The Madness East of St. George

Monday, July 9

The crowd has grown restless. Nowhere near so as I. We are in our ninth hour, and signs of progress are nil. Some fools hold onto their faith blindly. We’ll be moving soon, they say. You just have to be patient. Others know as well as I that we are doomed, but they do not have the courage to say it aloud. Even I have kept mostly silent, but it has been a damned struggle. My groans and mutterings and constant

staring at this filthy, sticky floor are seen as signs of common psychosis, but at least it keeps the others away from me. I cannot tell when I shall break. It could be in a minute, it could be in another three hours. But it will come, I know it well.

It seems like a generation ago when we left the station known as Coxwell. Such a happy time it seems in retrospect! Coxwell. One was free at Coxwell. One could enter or leave at will. One could dream of happy times ahead, when one might emerge from the bowels of Yonge and Bloor and see daylight, food, shelter, warmth, an infectious smile on a child’s face. One could yearn for a lifetime of possibilities. But it was not to be. Cursèd signal problems! Damn this transit ineptitude, which makes even the filth and decay of Lansdowne Avenue seem like an unreachable Utopia. I once had a dream of arriving at my workplace and fulfilling my minimal daily tasks. How mundane that dream seemed, nine hours ago. Now, I would chew off my own foot to attain it.

I can feel the Madness seeping in. Please, please, let reason remain my guide.

Tuesday, July 10

It is morning. The luckier ones have slept in their seats. Others, such as I, have had to settle for the floor. An empty chocolate-milk carton served as my pillow, but my limbs remain numb from the cold, hard metal. The stench of urine and excrement has increased significantly over the nighttime hours. All the while, the voice above us repeats the same messages. We continue to experience a delay westbound

due to signal problems, it says with infinite blandness and indifference. We apologize for any inconvenience. There was a time when such apologies were sufficient, but that time has long passed for me. I catch myself muttering curses and vows of vengeance under my breath. It is the Madness. I pray to the God I do not believe in that the Madness goes away.

A child of about three years cries relentlessly at the other side of the car. The mother is feeding it butterscotch pudding from plastic cups she keeps in her backpack. The others stare at the child with murderous envy. Most, I am certain, have not eaten in nearly a day. I fasted in my youth, so I know I can withstand long periods without nourishment. I do not know if I can withstand the Madness.

Thursday, July 12

I sit and rock back and forth on the cold, filthy, urine-soaked floor as the others talk silently. Some talk of hunger. Some lament that their friends or families do not know where they are. A woman with epilepsy wonders if she is going to have a fit and what will happen if she does. A young man has finished reading his library copy of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck for the fourth time and has started it again, desperately clinging to sanity. Another young man expresses angst because his cell battery is dead and he does not have a charger.

All the while, the unspoken message rings throughout the car: We are doomed. I have felt more hope during the bleakest of Beckett plays. And the intercom voice – a new one today, deeper and older, but with the same tone of disinterested malaise – continues to reassure us that our suffering has not gone unrecognized. We apologize for any inconvenience, it says, adding that shuttle buses are still operating between Woodbine and Donlands. To ride a shuttle bus! It sounds like the privilege of monarchs and gods. Perhaps that is merely the Madness speaking. 

Some of the others express concern about the Toronto transit system’s lack of reliability. They complain about the frequency of delays such as this one. Not everyone agrees. There is a young man with a nose ring and snake tattoo who comes to the system’s defence. Stop whining, you guys, he says. The TTC is a really good system for one that’s so underfunded and limited. And delays aren’t usually the system’s fault, okay? Sometimes you have to, like, put up with a little delay now and then, for a transit system that keeps riders safe and comfortable, right? Another woman tells him that her son has not eaten in more than three days, but the young man merely rolls his eyes. Jeez, he says to her, just grow up.

Friday, July 13

We have entered the fifth day of our ordeal, and the cannibalism has begun.

It was the young man with the nose ring and the snake tattoo, of course. Friday the 13th turned out unluckiest for him. The mother grew weary of his rebuttals and stabbed him in the heart with her knitting needle. So far, both of his legs, his left arm and his tongue have been devoured. The others rush to consume as much of his meat as they can before the body begins to rot. Perhaps they are not all doomed, after all.

As for me, I cannot bring myself to partake of the feast. The stench of the bodily waste in the car has ruined my appetite. I wonder how the others have grown so accustomed to it. Were it not for the air conditioning, we would have all suffocated long ago.

Still I worry about the Madness. Can my reason outlast this ordeal?

Saturday, July 14

The young man has long been completely devoured. Only a bloody skull and rib cage remain in the seat where he once was. It has not been enough. The other residents – and residents we now seem to be, no longer mere passengers – of this car still complain of hunger. Yet all watch their tongues with care, lest they say the wrong thing and become the next meal. Who will it be? The elderly woman on the blue courtesy seat, who has little time left regardless? The teenage jock boy with the thick, brawny

muscles? We wait.

During the nighttime hours, as the foul stench and the numbness keep me awake and threaten to swallow my sanity, I lie and think about the old days. Sometimes I can barely remember them. They seem so distant, so untouchable now. Did I really see the outside world? Did I really live in an apartment? Were there really dogs and cats and birds and trees and flowers and other forms of life? Was there really such a man as David Hasselhoff? It all seems too strange, too vast, to have been real. I could almost believe that all of it was a mere dream, or a figment of an imagination too warped and vivid. This is reality, right now, and I must accept it, or pay a steep mental price.

Monday, July 16

I always knew the Madness would win in the end.

I am now the only living being in this car. The rest – gone. Struck down without mercy. The Madness made me swipe the woman’s knitting needle and stab them all in a screaming rampage. I believe some of them were even glad to die. It comforts me to know that I ended their pain.

It was only moments after the final one expired that I felt the floor move, nearly sending me toppling over. The sound of wheels rolling on rails came from below. The train was moving again! And from above came the inevitable announcement: The delay we were experiencing has now been cleared, and regular service has resumed, and so on. Then, Our next station is Greenwood. Greenwood Station. So I am to be free again, at last. For how long, I cannot say.

At Greenwood Station, the riders on the platform stare in shock at the bloody mess in the car. They refuse to enter. Now a transit officer enters, takes one look at the corpses and vomits on the floor.

“Wh... what have you done?” he shrieks at me as I stand with the needle still in hand.

I tell him I have done only what a week of being trapped in a delayed subway might drive any conscious being to do. 

“A week?” he cries. “The f--- are you talking about? We were only delayed five minutes!”

He nearly vomits again, as I peer at a cell phone still clutched in the hand of a nearby victim. MONDAY, JULY 9, it reads. 8:46 A.M.

Strange, the ways that the Madness can bend and shape time and perception. I could swear that it happened exactly as I have set it down in this log. But surely it must have! Otherwise, how could I have written this?

I suppose they will lock me up and hold a trial. Let them if they so please. I shall plead

innocent, with this log serving as my key witness. Either the Madness or reality itself is the true perpetrator.

2025 SHORT FICTION CONTEST JUDGE'S REMARKS

Sitting down to read The Madness East of St. George is like sitting down with an old friend for a familiar cup of too-hot tea. Only, your friend’s jaw is a touch unhinged – in the literal sense – the wallpaper is peeling, and blood is pouring into the room like that scene in The Shining. The real genius isn’t in the absurdity of the horror, but in the mundanity of everything else.

As a Canadian (living in Ontario, no less), I was immediately drawn to the setting of this piece: Toronto transit. The author takes a familiar experience  – who hasn’t ridden on subpar transit? – and turns it into a masterful piece of satirical horror. From one sentence to the next, I was gasping in disgust and then laughing out loud.

I found myself thinking a lot about The Madness East of St. George after I’d finished reading it, finding more to love on my second and third visits through the slick prose. The author gives us a masterclass in manipulating language – at times too formal and too composed – which they contrast with the scene being described: an animalistic meltdown nothing short of insanity. This, coupled with the count-up to chaos, is perfect for elevating tension and drawing the reader right in. It’s got that Lovecraftian flavour that makes you want to utter to yourself next time you’re sitting in traffic, “The madness!”

Elysia Rourke judged MoonLit Getaway's 2025 Short Fiction Contest.