Scenes From the Metro

Wednesday, January 26, 7:15 p.m. The escalator at Dupont Circle is out, meaning a controlled tumble down the slotted metal steps and into the concrete maw of the station. On the platform the train is waiting, six new cars, bright as summer, confident in their relaxed tension. This is the Red Line, busy, always busy, and tonight like all nights people swarm around its open doors, drained and anxious and trying their best to wait their turn. And then, with threads of them, ropes of them, really, still knotted outside the train, the bell sounds. The one-two electronic chime, chased by a slurred, bored voice: Customers, stand back, doors are about to close. The unboarded panic in a way that seems choreographed. As one, at once, they stop waiting their turn and now they jam through the doors, crowding one into another, dignity and courtesy the inevitable casualties of the great race. Inside they throw themselves into the seats or lean hard against the poles. They're happy, on a nearly unconscious level, that everyone seems to have made it; happy to ignore the second, fatal tolling of the bell and the unforgiving woosh of the doors. Happy to have survived another ride on another train on another winter day.