A Chase

Yesterday I spoke of an apparently rather lusty gentleman who had engaged me in conversation while on the subway the other day. Naturally, that was not the only thing that happened on that train. These things frequently bunch up on you, so much the better for startling and throwing off kilter your mindset. Well, the next thing that happened was not so easy to understand, as I was not pressed into talking and was not about to initiate it.

There was this young guy who I saw run down onto the platform at one of the stations along the way home. He was rather reckless, and out of breath. I wondered just what he might be up to. In my mind was the picture of a marathon runner looking for a shortcut, only this was late at night on a non-marathon day, and this kid was no distance runner. He had a USC lanyard, I noticed. I surmised that he might be a college student.

After a stop, he ran out again, and I notice a crowd of similar age chase after him. I figured this to be some kind of game or prank, and further figured that this was the end of it for me. It was enough to think about already, but then I noticed him in the next car, face pressed against the divider. He had been monkeying with the emergency stop, and so I was not looking for him to return. I hoped that he would not, but my wishes went unheeded.

Sure enough, he came back, and this time with a confederate. This afforded the opportunity to pick up some sentence fragments further substantiating that game theory I'd had. I didn't learn a lot more about the nature of the game, except that it seemed to be some manner of chase which might or might not have terminated at the end of the subway line. They seemed to have left the train at its penultimate stop, actually. Whatever it was, I don't think I could have related even when I was their age. A few years older, I found it was no more pleasant to witness.