I turned my head back and felt something like wool brush my temple and then two big brown eyes and a pair of lips like swollen blackberries jumped from the seat across the aisle and into my face.

"Watch out for the conductor

I wanna show you sumpin'.....O.K.?? She motioned me to scoot next to her, as she slid to the edge of the  seat, which was carefully piled with a dozen boxes of curious shapes and sizes. She reached a  inside  one lined with aluminum foil and began groping for something.

"He watchin' me, I know. But I can't make it all the way back north without goin' to the bafroom; will you watch them for me?" I thought about getting busted babysitting drugs, and what they do to chicken salesmen in prison. But before I could answer, she shoved my right hand in the box with hers.

Something slithered over my knuckles. The pout melted into another smile. "I got 2 , 4 turtles, a little lizard and a baby alligator up in here.  She stood up with a shimmy into the aisle on Tina Turner legs protruding from the wicked little skirt.

"What....what am I supposed to do if...."

"Don't worry baby, if my snake starts to shake, just stroke him 'till he sleep," she said, disappearing  the aisle. . Then ("Gasp!") I felt a long splinter enter my thumb!

I try to speak to new passengers , but they can't hear me. Some of them have beaks. Only ghosts meet the conductor on the platform, conspiring. Then pillar by post they slip away. Southern streets of sleep glide by at grade. Only street lights wink at our passing through this plane and a neon sign. It fills the window with one glowing word, flashing on, flashing off and fading away.
ANSWERS  window hand snakes down