Re: The Jaded/The Disaffected
At least one person on the train had a birthday. Law of probability, if you counted up the train cars and the number of people in them and divided by the number of weeks in the year. Cold calculation put the probability high up and Emil and cold calculation were buddies by now. He approached it methodically and without feeling bad for the intended recipient of the card. If they were on the train and receiving birthday mail, they were probably in first and Emil didn't feel bad for anyone who didn't miss a twenty. He flicked through the As to Hs and was starting on G and he didn't turn around for the person taking up oxygen nearby.
"Cough or something." Emil's voice was bored and flat as he flicked his nail idly against the ridge of a card in a stack of ordinary mail about something rich people couldn't live without an update on. "If you're going to stare." He had the hard, flat vowels of a city, somewhere where the only green Emil saw was the weeds that cracked through concrete and the indifference of knowing anybody who would do anything about it wouldn't have paused to watch. He and the law weren't buddies, but on a first name, last name basis.
He got all the way through G, flick-flick-flick and bingo, a card-shaped candy-colored envelope and Emil tugged it out of the stack with long, thin and bitten fingers before he threw a glance over his shoulder to see if the mouse had moved on. Blue eyes flicked down. Flicked up. Attention-seeking. Which was saying something but this was loud, desperate, written across the boy's chest. Daddy, maybe? Or Mommy in something corporate. Emil's gaze was inscrutable.
"Do you listen to them?" The band. "Or did you just buy the shirt?" Emil wasn't friendly but he never was.