Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Someone passed me on the way up-- I know the type, a man carrying about forty or fifty extra. Struggling, not steady. Going to kick this thing. But after the victory of passing me he was slow. So, steady, counting my strokes (one, two, three, four) I passed him, then settled in behind a chubby girl on a rickety Schwinn. I knew I'd see him again on my left and I did, well after we had crested the vertex and were on our way down. Pushing hard to be the fastest. It is high summer and the bridge is crowded with fools.

Nature must not win the game,
but she cannot lose. And
whenever

the conscious mind clings
to hard and fast concepts and
gets caught in its own rules
and regulations--

as is unavoidable and of the essence of
civilized consciousness--

nature pops up
with her inescapable demands.

--Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies

"I don't like it," said Martin Bernier, a transplanted Parisian who owns a wholesale bakery in Queens. "I don't think it's appropriate for people to see in the subway. Why do they put this here? Who is Carl Gustav Jung? I know who he is now because I made a small investigation. But it makes me feel ignorant."

--"Subway Mosaic Turns Riders Into Underground Philosophers," Andy Newman, December 27, 2004, The New York Times