The Only Man in the World

When I arrive at my station in the morning, there’s a spot where I can look down to the lower platform and see if my train has arrived. The other day on my way to work, I look down and, sure enough, there’s my train with its doors already open. Bad sign. Gotta move. Right. Now.

My flight down the escalator isn’t quite as fast as I’d like it to be for two reasons: 1. It’s raining out and the steps are a little slick; getting to work on time is not worth cracking my skull. 2. There’s a guy already on the stairs when I start down, so I have to slow up a little and fall in behind him; I can’t speed past him at this pace without risking a collision.

The door chime buzzes as I hit the bottom, Mr. Gray Suit still in front of me. He moves with respectable quickness, I guess, me right on his heels. But as he crosses the threshold of the train car, he just … stops. Stops! Right on the other side of the doorway, like he’s the only man in the world trying to catch a train this morning.

See, you have to keep moving in these beat-the-doors situations, because there’s always someone behind you trying the exact same thing. These Metro doors are unforgiving—they ain’t kindly elevator barriers, not them. When they close, they close, with extreme prejudice.

By all rights, I should keep going full-force and obliterate this guy like Mike Sellers against a Detroit Lions defensive back. Instead, I pull up ever so slightly to allow him another moment to get out of the way, then squeeze through the closing doors like the Millennium Falcon escaping that asteroid worm. In true Han Solo fashion, I don't make it without incurring some damage, crashing into the right-hand door as I slip through.

“Thanks, jerk,” I mutter in his general direction, seething and holding my throbbing right arm. But he’s clueless through and through. Upon hearing my invective, he turns to me with the biggest, dumbest, most vacant what? face you’re ever likely to see. He has absolutely no idea what just happened, and there’s no chance he’ll ever figure it out, even if I drew him a diagram. I figure there’s a certain kind of honesty about that and go find a seat.

As far away from him as possible—for his own good.