Page Fifteen: The A Train Observer

Don't get me wrong, I still love subways. I love riding on them and I love watching people go their one million different ways everyday. I don't like subways when they're on fire though.

It started off like a normal ride from Harlem to Midtown. I was in my own world with a book and an ipod. We stopped for a while and I didn't pay any attention to it until I started to get grumbly because I realized I was going to be late. So, I took off my ipod and asked what the deal was. The announcements started coming that there was a fire at 59th and that we could not continue our ride. That would have been fine if we were stopped at a station, but we were stopped in the middle of concrete.

So, I sat there like a scared Texan pretending to only be worried about what my boss would say when I was late to work (even though I knew none of my bosses would realize I wasn't there on account of my intern-status and my home in the last cubicle in the far back corner).

We finally started moving...slowly. Then the lady came back on the speaker with the words, "Advise, smoke may be entering the cabin". I did not like this.

They opened the doors at the first stop they could, 72nd. I didn't care that I worked 40 blocks away and I didn't care that I was late. I walked the 40 blocks to Penn Station and could smell smoke at least 20 blocks of the way. I didn't stick around long enough to find the cause of the fire and it was probably nothing but I couldn't sit there one second longer. I'm a big baby, I guess.