remind the observant reader, occurred in the broad, even if somewhat flutterous day-light, as it was, illuminating the inside of this populous train carriage.
I tried to keep a straight face. I attempted hopelessly not to stare. The way in which we humans are drawn to view upon the gruesome is uncanny if not a trifle depraved. Ever notice how queues of traffic form around an accident scene even when accidented vehicles do not actually block any part of the road, drivers slowing down to a traffic jam pace for the sole purpose of taking into view as much of the bitter anguish as possible as they pass. Like the sole witness to an interplanetary head-on-collision, I was tuned-in to this horrible spectacle. The brutality was enticing, the savagery appealing. I was transfixed.
But then, with the single-minded strength of character hitherto reserved to world-beating war-heroes and primary school teachers, who have seen it all and no longer notice, I ripped myself up and away from the dismal display of neanderthalic manicurism, I upped and moved diagonally across from my erstwhile position to the bench next to his but one, which place was already taken by another unfortunate. We were all on that carriage unfortunates. Even those without a direct-line-of-sight to this blond preying mantis were disturbed by his gnawing by way of sound and well, just the general disposition of all the incubate was altered and disturbed.
From my new position I could not see him if and when I managed to delete or completely obscure the entire left-hand side periphery from my optic range. I managed favourably for a time, but I had started at a disadvantage in that I knew he was there, and so naturally I had an interest in knowing whether he had finally come back to sensibility and rejoined his class, the masses of common respectability, by stopping, just simply refraining to continue the illicit behaviour henceforth mentioned. And so, every so often, I would check on his progress more by force of habit than a need for the knowledge. Turning my head, the very outskirts of my periphery vision would allow in just so much light as my brain function would require to put together even the haziest of intelligible images. Bang, he was still at it, more crazed than ever, feverish, flush, reddened and obviously angered. Afraid, shocked and overcome by an all-encompassing sense of grief, I turned away, muttering prayers and silent promised to myself that I would never venture to turn my head to the left again. But alas, the scene repeats itself over and over, and time again we look, only to be once again be stricken with the anguish, ah the plague of twenty-twenty vision.
The lady sitting between us went mad. Clearly driven to a state of palsy of the senses by the drivel, drooling and continuous fidgittiness normally associated with such concerted nail-biting, she finally took charge of the little self-possession she had left and changed seat as well. Unfortunately her resolve faltered. As I mentioned, she had no longer the benefit of sound reason and logic left to her avail, and so, while she stood up with sporting determination she came up short and managed only one step before plonking herself, yes I remember distinctly, she literally swirled and plonked herself down on the seat diagonally in front of him, my former seat from which I had so narrowly escaped just a few moments earlier. This woman had landed in the devils lair.
Irritated to distraction, she no longer knew which way to turn, had no hope of resistance. She gave in, had no choice but to resign to the vision as I had done only some few moments before. In what were just a few seconds, but what must have seemed an eternity to her, she grew ever more mesmerized, until we noticed the last spark of fight flutter out from behind her eyes and she was lost to us. She was now forever his and would forcibly follow his every movement for the rest of the voyage.
I still think of him and that poor lady, and ride my bicycle to work.
Francesco Menconi 15/01/15
Post Mortem 