Someone on this train farted

Don’t look at me.

It wasn’t just a random little fart that happened to slip out, either. This was a full-blown, paint-stripping fart o’fire. The kind of fart that foreshadows bowel actions yet to come. The kind of fart that makes nearby toilets wish they were not. The kind of fart that could break up the Beatles.

I scanned the car for suspects in my vicinity. Business man wearing earbuds and reading the Wall Street Journal. He looked a little too relaxed and pleased with himself. Middle aged woman sitting on the steps to the upper level reading on her phone. Maybe she tried and failed to smother her skunk in the stairs. Millennial girl (I’m a millennial, so this isn’t a slur) snapchatting her 8 a.m. face. Was the fart included? Woman with an enormous purse next to me whose overwhelming smell-aura of cigarettes usually incapacitates me every morning. Until this fart, at least. Was she trying to solve one problem with another?

It could have been anyone. I looked around desperately during the eye of the fart, trying to catch any suspects’ gaze. Trying to catch the killer.

Everyone remained focused on the task in their hand.

The conductor walked by me again. Could he have hit and run our car? Probably. He hates all of us and purposely bumps me every morning on his way by, jerking my computer bag away from my side. Leaving a dose of poison gas would be a silent and effective way to assert his authority.

What if others think I’m the culprit? I tried to make my face look less like an “I just farted” face, which is about as easy as being commanded to not think about elephants.

I was going for “Yeah, I smell it, too. What fellow human would do this to us?”, but I’m not sure it came across.

Just then it hits me — another wave of toxic air — but this time it comes with a realization. The metal wall I’m leaning up against is the train’s bathroom door. The foul stench is sneaking through the cracks!

The lock on the door makes a jingling sound as it’s undone. The moment of truth is nigh — the Beast is about to step into the light.

But wait.

There is no beast…just beauty. A raven-haired goddess steps out from the depths of the train’s stall, the scent of roses engulfing the train and obliterating the purse lady’s nicotine haze.

She moves toward me, the sensuous smile on her face melting away as she asks me a simple question.

Did you fart?

And at that very moment, I decided that I had.