...for a slow person
There's something apocalyptic about the way in which crowds depart from the metro platform, all sense of community lost as individuals squeeze between person-shaped obstacles and sigh at one another. I'm quite good at this myself, actually, and often win the surface-bound race at Pyrénées.
But today, at Porte de Pantin, I was distracted by a certain older woman (sixty-five? ninety-five?) who had pulled over to the far left in order to take each step two-steps-at-a-time, heaving herself upwards with a beleaguered lack of haste. A whole trainload of people had swarmed past her by the time she had reached the halfway step, leaving only her in the middle and me at the top, standing around with an orange flower. Her eventual arrival had a certain joyful dignity, and she accepted the rose as a self-evident sign of her own triumph.
But today, at Porte de Pantin, I was distracted by a certain older woman (sixty-five? ninety-five?) who had pulled over to the far left in order to take each step two-steps-at-a-time, heaving herself upwards with a beleaguered lack of haste. A whole trainload of people had swarmed past her by the time she had reached the halfway step, leaving only her in the middle and me at the top, standing around with an orange flower. Her eventual arrival had a certain joyful dignity, and she accepted the rose as a self-evident sign of her own triumph.