​Falling into Place

Becky groaned as she was all but trampled in the stampede boarding the uptown train. Carried along by the crowd she found herself wedged between two huge backpacks whose owners seemed oblivious to the excess space they occupied.
 
Her swollen ankles seemed to exacerbate the pinching pain of the fresh blisters on her heels. She should have known better than to wear new shoes on a Wednesday, when she was tormented by countless meetings at opposite ends of the campus. At least she was more than halfway through the week, but, oh, how she longed to sit down and relieve some of the pressure on her weary feet.
 
Gazing toward the window, she caught sight of her reflection. Clearly, it was not only her feet that suffered from the day’s travails. She did not want to look herself in the eye, and so she looked down at the seat below. It was overflowing with an amorphous young man in a dingy grey hoodie, which was cinched so closely around his head that she could not see his expression. Nonetheless, his slouched posture spoke volumes.
 
Becky, tired as she was, felt a wave of irritation that young people today showed so little courtesy or understanding. She scowled down at the hooded head. Unexpectedly, the hood suddenly looked up.
 
“What are you staring at?’ hissed the young man. His pallid skin was pocked with acne and anxiety. ‘You think you deserve this seat more than me? I’m so sick of old people telling us that we act “entitled” when really they are the ones with a bad attitude!’
 
With alacrity and agility that belied his bulk, the youth launched himself out of his seat, grabbed Becky by her shoulders, and shoved her in a swiveling motion toward the window.
 
The abruptness of the maneuver knocked Becky off balance, and she felt herself falling, falling backward, falling through the window. As she fell, she saw shards flashing around her and images rushing by.
 
Did she see the young man brandishing a knife? Or was someone threatening him with a knife?
 
As her fall continued, so did the disjointed impressions. She saw herself, earlier in the day, complaining childishly to her boss about the ridiculous number of meetings, although she knew it was not her boss’s fault. Another picture appeared. This time she was crying at her desk over a curt e-mail from her ex-husband demanding that she surrender both of their cats to him.
 
She flinched and fell further. Earlier versions of herself flicked past but not before she had recalled each moment: the afternoon she had caught her husband cheating, the time her tantrum at work had nearly got her fired, the morning her father had told her she would have to leave the house now that he was getting re-married.
 
As she plunged further, she sensed an important message emerging, but she couldn’t quite make it out – like when you’ve joined all the corners and edges of a jigsaw puzzle, but you’re still trying to organize the jumbled bits inside.
 
Finally, her descent ended, and she found herself looking at her reflection again. The shards of the window were slowly reassembling themselves. At first, she saw her own face, worried and wrinkled. But as the fragments knitted themselves back together, she was able to see through the window, where the young man’s face stared back at her.
 
Now she could see his pain, his fear, his insecurity – not so different from her own. ‘Yes,’ she realized, ‘he is worried, just like me!’
 
As the window completed its transformation, the train came to a halt, and Becky looked up from the seat where she had landed. She was unharmed. She wanted to thank the young man, offer him a kind word or encouragement. She searched for his troubled face, but all she saw was a grey hoodie disappearing through the train doors.
 
 
 
14 Jan 2020