But the car had a second level. And the second level had her .
I stepped back. The silence pressed in. I looked down the frozen train—at the upside-down newspaper, the swapped phone, the mustached baby. My little kingdom of stolen seconds. My stomach turned. time-stop train ~freeze time and play naughty pranks!
The coffee steamed. The man sneezed. The pigeon flew. The baby cried. And she looked up from her book, blinked at me across the aisle, and smiled—a small, private thing. She had no idea. None of them did. But the car had a second level
The first prank was innocent. I walked onto the silent train car and gently turned the businessman’s newspaper upside down. Then I swapped the teenager’s phone with the old lady’s knitting pattern. Then I drew a tiny mustache on the baby with a marker from my bag—washable, I’m not a monster. The silence pressed in
