Ms. Laura Raedle
Advanced Composition, English F1103
Assignment #6 – Example Experiment
Sometimes in life, one is fortunate enough to witness profound human interactions. Occasionally, the most genuine acts of compassion come from the most unlikely or surprising origins. Last Friday, fate places me in just the right time and place to witness such an incident.
The 145th St. Subway Station is crowded, dusky, and fetid on this hot afternoon. A mass of people impatiently jostle back and forth as they wait for their long overdue train. Near the front of the crowd, a ragged young Puerto Rican girl clutches a dirty stuffed bunny rabbit to her chest. Her frazzled mother hovers nearby in a shabby brown dress, holding a baby in one arm while she tries to keep a toddler, surely the girl’s younger brother, from crawling away. The girl appears about seven, but her dull, hungry expression makes her appear desperately older. The stuffed animal she squeezes is the only thing she trusts and loves here in Gotham City. As I watch, she wanders a little too close to the tracks, but no one else seems to notice. Her little brother tugs his mother’s dress, and her baby sister begins to cry. The mother mutters something in Spanish to both of them. Suddenly, an express train roars through the station on an inside track, and the gust of wind knocks the girl to the floor. My throat constricts for a second as it looks like she might fall down into the tracks. The other commuters pay no attention. Mercifully she doesn’t fall, but her stuff animal is not so lucky. It lands on the left rail.
“Mopsy!” the girl shrieks. But her mother is already pulling her up by the arm and dragging her away from the tracks. Mom says some harsh-sounding words to the girl, but again she is speaking Spanish. Anguish fills the girl’s face as she struggles to break free of her mother’s grip and rescue her trusty companion. But her mother’s grasp holds firm.
Out of no where, a short, scrawny, bald man wearing rimmed glasses and a dark trench coat appears near the tracks. The crowd pays no attention because they are relieved to finally hear the sounds of the approaching local train. Without fanfare or caution, the man quickly jumps down onto the tracks and scoops up the floppy bunny. The subway’s horns blare, and seconds before it squishes him to a gory mess, he pulls himself onto the platform. Unscratched, he darts over to the teary girl and hands her the toy. She pulls it close and sucks her thumb. Before her mom even turns to see him, he disappears into the shuffling mob. The horde pushes me through the sliding doors, so I don’t find out if there is any aftermath. Not that I was willing to miss my late train anyway.
You might conclude that New York is not such a hostile city after all. But the real take-home message is that small, wiry men are watching out for us, protecting countless toys and stuffed animals from being crushed by large, public-transit trains. No one really knows how many of these guys are out there, whether there are many different ones dispersed throughout the city, or just a handful who get around a lot. Whatever the case, these skinny little Samaritans have sure chosen an unusual line of work.