Whenever I see people in regular clothes running in the street my mind instantly races at the possibilities. Are they running from or towards someone? Trying to catch a tram or simply running late to a meeting? Are they the stabbed or the stabber?
They cut through a crowd like a human ambulance except unlike those lame real ambulances with their long-distance driving and metallic bodywork, there’s a good chance you’ll actually see some action. This action can range from aforementioned stabbing to minor verbal altercations to Sleepless in Seattle-style embraces all the way down to successful albeit anti-climactic boarding of public transport. At the very least you’ll see a light brush-past of someone— where the woman kinda but not really nearly loses her handbag — which is always a mild thrill.
These human wrecking balls also create the conditions for the exchange of bemused glances between people, which is a small but important source of increasingly rare interpersonal connection in the physical world. I’m grateful for these desperate characters because the healthy chaos they create not only spikes our adrenaline but gives us the permission to connect with each other we crave but would never request.
Cheesy Charlie approves of that last paragraph