leaf in ice

Declan Quinn pushed the little buds into is ears. He pulled on his knit hat, wrapped the red scarf around his neck, and turned up his collar. The temperature was dropping. He plunged down the stairs at 34th street, and the zeros and ones in his pocket twinkled on and off like the billions of stars in the universe. He sat down in a rare empty seat on the A train. It was the one next to Maria Nefostistos. Maria was 64 years old and she worked as a waitress in her brother's Greek diner on Seventh Avenue. Maria still had, quite remarkably, a black, ten pound, rotary phone in her apartment in Astoria.
"I'll Tweet you later on," Declan said into the air around him.
Maria looked at him out of the corners of her dark eyes.
Then he laughed so loud that he snorted.
Maria looked nervously at the poster across the subway car - Apprende Ingles!
"Flounder, in a garlic butter sauce, with a..." Declan now sounded angry. Maria looked at his shoes. Declan continued to talk into thin air. "Well screw you," he continued, more loudly, "I'll stop at White Castle and bring home a dozen, is that what you want. Jesus."
Then he went silent, just nodding his head. Ten seconds passed. Maria fingered the crystal rosary beads in her coat pocket, then summoned the courage.
"Are you OK son?" she asked.
Declan shot her an impatient glance. "Wait a second," he said, speaking into the stuffy subway air. He pulled off his hat, removed the white little earplugs, and looked impatiently at Maria Nefostistos.
"What did you say?" he asked.
Maria looked at the white wires that emerged from underneath his collar, at their odd bulbous endings, into Declan's disconnected eyes.
"Oh," Maria said to him.
Declan looked at her for a brief moment, put the buds back into his ears, pulled on his hat.
"No, no, just another A Train scewball," he said.

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