Mind The Gap

Published in Homer’s Roamers April 2014

So I don’t know if this is a common problem on US subways, because I never really had reason to pay attention to it before, but in a lot of metro stations in Paris, there’s a small gap between the platform and the train. Every time the train stops, a robotic voice reminds you, in French and English, to mind the gap. I never paid this warning much heed because the gap looks way too small for an adult to fall into. Besides, what kind of fucking idiot falls into the gap?

Then this morning I fell into the gap. After getting about 4 hours of sleep last night, I got on the train, moved aside to make space for a woman getting off, and suddenly there was no ground under my right leg. For a brief moment, I considered the possibility of dying in a metro station. I imagined the tombstone : “Brent Bailey, inattentive idiot. Bled to death in a puddle of hobo urine.” then adrenaline took over and I started scrabbling like a starving rat in a cage to get out. a few passengers helped pull me up, and after a brief moment where my foot was stuck and an ignominious subway death seemed certain, I was on solid ground again. the timing couldn’t have been better: about a second later, the doors slammed shut.

Once the metro started moving, my heart still racing as I processed just

how close I came to losing a leg and/or dying, one of my fellow riders

put his hand on my shoulder and said something incomprehensible in

French.

“Quoi?” I asked

“That’s very dangerous,” he said, in “talking to a very stupid child/tourist” English.

That really put the final nail in my self-­‐respect’s coffin.

Thanks, anonymous subway dude. I had no idea. I thought getting your leg stuck in between a moving train and a platform was a safe, fun way to have an authentic Paris experience.