Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #16

Let Us Rejoice Our first step on the stairs, a flood of people washes us forward and down, then on through the tunnels. The power of their rushing propels me, nudges me aside, slows me down but shoves me on as well.

Oh no! My companion, my guide, my wife is also caught in the current, some kind of late afternoon riptide. We've done this trip before but never been so forcefully swept along as we are now. I yell but she can't hear me. And she doesn't look back, assuming I'm right behind her. I recognize this posture. That's definitely her, one-track minded when she makes up her mind.

It's one of those situations where you suddenly realize it's so out of hand you have to do something, but you can't do what you really want to do. What's around you controls you, and you can control yourself only a bit. These limits, I know, are so restrictive they would depress me if I consider them for any length of time. But I can't. The anxiety I feel is as strong as the force of these people's desires. A mass movement. A tsunami. Adrenaline confuses me too. I can't stop what's inside me any more than I can stop what's outside.

The din is part of the problem. Engines are shrieking, metal wheels are clacking and squealing on metal rails. Whistles are screaming. And echoes of them all reverberate. Amplified above all that, a God-like male voice is making announcements, arrivals, departures, track numbers. In French of course so I understand none of it. Mon Dieu! There is no choice. Give up and drown or keep swimming along after my wife who swore she knew the way.

Another problem is that I lug most of our baggage. In each hand's a hard plastic, heavy, awkward suitcase on wheels. They weigh me down along with 64 years of mistakes and misjudgments that have amassed rolls of fatty uncertainties. Catching my leader is not my goal. Not losing sight of her is. But it's like following a mosquito in a wind. Of course people intrude. They don't know I'm with her. I perspire heavily and my hands slip. I'd holler if it would help. If anyone might hear.

Up some stairs dragging my weights. Down tunnels. Down stairs.