Green

Katie King, Issue 04

I was on the subway and a man was standing next to his wife, carrying a plant, and I couldn’t stop staring at it: something green growing underground, inside a metal train. Maybe the other passengers sensed it too, the intrusion of nature, this green invasion, but suddenly three couples started hardcore making out all around me, and it made me want to look, which made me want to look away, which made me want something very green. Eye contact quickly becomes confrontational, a mental space threat.

If you do look someone in the eye in the city on the trains, you’d better have a hell of a good story or a beautifully apologetic smile, or a look that says “meh” loud enough that no one takes offense.

People like to make things bigger than they are. There is something comforting/dangerous/distracting about something bigger than we are. I can speak about such things especially because I am a woman, and I am small.

It’s quite possible that nothing could happen to you at all after looking someone in the eye on the New York subway. Nothing happened to me.

Listen to me. There are few things in New York City you are allowed to look at on the subway. Musicians. Your phone. Your shoes. And plants.