TakingITGlobal - Panorama - Life As I Know It

Published on: Feb 10, 2003

Topic:

Type: Opinions

https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=1000

The air is always very still in a subway car. You are on your way to work, home, school and wedge yourself into a small space and breathe shallowly, rationing each exhalation as if it were your last. A sneeze, you think, would blow over the woman standing beside me; send you flying through the door at the end of the car and into the endless tunnel. A sneeze, you think, would be deadly.

You stand with your hands stuck to your purse, briefcase, shopping bag and glue your eyes to some fixed point in the distance, a non-descript grey place, a curious place with no weather, no wind or rain that could un-glue your eyes. For if your eyes loosened and rolled around in their sockets, you could be betrayed. Your eyes could meet another pair of eyes, exchange names and thoughts and flowers and then, well, what then? Would your eyes leave you to join that other pair of eyes, hop out of your skull, without so much as a good-bye to a better home, a warmer body? Best to keep your eyes confined to that country without seasons. Your feet are planted firmly on the black, ridged plastic floor and the dark of the tunnel pours by you seamlessly.

I want to pull the black, ridged plastic floor from under your feet and undo the seams of the tunnel. I want to meet your eyes and take them away from that country without weather to another land that is scorched and frozen, where all the seasons collide at once and your heart is laid bare. I want you to drop the shopping bags and reach out with your hands, and I want you to take gulping breaths of air and tell me all you know in laughs and shouts and shouting laughter.

All this, of course, is hard to do in a steel subway car where the air is so very still. But if I were to look up and look into your eyes, and you were to look back, what would happen? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps we would quickly avert our eyes again, ashamed. Or perhaps, in that moment of contact, something would be set in motion. A child bounces a red rubber ball on the pavement. A match is struck against the heel of a shoe, and flares against the night. A muscle tightens under glistening skin. A subway car, rattling towards an unknown destination, leaves a trail of electric blue sparks in its wake.

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by aclam
Published on: Feb 10, 2003
Topic:
Type: Opinions
https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=1000


The air is always very still in a subway car. You are on your way to work, home, school and wedge yourself into a small space and breathe shallowly, rationing each exhalation as if it were your last. A sneeze, you think, would blow over the woman standing beside me; send you flying through the door at the end of the car and into the endless tunnel. A sneeze, you think, would be deadly. You stand with your hands stuck to your purse, briefcase, shopping bag and glue your eyes to some fixed point in the distance, a non-descript grey place, a curious place with no weather, no wind or rain that could un-glue your eyes. For if your eyes loosened and rolled around in their sockets, you could be betrayed. Your eyes could meet another pair of eyes, exchange names and thoughts and flowers and then, well, what then? Would your eyes leave you to join that other pair of eyes, hop out of your skull, without so much as a good-bye to a better home, a warmer body? Best to keep your eyes confined to that country without seasons. Your feet are planted firmly on the black, ridged plastic floor and the dark of the tunnel pours by you seamlessly. I want to pull the black, ridged plastic floor from under your feet and undo the seams of the tunnel. I want to meet your eyes and take them away from that country without weather to another land that is scorched and frozen, where all the seasons collide at once and your heart is laid bare. I want you to drop the shopping bags and reach out with your hands, and I want you to take gulping breaths of air and tell me all you know in laughs and shouts and shouting laughter. All this, of course, is hard to do in a steel subway car where the air is so very still. But if I were to look up and look into your eyes, and you were to look back, what would happen? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps we would quickly avert our eyes again, ashamed. Or perhaps, in that moment of contact, something would be set in motion. A child bounces a red rubber ball on the pavement. A match is struck against the heel of a shoe, and flares against the night. A muscle tightens under glistening skin. A subway car, rattling towards an unknown destination, leaves a trail of electric blue sparks in its wake. « return.