Falling

This morning I became a bit player in the human drama of New York stories when, racing down into the subway to catch a train (just as the signs warn you not to do) I lost my footing and rolled down the final one-fourth or so of the short flight of stairs. Points of impact included my nose, which promptly starting bleeding copiously, and the back of my head, where an impressive bump soon arose. I landed at the foot of a policeman standing guard in the subway; I had noticed his reassuring feet as I hurried down the stairs, little suspecting that in seconds I would be at them. Passers-by, including a few people I recognized as having passed on the street as I hurried to the train, threw concerned or horrified glances at me (I think the amount of blood was a little shocking) but did not stop to help; the policeman had me covered. In their faces I imagined I saw, this could have been me.

The falling itself was an odd thing. At first just a momentary feeling of unease, then an uh-oh, then a sense that this would be awkward; then knowing it would be worse than that. I can't quite reconstruct the sequence of events, where I was in space; I know I grabbed the hand rail and slowed down quite a bit at that point, bashing my nose into the side of the stairway; it was with a feeling of great disappointment that I realized at the next instant that I was not done yet and that it still remained to continue falling, hitting the back of my head next, until I ran out of stairs.

I never lost consciousness. I remember everything; I don't think I have a concussion. I went home, washed off the blood, iced the bump on my head, called my friend that I had been on my way to meet for coffee and told her I wouldn't be coming. Kept looking at my pupils to see that they remained the same size (they did) and thinking how scary it would be if they weren't. Not only because it would mean a brain injury, but how odd and disconcerting that would be, like having eyes that were different colors!