بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Yet again, I felt the irresistible urge to disembark from the Red Line several miles before reaching my intended destination – North Hollywood or Union Station – depending on the direction of the train on which I happened to find myself. At this point, it really didn’t matter to me anymore. I was not too particular about where I ended up. Either would have suited me.

I had been going back on forth on the train for the better part of the morning anyway.

This was not the first time I had experienced such a driving force, which left me traveling in circles until crepuscule crept up, finding me nowhere nearer either destination than I had been when I first descended the escalator to the first underground platform.

Usually, by mid-afternoon, I have resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to reach any destination – not that day, anyway – which is truthfully, just my ostensible excuse for being out of the home and in the street. My true cacoethes is always the burning desire that I will happen upon my Beloved Jamal, and he will take me home, as usual. Only, this time will be that last time and we’ll finally attain our HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

But, alas, following crepuscule is the night, and I have long since developed the habit that results after years of practicing proper training and I am always indoors at least an hour before Sunset.

This day, March 19, 2015, was turning out to be particularly peculiar because not only had I seen my Beloved’s doppelganger, but I had seen THREE of them (if you include the night before)!! And now, here I stood – all alone.

The antiquated relics of old reel-to-reel magnetic films seemed to taunt me. As if to say, “Ha-Ha! You’re one of us now!” – Just a memory of an era long-gone whose train has left the station. “And you missed it!”

But, there’s always another train. Like buses. If you wait long enough. Even overnight. There’s always another one.

They say the same thing to a woman who has been scorned in love…

It’s not true though. Not to a woman who has found her one and only life’s Soulmate. You only get one. If you fuck it up. You’re left with really, two options, only one of which is feasible to the woman. Outsiders who have never met their Soulmate will never understand. They don’t understand why the woman will choose to torture herself with option #1. They will pity her and try relentlessly, however unsuccessfully, to intervene, and force other men on her (option #2), which only makes her situation worse – Not only can she not be at peace (or as close as humanly possible to peace – for a woman in such a heart-wrenching predicament) mourning her lost love, but she has to deal with unwanted and certainly unsolicited advances of unwanted men, who will never stand a chance. More unfortunately, for the woman, that just makes her more desirable. They love the chase and also unfortunately for the woman, no chase is more challenging than a woman who has her heart set on a man who is punishing her for fucking up.

There is only one Amad-Jamal Washington. It has taken the greater portion of my life to realize that and after watching the last doppelganger, who was him will a full beard, ride off on the Red Line, while I stood, helplessly, on the platform, I wanted to die.

And this shadowy underground tomb housing the dry bones of an industry in which I had only reached the thresh-hold, but never cracked the ceiling seemed to be the perfect backdrop for my final curtain call.

I heard a train rumbling in the distance and a voice that seemed to emanate from the only other person in the station impassively and unabashedly taunted me, “Do It!” 

The voice urged me on in a voice that seemed loud enough to echo in my ear, although it was only a whisper.

That was all it took.

The next thing I knew, I was in a fetal position on the tracks anxiously anticipating the dramatic conclusion to an, arguably, even MORE DRAMATIC Musical Stage-play that I, with much sentiment, called my life.

However, “We Plan and Allah Plans; Surely Allah is The BEST OF PLANNERS.” 

Apparently, He Had Other Plans for me, because not only did the train not hit and kill me, it rolled over my head, as if I wasn’t even there!