Subway Surprise

Anyone that has been a passenger of a New York city subway train hopes that they will never have to do it again. Waiting in the monotonous lines in the filthy underground tunnels and  being crammed into the subway cars with hundreds of other people with no manners is hardly worth the time it saves. I recommend keeping your hands off of everything, you never know who or what has touched it. We all know that the filth is not even the worst part. The noise is.
It is impossible to concentrate or focus. The obnoxious noise from the subway has no match for the incredible racket that the passengers make. The man next to me is playing 80’s rock music one hundred times too loudly in his headphones. The elderly couple across the aisle is arguing about the age of their grandson so that everyone can hear. The boy standing in between me and the couple is strumming an off pitch and rhythm less song on his guitar while holding on to the above railing . All of this accompanied by the loud screeches of the brakes and static coming from the loudspeaker. I was minding my own business, but was starting to get a headache.
    After a couple of minutes the young man with the guitar stopped playing and looked around. He had a confused look on his face. He looked all around and said to anyone listening, “Do you hear that? What’s that beeping noise?” most passengers ignored him, but enough people quieted down for me to hear it. It was a steady beat of a high pitched beep. “Who’s making that noise?” he repeated.
    Most of the other passengers and I ignored the boy and assumed that it was nothing out of ordinary. I was thinking about my plans for the afternoon and how much I was going to dread my walk from the subway stop to my apartment. It had been storming all day and I had forgotten my raincoat. The subway car was filled with noise again, but I could hear the steady beeping noise in the back of my head.
    All of a sudden, the lights shut off and the train began to stop. A few of the women screamed and a little boy started crying. After a couple of seconds the dim emergency lights flickered on. All we could see through the windows were the brick walls painted with graffiti. I assumed that somehow the main power was knocked out because of the storm, but the other passengers were panicking. I noticed through all the commotion that the beeping had continued and it seemed to be speeding up. 
    A man ran in from another car and said that the power was out and should be restored within an hour. Everyone was upset and yelling at him. He said after an hour we would have to evacuate the subway.
    I was disappointed, but didn’t have anywhere else to be.  At least it was more quiet now because everyone was whispering. I thought if we were going to be there a while we might as well get to know each other.
    “Where’d you learn how to play guitar?” I asked the boy.
    He quickly replied, “My dad taught me”. Then went on to explain how he went to music school after high school, but dropped out because it was too much work.
We made small talk for a while then he abruptly said, “Why is it still beeping?”
    I thought for a second.
    “I think it’s speeding up” he said.
    It was. It was beeping twice as fast as it was when he had first pointed it out. The old man across the aisle noticed us talking about it.
    “What do you think is going on up there?” he pointed at the ceiling tile.
    The guitar boy stood up and tried to push on the aluminum ceiling. “I can’t move it.”
    “What’s going on?” the mother said.
    “Why is it still beeping?” the other passengers mumbled.
    Most of the passengers in the car were intrigued and watching us try to find the source of the noise.
“There’s no need to panic”, I said, “it probably always does this.”
“I have ridden this subway for 15 years and never heard it before” the old man stated.
The speed continued to increase. It seemed to be getting louder because everyone in the car was getting quieter.  Each person had their own hypothesis about the noise. I thought it was funny that people could jump to such conclusions with such little evidence. The beeping now was so fast that you could barely hear any empty space in between.
“It’s a bomb!” a lady yelled.
“What should we do?” another passenger asked.
People were pounding on the door but it wouldn’t open. We were all stuck in this subway car with a bomb and couldn’t get away. I grabbed onto the overhead railing and swung my feet at the window. It didn’t work. The heart as pumping at the same pace as the beeping. I didn’t know what to do. It was about to go off at any second. I could picture the headlines that the subway full of passengers explode in an accident during the power outage. The bomber would probably never be found. These ideas were flying around my mind when the beeper stopped.
All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the unsuspecting old couple from before move abruptly and remove their shirts, revealing bombs strapped to their bodies. 
Everyone on the train was paralyzed in fear.  My mind raced as they shouted demands for everyone to stay calm and get on the floor.  I pondered possible escape strategies, but failed to construct one that didn’t end with the old couple detonating their bombs and killing everyone on the train, including myself.  Upon arriving to the dreadful conclusion that my fate was no longer in my own hands, I desperately began to pray, an act I hadn’t done since my parents died twenty two years ago. 
Amidst my pitiful plea to a god I only half believed in, I noticed the shouts had ceased.  The old couple were no longer shouting demands, but were completely naked and dancing.  Still frozen in fear, I found myself unable to look away from the old terrorists passionately dancing in the middle of a crowded train packed with terrified pedestrians. 
It took the old couple approximately five minutes to complete their medley but it felt like an eternity.  Upon finishing, they both stood up, slowly put on their clothes, and exited the train as mysteriously as they had come. They unlocked a door and walked out.
The couple was gone, yet we remained, confused, scared, curious.  I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t.  Nobody was, it was evident in the fearful expressions that remained on all of their faces.