Oddly drawn
Oct. 10th, 2007 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenBefore leaving work, it seemed that my mind, heart, and body wanted to take the PATH to Hoboken and then home via the Light Rail-bus combo. I was oddly drawn to the prospect for some reason, like a kid excited about a ride on his favorite rollercoaster.
As I left my office building, though, I heard sirens approaching from behind me. Possibly from a fire engine, a police car, or maybe from an ambulance; wasn't sure. The sirens in NYC are very different from most other cities because people just don't pay attention to them at all when they're very often steeped and stuck in heavy traffic; I didn't turn around. Throngs of people were milling about on either side of Church St, walking unusually slowly, which was mildly iritating, and I couldn't figure out why, except that it was rush hour. There was even a cute cop riding horseback at the next intersection. The thought raced through my mind, "Watch out for the turds!!".
Just then I noticed multiple ambulances, lights flashing, up the street in front of the post office and hoards of more pedestrians crossing the street while no traffic moved and the cops were instructing the crowds. My mind flickered with the rather distant and hushed but still fresh memory of an interchange between two secretaries echoing into the lobby on my floor while I waited for the elevator down: there was a bomb threat at the PATH station.
The ladies' chit-chat transported me to a memory of being on the London tube in 1991. The train I was on stopped abruptly with no announcement, but people around me were talking about the possible bomb threat at the next station, which I found strange and foreign. I remember thinking, "How awful to have to live around that threat? Why would people want to live here with that hanging over their heads every day?"
Funny and sad how quickly the world and I have changed. I joined the worried throngs to take the subway home.
As I left my office building, though, I heard sirens approaching from behind me. Possibly from a fire engine, a police car, or maybe from an ambulance; wasn't sure. The sirens in NYC are very different from most other cities because people just don't pay attention to them at all when they're very often steeped and stuck in heavy traffic; I didn't turn around. Throngs of people were milling about on either side of Church St, walking unusually slowly, which was mildly iritating, and I couldn't figure out why, except that it was rush hour. There was even a cute cop riding horseback at the next intersection. The thought raced through my mind, "Watch out for the turds!!".
Just then I noticed multiple ambulances, lights flashing, up the street in front of the post office and hoards of more pedestrians crossing the street while no traffic moved and the cops were instructing the crowds. My mind flickered with the rather distant and hushed but still fresh memory of an interchange between two secretaries echoing into the lobby on my floor while I waited for the elevator down: there was a bomb threat at the PATH station.
The ladies' chit-chat transported me to a memory of being on the London tube in 1991. The train I was on stopped abruptly with no announcement, but people around me were talking about the possible bomb threat at the next station, which I found strange and foreign. I remember thinking, "How awful to have to live around that threat? Why would people want to live here with that hanging over their heads every day?"
Funny and sad how quickly the world and I have changed. I joined the worried throngs to take the subway home.
