 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]
   ooooo   ooooo  .oooooo.  oooooooooooo       HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #648
   `888'   `888' d8P'  `Y8b `888'     `8
    888     888 888      888 888                   "Yellow Monster"
    888ooooo888 888      888 888oooo8
    888     888 888      888 888    "                  by Rhea
    888     888 `88b    d88' 888       o               5/17/99
   o888o   o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8
 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]

        A fly was buzzing in the corner.  The buzzing sound above her head
 almost sounded louder than the bustle of the gray subway station.  The
 fluorescent light above her which flickered a sickly yellow glow on her
 pale skin was buzzing too.  The fly was flying in the corner towards the
 sickly yellow glowing light and then it flew right smack into it.  The fly
 was flying.  Fly was flying.  Flew.  Fly Flew.  Was she sitting in a subway
 station or conjugating verbs?  Both, she guessed.

        She laughed.  The man hunched against the wall a few feet away
 turned and looked at her abruptly.  His face was as wrinkled as the yellow
 newspapers he was sitting on.  Was his skin that yellow or was it the
 fluorescent light shining on him?  Both, she guessed.  Maybe if you sat in
 this horrid station long enough the light would stain your skin, like
 newspapers in the sun, she thought.  His face looked like a grape in the
 sun.  A wrinkled raisin.  Raisin man!

        She giggled again.  A train pulled in quickly and loudly to the
 station.  It was almost beautiful, she noticed, in its sleek, cold,
 metallic splendor.  Sometimes it struck her as a monster with those thick
 bulletproof windows and thick beady eyes of the passengers staring blankly
 out at her.  But today, it was a blessing, and when her train would finally
 come (delayed 10 minutes--10 years--10 lifetimes?) it would take her away
 from this ghastly station before her skin turned yellow.

        Why did some people think yellow was a happy color?  Look at that
 homeless man -- yellow was sickness and depression and all that good stuff.
 The sun was yellow and the sun, she guessed, was a happy thing but in here
 the sun might as well not exist.  Did it exist?  Did she exist?  This gray
 hole would never see real light, just that flickering fluorescent thing
 above her.

        She actually didn't mind it in here too much.  She liked the way the
 floor rumbled when a train came in and out.  Her work clothes were getting
 dirty on the cold dusty floor but she'd just be sitting all day once she
 got to the office anyway.  Oh, she dreaded the coming of her train now.
 She hoped the train men would delay it forever.  She wished the office
 didn't exist.

        Suddenly something shiny in her corner caught her eye.  It was
 underneath a broken beer bottle and a hamburger wrapper and she almost
 hadn't seen it.  She reached out her pale yellow arm to move away the
 trash, her long fingers picking up piece after piece of the broken bottle.
 Finally her fingers touched the shiny thing and she pulled it out and
 looked at it.

        Two fuzzy, dirty, blurred eyes looked back at her.  It was a little
 mirror, bright and shiny despite its dirty surface.  How long had it been
 in that corner?  Certainly at least as long as she'd gotten the office job.
 Maybe longer.  Maybe her lifetime.  10 lifetimes?

        It was so shiny and pretty!  She imagined how nice it must look
 beneath the dirty surface, so she reached into her purse and pulled out her
 packet of tissues, with the blue plastic wrapping and "Kleenex" written in
 big white letters across it.  She pulled out a soft white tissue and began
 wiping the surface of the mirror.  The grime wasn't coming off, to her
 dismay.  Soon she was wiping so furiously that the tissue ripped.

        "That won't work," said the old homeless man hoarsely.  She looked
 at him through eyes blurred with tears and he gestured to the Kleenex in
 explanation.

        "Then what will?" she asked almost frantically.

        He laughed, slow throaty chuckles that shook his hunched shoulder
 and revealed stained teeth more yellow than the newspapers.  "Damned if I
 know," he replied, still laughing.

        Another train pulled up, rumbling the ground beneath her feet.  She
 groaned in disappointment, those horrible yellow numbers read 459.  Her
 train, 459, that went to the office.  Tears filled her eyes again, and she
 stood up, resigned.

        Many people in the station started walking towards the open doors of
 the train at once.  There were big people, and small people, men and women.
 They looked like they knew what they wanted.  They wanted to get on the
 train.  She didn't even have that.  But routine pulled her towards it, and
 her legs walked slowly to the door.

        "This sale will be great!" exclaimed a teenage girl to her friend.
 "All shoes are 30% off!"

        She looked at the pretty mirror in her hand.  She did know what she
 wanted.  She wanted to stay and try to get the mirror clean.  Then those
 fuzzy blurred eyes would be so beautiful!

        No, she had to work, and she walked to the brightly lit train,
 already filled with people, feeling like the fly towards that sickly yellow
 ceiling light.  She glanced once more towards the old man.  The raisin man.
 He nodded at her, and she, filled with despair, stepped onto the train.

        Just as she reached the door, a big woman, arms filled with K-Mart
 bags, shoved her way past with a coarse, "Excuse me!"

        She was so startled from being pushed that the mirror fell out of her
 hand and tumbled to the ground outside of the door.  She cried out and
 reached for it but the door had already started to close, shutting the
 mirror out of her life for who knows how much longer and now she was trapped
 in the monster.  It had yellow carpet!  She needed that mirror!

        "Stop!  Stop the train!" she yelled frantically, but the computers
 that ran the train couldn't hear her.  They didn't have ears.  Not even
 yellow ones.  The train rolled away towards the office, and she pressed her
 tearstained face against the thick glass windows and watched the mirror get
 smaller and smaller and smaller than a fly, until it was gone.  She sat
 down in a plastic chair dejectedly.  Soon the train stopped, and she got
 out with all the others, and went to work.

 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]
 [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!      HOE #648 - WRITTEN BY: RHEA - 5/17/99 ]
