The dark blue SUV with shiny rims screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection. It stopped inches from crashing into a yellow taxi that had, apparently, tried to turn right in front of the SUV. Unexpected traffic, however, prevented the taxi from completing the turn.

Several horns honked in alarm and aggravation and a small eddy formed in the stream of cars. Most of the drivers, upon realizing that this was yet another traffic annoyance in the city, stepped heavily on the gas pedals and zoomed ahead.

The driver’s side door of the SUV flew open and out stepped a young man wearing basketball shorts, a hooded sweatshirt, and ankle-height socks. He had thin calves, though muscular definition peeked through behind his skin.

He stormed towards the driver’s side window of the taxi, leaned into the partially open window, and screamed, “WHAT THE F@#$ IS WRONG WITH YOU? DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE?”

His arms flailed out as he continued to make threatening gestures at the taxi driver, who remained in his car.

“YOU CAN’T DRIVE LIKE THAT, @$$HOLE!”

The young man pounded his fist against the roof of the taxi.

“F@#$ YOU, MAN. F@#$ YOU.”

Rolling up his sleeves, the young man stormed back into his SUV. The taxi cab seemed to breathe a sigh of relief before slowly creeping forward to complete the right turn. The engine of the SUV roared to life and the young man gunned the engine: vroom VROOM

The SUV then lurched forward and sped off, screeching as it had when it came to a halt.

The subway car was nearing its carrying capacity. Nearly ten separate hands grasped the pole near the doors. Men squeezed themselves into the spaces that didn’t offer any physical support; some placed a hand on the ceiling of the car to brace themselves. Those seated on the benches were squashed together, butts touching butts, thighs touching thighs.

After skidding into the station, the doors slid open to reveal a wall of people waiting in the station. Some began to enter the train before people could exit.

“Let people GET OFF first,” a tired elderly woman crossly remarked before assertively stepping off of the train into the crowd. A small aisle suddenly formed, a dirty concrete path amidst a Red Sea of people.

After the last person exited the train (well, likely before that person actually got entirely off of the train), a few dozen people pushed their way into the car, flowing from areas of high pressure to low pressure. (People follow the same rules of physics as rain clouds.)

A gaggle of young women—high schoolers, maybe—were standing near the doors when a young man stepped in. He gingerly reached across the mob to make contact with the pole to support himself.

“Excuse you!” one of the young woman snapped. The large golden hoops dangling from her ears swished back and forth as she rolled her eyes, which were encircled with the ochre of black eyeliner.

Her girlfriends tried to keep straight faces, but then soon burst into giggles, covering their mouths with their hands that were adorned with long, artificial fingernails that featured bright colors and small, sparkling jewels.

“What?” the Golden Hoop woman asked. “I meant to say, ‘Excuse me‘, but ‘Excuse you’ came out.”

The man who had committed the still unknown transgression was not even three feet away, though his eyes were now fixed on a distant point at the front of the train.

Her girlfriends continued to sneak glances at him, only to start laughing again.

They hadn’t gone through puberty yet, though they were already adopting the fashions of adolescent boys.

“Yo, lemme tell you about her,” one of them jockeyed. The three of them were no longer standing on the curb; they had wandered into the street as they impatiently waited for the light to turn green so they could cross.

Two of them had their backs facing oncoming traffic. They were standing near the outer sides of cars parked along the avenue. No cars were in the lane closest to them and the light cycle seemed to suggest that no further cars would come along. Thus, they had a good five or six feet start in their journey across the street.

Suddenly, the boy who was actually facing the oncoming traffic jumped. The two other boys turned around to witness whatever had just happened—

—only to see a city bus nearly on top of them. They began to scream—like girls, really—as the side of the bus zoomed past them. The bus was not even a foot away from their faces.

They dashed out of the street and into the gutter, inhaling the fumes of the bus that had now whooshed past.

“OH MY GOD!” they exclaimed. “Did you see that? He was like RIGHT THERE!”

“I know! He didn’t even honk or anything!”