Joel Holub

Is It Nothing To You All Ye Who Pass By

Standing tired and agitated he stared through the window as the train crept forward. There surrounded by an immense empty parking lot was the new stadium. Just two and a half years ago he watched them tear down the old stadium. Slowly, section-by-section, like an architectural pie it was devoured by the wrecking ball. He never thought much of the old stadium. He remembered what he had heard about the Beatles concert there. “Cant buy me love” rendered inaudible by thousands of screaming girls. He wondered how many games had been played there, but then again, he didn’t really care for the game or the team. An ex girlfriends mother had told him she had been to the concert in 1964. She couldn’t hear a thing. He thought about waking up this morning alone, to that asshole on the radio. His whole body felt the warmth of an indeterminate anger washing over him. This made him more conscious of the aching in his ankles and knees. He did not want to be on this train, going to his job were he’d continue to stand. Still able to see the new stadium at an angle; he thought how it was all so ludicrous. A new stadium designed to look like an old one that had also been torn down, which in turn was the reason the recently demolished stadium had been built,,, and now this ugly piece of shit. Thought drifting over thought, his mind overcast. The asshole on the radio, his smug voice as he interviewed someone about a collapsed school in Port au Prince. 150 kids. Rachel’s daughter; was she happy in her new life? It didn’t matter, or was he trying to convince himself it didn’t matter? Then almost loosing his balance the train lurched forward slightly increasing its speed as it approached the next station.