Monday, November 20, 2006

Bing, bang, bong.

Black woman, early 40s, hair curled into a sleek bob with high bangs, wearing a long, black wool coat and red scarf, carrying a T.M. Lewin bag. She's wedged in the subway door, her arm stuck outside the car, a book clenched in her extended hand.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom (Hyperion)

Page 48:

The Blue man held out his hand. "Fairness," he said, "does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young."

A few days later, I stood on the platform pushed to the back wall by rows of people, not the usual morning crush. Five minutes went by, then ten. Twenty minutes later the police arrived; people were getting anxious. The yellow line had disappeared. Word came down the line that we were being asked to leave, single file. For the first time in this city I wondered if it would be best that I not be underground, so I complied, wondering, Could it be this simple? I navigated my way closer to the track and looked back down the tunnel into complete and utter darkness. There was a strange, dull roar, a city's worth of subway cars idling in wait.

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