Everybody's skin tones are shades of gold in the light of the platform heat lamps on a crystalline night. A heavy bottle shatters somewhere on the street below.
Transit Authority #181
A young guy in baggy clothes weeping bitterly, slumped against a pillar, and when people stop to show concern he holds his hand up and rubs his fingers together asking for money. His hat lies upside down on the platform floor.
Transit Authority #180
A large ponytail protrudes from between the upper and lower runs of a knit scarf.
Transit Authority #179
A girl giggles, inches from my ear and playfully tells her lover to stop it. He says:
Imagine if it was a total stranger doing that...
A beat passes and once more, her laughter is in my ear.
Transit Authority #178
A young father, arm around his son, offering the boy pulls on his energy drink and kissing his head.
Transit Authority #177
Operator:
"Please check to make sure you have your belongings: check the floor and the seat next to you, hopefully your things are not in someone else's pocket. Thanks for riding the CTA."
Transit Authority #176
Operator:
"Get your things,
check the seat next to you
check the floor
before you hit the door
Sedgwick is next
May the Force be with you"
Transit Authority #175
A kid practicing pulling the bus stop cord as far as it will go without tripping the bell.
Transit Authority #174
Five hands on the door handle, one by one peeling off like petals off a black-eyed Susan.
Transit Authority #173
The operator says:
- be sure to remember my belongings
- he hopes I'm enjoying the ride
- be careful disembarking, because some of the platforms are slippery
- good morning
Transit Authority #172
I sprinted for the bus. A gentleman who'd arrived to the stop on time refused to board until my breathless body with flaring hair had stepped onto the the bus, saying "go on ahead".
Transit Authority #171
The rhythmic scratching of a hairbrush in time with the sway of the passing city.
Transit Authority #170
A woman in the wind unable for other reasons to stand still.
Transit Authority #169
A young man playing a Gloria Gainor remix for two young girls, whose choreographed dancing he films for a TikTok post.
Transit Authority #168
A couple in italics, the one passed out against the window and the other passed out on his shoulder.
Transit Authority #167
A man with headphones, a tie and slacks, and the sniffles: hundreds of sniffs in the space of minutes, tonally revealing the contour of his nasal cavity.
Transit Authority #166
Driver talking for twenty five minutes about his ability to diffuse a situation, control it with the tone of his voice, change the subject, control the situation, you know, not let things get outta hand, and he musta been mid-sentence when we pulled up to our house and had to disembark the minivan.
Transit Authority #165
"This is the golden hour, this was primetime for the thespians of old. If you look at all of their theaters, they were facing the sunset to put that orange and pink light on the faces of the actors.
Yes, the golden hour. The thespians of Greece."
Transit Authority #164
A bundled up man produces a bulk box of white kit Kats from his duffle bag and faintly smiling, holds onto the box for several stops, until his stop comes.
Transit Authority #163
A gentleman slowly, carefully pressing closed an oversized bag of peppermint patties.