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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue of cc&d (v225) (the October 2011 Issue, You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This is also in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Up In Smoke” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book:

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From a GO TRAIN morning,
or: Sketch of a Smoking Diva

Darren Fernando

    The letters G & O stand for Government of Ontario, and TRAIN means train. It is a mass transit system proper. I take the train into the city, Monday to Friday, to work.

    Once in a while you’ll hear a voice come over the public address system. It says, “We’d like to remind you that smoking is strictly prohibited on GO Transit property.” This includes the outdoor platforms where we wait for the train, but people who smoke tend to smoke anyway. It makes the air smell very bad, and if you are near them while they smoke it makes your clothes smell bad, too.
    There’s this one woman who smokes every morning right near where I stand waiting to board the train. She wears big oversized dark sunglasses and holds her cigarette in a dangly kind of fragile manner akin to the way a movie star would have back when movies were silent. She’s attractive at first glance, and I notice men taking notice of her, but step closer and you’ll see a thick layer of foundation covering unhealthy skin that makes it seem like she is damaged on the inside. I’ve heard that smoking causes bad skin because all that junk from the smoke exits the body through the pores. I don’t think she knows this. She smokes like a silent-movie star. The difference is in the degree of glamour. Silent movie stars were glamorous in black and white after hours spent in hair and make up, but then that was the idea: to create an illusion of unreal beauty. This woman seems to be trying too hard: like she is a silent movie star having wandered off the lot, out of place in the real world.

    One morning an older woman told the smoking diva that there is no smoking allowed on the platform and the smoking diva looked at her like she was speaking a different language. The smoking diva went on smoking.

    When the train pulls into the station the smoking diva drags on her cigarette with intense frequency. She is trying to smoke it right down to the filter before boarding, maybe to get her money’s worth, I don’t know. But as the train comes to a stop more people crowd onto the platform, bullherding their way toward the doors, and the smoking diva is smoking close to all of us. When the doors open, she elbows and weasels her way ahead of people who have been waiting on the platform before she got there so that she can get on the train first and sit where she likes. She tosses her smoke away at the last second. One day it landed in the bag of another old lady and burnt the wrapping paper around a gift she was taking to work. The old lady was perplexed but the smoking diva didn’t even look back to notice.

    The word Diva is derived from the Latin ‘divas’, meaning ‘divine’. The basic sense of the term is ‘Goddess’ or ‘fine lady’. Later, it came to be used when referring to a distinguished female singer, especially in the world of Italian opera. Nowadays it gets thrown around lightly. I use it here because it is the word the smoking diva used to describe her self one morning. She was talking to a woman her age and they must have been friends because they were making plans to go out that evening. The girl asked the smoking diva how long she needed to get ready and the smoking diva said, “Oh, at least three hours.”
    “Three hours?” the other girl repeated, concerned. “We’re only going for coffee.”
    “What can I say?” she said. “I’m a diva.” And then she took a long drag from her smoke.
    When the train came that morning the smoking diva elbowed her way past the girl she was making plans with to board first.

    I’ve thought about boarding a different car so to avoid the smoke, but then I thought: why do I have to change where I sit? I like the car where I sit. And as things have gone on I have to say I’ve achieved a clear detachment from my anger and come to be amused by the smoking diva. Sometimes I purposely sit a few seats closer to where she sits so I can observe more. She is always on the phone for the 45 minutes it takes for the train to get into the city. I’m not sure whom she is talking to but she never seems to pause to listen to them. She only fires off a seamless stream of chatter about anything concerning her. It is as though she has no interior monologue. The seats around her are empty these days because no one wants to sit by her because she speaks very loud into her phone. But I sit close so I can listen. Close, but not too close. She always seems to have a problem that needs dealing with. It seems that the world is always in disagreement with the plans she has made.

    That brings us to today, when things got strange:
    I got to the station at my usual time. The sky was overcast, and there was a very slight drizzle of rain. Walking the length of the platform to where I board I saw the smoking diva from a distance. She was more high-strung than usual and her yelling into her phone was accompanied by big sweeping gestures with her free arm. The fingers of the hand of that free arm dangling the smoke.
    But as I got closer and could hear her voice I noticed that it sounded different. There was a little more shriek to it than usual. Also different: her hair: a little less blonde than usual, with dark streaks. As I got to my regular spot I saw why those features were different: because this was a different girl.
    “She looks just like the other one,” said Lester, who is a fellow commuter, and acquaintance of mine.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “But she’s got more drama, it would seem.”
    “Rather.”
    We watched her, Lester and I. She was going on about a bill she was late paying. She couldn’t understand why the banking person she was talking to couldn’t understand that she didn’t feel like paying the bill this month.
    Then this new diva’s tirade was accompanied by the sound of the original diva’s voice, also in tirade mode. She was to our right, lighting her smoke and yelling into her phone about the drizzling rain. She wanted to know why the person she was talking to couldn’t make it stop raining. She had spent all that time doing her hair and the rain was just going to ruin it. Just ruin it.
    I looked at Les. He raised his eyebrows.
    The original diva continued her tirade about the rain as she took her spot on the platform. Now the two divas where right beside each other. Each on the phone doing tirade dances. Each smoking. Each completely unaware of the other.
    As the train’s time of arrival neared, more commuters gathered, but upon noticing the two divas they all kept their distance. Now it appeared as though there were an invisible shield around the divas, repelling the other commuters from getting close to them as they yelled and puffed smoke.
    The train arrived. As it got closer the sounds created by its chugging and bells and whistles became very loud as they always do and the two divas had to raise their voices so to speak over it. The train came to a stop and the two divas were right by the door. They tossed their cigarettes away, and when the door slid open they tried to board at the same time and collided. Now they noticed each other.
    “Pardon me,” said the first diva. “Can’t you see that I’m a diva and I’m getting on the train?”
    “Uh, pardon me,” said the second diva. “Can’t you see that I’m a diva and I have an issue with the bank and I’m the only one who should get on the train first?”
    “Uh, I don’t give a damn about your issue. I’m trying to get my daddy to stop the rain so my hair doesn’t get all ruined.”
    “I’ve got news for you, your hair is already ruined.”
    “No it isn’t.”
    “Yes it is.”
    Then they stood staring at each other, and we all stood staring at them wondering how this was going to go down.
    What happened next is going to seem unbelievable to you dear reader, but it’s the absolute truth. Both divas began to open their mouths, slowly, first appearing to be jawdroppingly shocked at each other, but then their jaws kept opening, and opening, more than the human jaw was meant to, and then we could hear the sound of bone cracking as their jaws unhinged and opened some more. From each of their mouths came strange blackened claws belonging to creatures found in nightmares. These claws held the sides of the open mouths and up from each of the divas throats came skinny impish hobgoblins covered with and dripping oily black slime.
    When the creatures were out, the bodies of the divas became slackened and void of life and fell to the pavement like discarded clothing. The two creatures hissed at each other and then began to fight. Clawing and kicking and biting. People in the crowd shrieked and some ran but most stayed to watch the horror. The fight ended with the creature that had come from the original diva’s insides eating the new diva whole. When it made the last swallow the victorious creature regarded the people in the crowd for only a moment before turning and jumping atop the train, and appeared to flip us the bird. Then it kept on jumping, away, disappearing behind the shopping mall on the other side of the tracks.
    “Did you see that?” Lester asked me.
    “Everyone saw that,” I said. “But I’m not sure what that was.”
    “Me thinks it was she and she is just what she said she was.”
    “A diva?”
    “A diva.”
    “God help us.”

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