The entire train car held its breath as I told the kid to give up the priority seat for the man on crutches, and they answered by slowly putting their headphone back on and turning to the window.
This wasn’t the first time. For weeks, this person in the gray hoodie had planted themself in that exact blue seat, a monument to their own selfishness.
A pregnant woman, an old man, anyone who actually needed the spot—it didn’t matter. My public attempt at justice was a complete failure, a humiliating silence that left my face burning.
But something inside me snapped for good. My quiet rage turned into a cold, hard plan. They thought a pair of headphones made them untouchable, but I’m an architect who understands that every fortress has a hidden weakness, and I was about to dismantle theirs piece by piece in a way no one, least of all them, would ever expect.
The Geometry of a Grudge: The Throne of Indifference
The 7:42 AM express to the city is a living organism, all of us individual cells pulsing through the steel veins of the track. As an architect, I see the world in systems, in load-bearing walls and lines of intent. The priority seating on the Red Line is a perfect, simple system: blue seats for those who need them most. A design for decency.
For the past three weeks, that system has had a glitch. A human glitch, perpetually clad in a gray hoodie, noise-canceling headphones clamped over their ears like a second skull. They sit—no, they *plant* themselves—in the prime corner priority seat, the one with the most legroom and a window view. Every morning, same spot. Knees bouncing to a silent beat, eyes locked on a phone screen, a force field of manufactured oblivion around them.
Today, an old woman boards at Belmont, her hand trembling on a four-pronged cane. The car is packed, a vertical human puzzle. She sways with the train’s lurch, her floral-print dress a splash of vulnerability in a sea of beige trench coats.
Eyes flick toward the blue seats. Toward The Hoodie. A collective, silent plea hangs in the stale, recycled air. The Hoodie doesn’t look up. Their thumb scrolls, a rhythmic, maddening motion. The man next to them, a guy in a cheap suit, clears his throat. The woman across the aisle lets out an audible, theatrical sigh. Nothing.
The old woman’s knuckles are white on her cane. I feel a familiar coil of acid tightening in my gut. It’s the same feeling I get when a contractor ignores a blueprint, when a deliberate design choice is treated with contempt. This isn’t just rudeness. It’s a violation of a social contract we all implicitly signed when we tapped our transit cards. The system is failing.
A Pattern of Disregard
Yesterday it was a woman so pregnant she looked like she’d swallowed a beach ball. She’d boarded at Fullerton, one hand pressed to the small of her back, her breath coming in short, visible puffs in the cool morning air. She stood for four stops, her gaze fixed on the floor, as if looking at The Hoodie would be an admission of her own discomfort.
The day before that, a man with a cast on his leg, a thin film of sweat on his brow. He’d leaned heavily against the pole, his face a mask of strained politeness. He never said a word. None of them ever do.
It’s the consistency that gets me. The sheer, unwavering commitment to being an asshole. This isn’t a one-time lapse in awareness. This is a policy. A personal manifesto of me-first, written in the language of slouching posture and expensive headphones.
My husband, Mark, thinks I’m obsessing. “Sarah, it’s just a seat,” he’d said last night over dinner, swirling his pasta. “The world is full of jerks. You can’t fix them all.”
But it’s not about fixing them. It’s about the space they take up—not just the physical seat, but the psychic space. Their selfishness radiates. It makes the air feel thinner, the ride longer. It makes the rest of us complicit in our silence. We exchange glances, a community of cowards, united in our muttered complaints and our absolute refusal to do a damn thing. I feel my own inaction like a stain.
About the Author
