Getting off the last stop on the E train is a fleeting experience. The platform is arranged so that the clearest exit is at the very end of the station, a long shiny run way leading towards the metal tangle of grates and turnstiles. It's an image that the more cynical of us might compare to a sewage treatment plant. I call it the river Manhattan.
It's everywhere, that mad rush of people bustling down the streams and eddies of the sidewalks towards wherever life requires them to go that day. The picture of the river invites piscine comparisons, but the truth is, we're pebbles. Some shinier than others, smoother but bland, others rough hewn and inclined to stick or divert course. Geologic rubble tumbling through the Lower Sediment. We're not the salmon.
The salmon swim above us, sleek and fat in their ascending glory, chauffeured by the societal equivalent of artificially constructed steps built with good intentions. The pebbles can only hope for little pieces of floating shit to settle down and provide some fleeting dreams of ascendancy. Vicarious motion. The only thing any individual salmon fears is a bearish predator, but that can only do so much before another spawns to take its place, helped along by those oh so convenient steps.
One pebble is an annoyance, but a multitude of sufficient speed and momentum is a fucking shotgun blast.
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