All Is Fair

The clouds gave the sky a texture less like a soft blanket of cotton and more like a turbulent sea of looming shadow. The rain was waiting to blanket the earth, but as the storm slid in the wind was the only source of trouble. It was clear from the shuddering branches of trees and the flying hair, bags, and papers that it was more of a menace than a welcomed feeling.

 Alivia pulled her hair out of the sticky glob of lip gloss that had previously given her lips a beautiful sheen but was now making her whole upper lip a sparkly mess. She contemplated rubbing it off but decided against it when she thought of all the lip gloss that would end up on her hands and likely the remaining parts of her face that were still gloss free. Instead she fingered through her thick hair in attempts to get it to sit on the other side of her head while still looking natural. Her attempts were futile, it fell back into its center part no matter what she did. She would have to scavenge for a hair tie once she got on the train.  

The open air station was made up of a clear roof like canopy, a few worn down benches, and the food wrappers of the people who filed through the station on their way to work or a concert in the city. It wasn't very full at 4:00 in the afternoon, just before the dinner rush and just after the crowds of school children left their field trips at history museums and monumental parks within the city limits. Alivia leaned forward, her toes inching over the yellow safety line as she craned her neck, trying to get a view down the tracks past the few people standing with her on the platform. Eyes narrowed in attempts to see through the white glaring sunlight there was no hint at any sort of train coming down the tracks, so Alivia leaned back on her heels and reached towards her back pocket to grab her cell phone. 

Her fingers slipped into the denim pocket, nothing. Gone. She not so casually tried the other pocket only to be greeted by more fabric with no positively solid substance in between the folds. Front pockets, empty. Jacket, clean. Backpack, practically empty to start with and even more empty without the $500 rectangle that was practically her life. Alivia held back an elongated groan but didn't stop her head from falling backwards and her fingers from combing through her hair only to grab and tug on the ends, the dull force from the weight of her arm dragging her head to the side as if being controlled by marionette strings.