Never not-people

The light must have changed because the cluster of people at the corner set off in all directions: across to City Hall Plaza, down School Street, perpendicularly or diagonally across Cambridge. From my 36th floor classroom, they were only as big as ants, and their sudden dispersal reminded me for a moment of the sudden scurrying I've seen when lifting a log under which a colony of ants and larvae had been living.

Only for a moment though because these people walked in different ways, along and in pairs, were of different sizes (evident even from my perspective) and wore different colors, including hopeful spring pastels. There was no casting about, no circling back. There were destinations in every direction and people went toward them. Soon the corner was empty of that original crowd.

The recognition in this encounter was of the non-ant-likeness of people. Ants are estimable creatures, but the folks on the corner, miniscule as they were, were of my tribe going about their business with an earnestness I recognize, often share.

Later, strap-hanging on the 5:30 subway, just crowded at State, but jam-packed at Downtown Crossing, I looked up from my reading (Glyn Maxwell's On Poetry--really excellent) and directed my gaze one way down the long car, then the other. People! This tube was packed, really full, of organisms. I saw heads, some higher, some lower, bodies standing and sitting, some young couples leaning against each other but people mostly apart and non-communicative.

I imagined seeing as many mammals of any other species taking up the same amount of the train's volume, all stacked and writhing, and I felt a shudder of disgust at the vision. Yes, humans have at times been packed even more tightly and against their will in spaces dark and airless, sometimes literally one on top of another--a true nightmare, but this train journey was not that; this was everyday.

The encounter I had on the train was of us. There are a lot of us and we take up space: each with a body, each with a face, on each face an expression, each expression worthy of consideration. The full variety of human forms was represented there. We had all chosen to be together in that train in order to get to our various destinations and had agreed to give each other privacy on the journey. After a few stops, the emptying began: people pushing their way to the door, others pulling in or stepping aside to let them pass. The up-to-the-brim feeling ebbed and I got back to my reading.

Twice I had skirted the edge of horror, almost seen my fellows as alien beings. Perhaps they can be called ants or wolves or other things, but they are never not-people, which is sameness and otherness enough for lifetimes of encounters.