Subway Drummer: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story

By Stephanie Writt

Subway Drummer (Short Story):  Soon. Evelyn knows it will be soon. Though her rythmic heartbeat holds strong, she knows the finale to her song fast approaches. But for her last few notes she wants the canon fire of the 1812 Overture. To go out with a bang! Evelyn follows the beat of her final song into the depths of New York City to find the magic that will let loose the fanfare of her heart.

“Subway Drummer” is part of the Geriatric Magic universe and can also be found in “The New York Collection: Five Stories of Magic & Life,” with foreword written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The New York Collection’s complete short story list is:
• Geriatric Magic
• A Touch of Jade
• Subway Drummer
• Streets of Light
• A Little Park Wind

The Geriatric Magic Short Story Series:  A hawk-face woman in a red dress walks city streets on a mission of magic. To find those with the indomitable spirit to live, though their bodies will shortly fail them. To each she finds she gives a gift. A gift of magic. And from the least expected of benefactors: Death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Press
• Release date: Mar 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386710592

Book preview

Subway Drummer

Subway Drummer

A New York Collection Short Story

Stephanie Writt

Wayne Press

Contents

Subway Drummer

Read and be happy!

Want to read more in this series?

Free Story: 1st in Storyteller’s : Volume 1

Rebellion of the Princess of Argon

Want to read more in this collection?

Free Story: 1st in Tony & Gage’s: The Junior Year Collection

Free Story: The Day Tony Earned Detention

Want to read more in this series?

Preview: Love & Jinx

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Love & Jinx: Want to finish reading?

Also by Stephanie Writt

About the Author

Subway Drummer

The thrum of life pumped in Evelyn’s chest as she supported herself by one fine-wrinkled hand, white-knuckled on the open taxi door, and let the blur of light and activity from Time Square swirl around her.

Soon. She knew it would be soon.

Her own rhythmic heartbeat that aligned with life held strong and firm in cadence, but the finale to her song fast approached, as she stood in the double sets of flashing billboard lights as it reflected off the dark wet everything that had been drenched that morning.

These past few years, decades more like, had been a gentle aria. Light and simple.

But her last few notes…she wanted cannon fire like the 1812 Overture.

To go out with a bang.

For herself. It didn’t matter if anyone noticed, but she wanted to take this last day out of her rocking chair, her knitting basket at her toes, Marney’s burnt dinner choice of the evening (bless her heart she tried so hard, the dear) filling her son’s living room with its smoky aroma.

Years spent waiting, waiting, and watching. For a grandchild to call, a letter from a friend who still lived, and in a simplified life much like her own. Simplified through necessity and failure of the body, though not the mind.

Contrary to what most of the young seemed to think, knitting did not become more mentally stimulating the whiter a person’s hair got.

Ma’am, the dark-skinned cab driver spoke from behind Evelyn with a thick accent that made each word spoken of his non-native English bounce like a rubber ball, here go.

Tiny wheels dragged on pavement as the kind young man unfolded and clicked the tines of her walker into place. He rough rolled it around in his hands so the opening faced Evelyn to step between.

Evelyn sighed as a flash of memory surfaced from her track days.

Slim-shod feet tapping a fleeting melody down dusty farm roads. Bright green cornstalks growing into towering emerald blurs as the summer passed into harvest time. Mr. Carmicheal and Mr. McGarry each would wave from atop tractor or on foot with hoe in hand as she ran past their farms each day. Both long dead from ailments or incidents time had withered from her memory, she did remember they used to argue about her. What place she’d take in each track event at school, one chastising the other for estimating too low. She made it easy on them by just taking first as often as she could.

Evelyn’s legs shook as she turned from the taxi door and stepped into the walker’s embrace. Though her legs had worked hard for her all her life, they could not stand alone anymore. Her hands and arms held her now. Compensating for their weakened brethren.

The cabman moved around behind to close the taxi door for her. She moistened a hip, thin-cotton clung, cool to her skin, as she leaned against the rain-droplet dotted yellow paint. She needed one hand to reach into her purse that rode on her other hip, strapped across her body.

Her wallet, so long unused, cracked open as the leather parted and the rusted once-gold clip parted metal to reveal its contents. She simply grabbed the wad of twenties inside and handed it to the young man, who waited so patiently.

Who had tried to start a conversation with her when he first picked her up, but had given silence at her request. Quiet, easy silence, with a smile for her in the rearview mirror before he turned his attention to the road.

Had he glanced back and seen her tears as she said her silent goodbyes to her past, and her neighborhood? To her son and daughter-in-law away at work and unaware of her last-day escape?

She had never thought of her life with them as being confined. She simply wanted more than her body could provide. They and their children, her grandchildren, had offered armfuls of love and comfort. Brought her their lives from the outside world as they rehashed their life experiences to her, while sneaking her snacks on the side. Especially Almond Roca. All the grandkids knew she had a sweet tooth poor Marney tried to control. And failed. The family’s secret stash lay in the bottom of her wicker knitting basket. A bounty of chocolate that put a full Halloween pillowcase to shame.

Evelyn had said her good-bye to them all over the past week, as they slipped in and out, living their new young lives.

They didn’t know. She never told them.

Just slipped them a rarely bestowed kissed in a private moment, said whatever words remained that needed to be spoken, so none would gong with unsaid regret in her soul in her last moments.

No, she wanted those last moments to be free and hers alone. A sweet chime of life, the last tinkle of the door’s bell as she exited out of life and into death. She wanted to wave and smile as she stepped into the next world.

So tears had fallen,