Rachel Snicket's - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Last week, I saw a poster for a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. I got really excited. A few days later, a friend, Jae, invited us to some kind of a concert. He was very mysterious about it and wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was. I found out a few days before the concert that the tickets were to the Requiem and that his dad was singing in it. Perfect!

He changed his plans at the last minute, so we had to rush to meet him. I have no idea where the concert actually is, but I’m all ready to go. I’ve been looking forward to this all week. I’m supposed to meet Heather and Jessica at the subway station at 5:50, and we are supposed to meet Jae in the central subway station. A train is leaving just as I get there at 5:51 and I don’t see them waiting. I wait for one more train and then decide to go on so I'm not late. How I thought I would find them in the gigantic station, I don't know.
I got to the central station and I couldn’t find them, of course. But then, I thought I remembered someone saying it was in the same place as the performance we went to last weekend, so I made my way to that station, get out, and walk to the performance hall... where they were selling glowsticks. I realize that this probably isn’t the right place unless this is some funky, cross-genre performance of Mozart...which might be really awesome.

Anyway, I don’t see them, it’s freezing cold outside, the show is about to start, and I’ve walked a really long way in dress shoes, so I decide to give up the hunt. I get back to the subway station and try to add money to my subway card. There is a long line behind me and the machine eats my card. I’m jabbing stuff in there, pushing the cancel button, and trying to think how I can use sign-language to show someone my card was eaten. By this time, there is a large group closing around me and everyone is reaching around, poking and jabbing at the buttons, as though I hadn’t already done that a half-dozen times. There was a nice couple behind me who pushed the “call” button, but it didn’t work either. They finally flagged a worker down who got my card out. I thanked them and then quickly scooted away, fearing that the mob might tweak me for holding up the line. They aren’t the most patient people.

As I scurry up the escalator, I hear a gasp down below. My heart sinks as I see an old man at the bottom of the escalator, tumbling and rolling around, his coat and legs alternately flailing in the air. He rolled around for a good 20 seconds, which seemed like an eternity. It didn’t even look like he was trying to get up. Luckily, a guard was nearby and helped him up. I thought for sure he would be bloody or broken, or that he would have lost a piece of his coat to the mouth of the escalator, but when I turned to peek at him, he was casually going up the escalator as though nothing had happened. Had I not seen him fall, I never would have guessed that he spent the last minute of his life floundering on the sharp, metal teeth of the escalator stairs and subsequently struggling to his feet with the help of two able-bodied men. He was so collected. I had to suppress my laughter as I thought about how he looked like he had been in a dryer, rolling around and around with his arms and legs akimbo, coat flaps flying.