crowdthink

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
-Ezra Pound

Two things must be noted about today before I continue. I am wearing day-old make-up (saves supplies, time, and money), and the first song to come on my iPod shuffle was Faith Hill "There You'll Be" from Pearl Harbor. Wow. This song used to make me cry; today it sent me out the door and on my way with a quarter for lunch and a pat on the bum.
Also, I picked up the newspaper on my way up the stairs to campus, and read the blackness that keeps spilling out of Wall Street. (This detail becomes key later on, I think--no promises as I haven't gotten there either.)

So I'm reading the news, listening to Faith Hill, and trying not to rub my eyes as I make my leisurely way past the Maeser building. Right when I hit the JSB, the clock strikes ten to and rush hour begins. I suddenly find myself in a huge crowd of students, and with survival fresh on my mind (aha! from reading the newspaper) I stick out my elbows and determine to be faster than them all.

Some of you know I am very good at speedwalking. Speedwalking is a talent I nurture for occasions such as this. I had no deadline or destination, but I started booking it. It felt very important to walk very fast in this situation, and it had something to do with winning.

I just thought of another time I had a similar experience, but on a scooter. Freshman year, my roommate Steph had a little razor scooter--in fact, razor scooters were all the rage at BYU my freshman year. Steph let me borrow her scooter to go take a test on the other end of campus, which I did successfully (unless it was HEPE--worst test score of all college.) The trouble happened on my way back to the dorms. Just between the Kennedy Center and that one science building, I came upon a crowd of people, and rather than slow down my scootin', I very obviously rushed past all the people. They noticed. Scooters amplify the noise of every rise and fall between sidewalk slabs. I made it out in front of the pack, and as I was breaking to walk up the stairs southwest of the twilight zone, I hit an especially big rise in the sidewalk and spilled out across the pavement. Scooter one way, me the other. No one stopped, no one said a thing--no one laughed! I could have been invisible. The people I had passed so earnestly now filled in around me, acknowledging my presence only in their care to not step on my head. That was a sad day. But it is proof--I become quite dangerous in a crowd.