Ice

The Paris subways were packed. Each car was filled with people, most of them standing up to the point where even the seats were locked in their upright position to make room. Amidst this bustle, I saw a group of teenaged girls. One of them in particular stood out.

She had a bag of ice pressed against her forehead. A thin trickle of blood slid down her face, and her hair was damp and frigid. She'd been in some sort of fight, and she was quite visibly in pain. Luckily she was still lucid and her eyes were very sharp and alive.

Her friends, however, didn't seem to take notice in the slightest. They talked among themselves; the cart was too packed to make out what they were saying. The injured one would sometimes make a point or an argument, but she wasn't nearly as animated as the others. In the group of about six, she was the only one who seemed to take any notice of the cramped conditions or the distinct smell of sweat.

The subway started to slow down as it approached the next station. People huddled at the entrances in an effort to be the first to escape. For a moment everything was in chaos, and at that moment the teenaged girls all ceased their chatter and got into a strict formation.

It was hard to see if you weren't looking for it, but they had surrounded an elderly woman in almost a perfect circle. The girl with the ice bag looked straight into her eyes and exchanged some words while one of her friends rooted through the old woman's pockets. She emerged with a wallet and some loose change, and as the doors slid open the six girls melded into the crowd and exited onto the station.

The subway doors closed. The train left the station. As it moved, I looked out the window and saw the injured girl dump the ice pack into the bin. The girls immediately separated and moved towards different exits.

Undoubtedly they'd already set up a meeting place for later.

Dog

I was riding the train to the city. The density of people was beautifully low so I sat at the back with my friend in the special needs compartment, where the seats are comfy and the leg room is phenomenal. It only took a few stops before someone sat across from us. This man had a dog, a great dane, big fellow.

Before he sat across from us, I had heard him approaching down the train hall. Specifically, I heard his great dane growling and snapping viciously at the other passengers, followed immediately by a sincere apology from its master. I was quite worried but I didn't want me and my friend to get up. It would be rude. Also, the seats were great.

What this meant, however, was that the dog snarled and snapped at us while its master stammered to explain that it wasn't used to train rides and it'd just recovered from surgery. I made idle conversation, asking about what stop the man was getting off on, and what breed of dog, and if he had a family to help take care of the damn thing, among other topics. The dog was starting to calm down, so he encouraged me to let it sniff my hand.

I extended my hand. It sniffed it. I patted it on the head.

It immediately fell silent except for a desperate whimper, then backed up so far that it was practically underneath the seats. Something in me had scared it beyond any possible comprehension of the mind.

After a moment of stunned silence my friend whacked me in the arm and said, "Dammit Will, did you have to steal the poor thing's soul?" The mood lightened and the dog crawled back out of its hiding place, and the rest of the trip was pleasant and amiable.

But sometimes the urge to snarl and snap at strangers strikes me, and I wonder if maybe I did steal that dog's soul after all.

Cup

July 2011, French President Nicolas Sarkozy rode through the Champs-Élysées during a military parade, and I was in the audience, desperately peeking my head above a crowd of uncharacteristically large frenchmen. Above me, fighter jets flew in tight formation and just in front I could see tanks rolling by, flanked by crowds of infantrymen. On top of one of these tanks was the president himself, a very stern look across his face. He refused to wave to the crowd.

It was a cold day, but the sun was bright and there was a strong wind blowing. I felt myself drawn to two silhouettes on top of a building across the street. One of them laid down on a ledge with a large, black stick discretely pointed in front of his face: a sniper rifle. He was motionless. His partner was mostly out of sight.

There were some difficulties, so the parade stopped moving at around this point. The sniper remained motionless for another fifteen minutes. Then his partner appeared, with something steaming in his hand, a cup. He placed the cup down on the ledge, took out his own rifle, and laid down next to the other sniper, who waited for a few more seconds before getting up.

The sniper took the steaming cup and gingerly took a sip. He smiled and then leaned against a generator, in the shade. His partner remained motionless, and professional. Neither of them acknowledged the show of amity but when it came time for them to switch, the partner had his own steaming mug waiting for him.

Eventually the parade came to a close. I stayed long enough so that there were only a few dozen remaining of what once was a huge crowd, and I was able to see the two snipers disassemble their weapons, pack up, and pat each other on the back. It was a long day. I like to imagine that they went for a beer. In the pub they would ask the bartender what he thought of all the violence in the parade that day. The bartender would say, "what violence?" and then they would fist-bump and buy another round.