36th st station long island city
today in the afternoon as the R train pulled up, this cute collegy-looking kid wearing a formfitting soccer jersey and white authentics moved as if to step right off the platform in front of it, casual as dipping a toe into water. if he had done it, he’d’ve been the second person I’ve seen jump in front of a train in under a year. he didn’t though, ‘cause while I stood blank and dumb with that nightmare sort of paralysis, this old, impossibly tiny woman, who had to be like fuckin’ seventy, lunged forward, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and yanked him back. she yelled at him in a language I don’t know but that he seemed to, maybe it was english, but in any case I didn’t comprehend any of it. they got onto the train together with her hand wrapped all white-knuckled around his wrist the entire time, both of them looking like they wanted to cry but would do it later. i got off before they did i wonder where they went. I don’t know if he meant to jump or not, you know, like there is the possibility that he was just seeing how long he’d let himself linger there. I guess it’s because as someone who has casually and uncasually imagined herself jumping in front of trains, this image has just been a hard one to shake, of this dude who looked my age being grasped back into life by some wild magical angel woman.
My name's Modupe. I'm an academic masochist and an NYU student. I love food, Novak Djokovic, and The Strokes, and I think you should too.
