Yellow | Teen Ink

Yellow

January 9, 2018

Breath laced with whiskey seized my senses, sweaty hands crawling down my back. They were unrelenting, until they closed around my waist, pulling me from where I sat. I pushed them away.

“Do not touch me.”

Weaving through the party, I was lost in a sea of bodies, the blurry lights causing my head to swirl. Anxiously awaiting the cool air and soon the soft bed in my apartment, I burst through the doors like a lion out of its cage. I had to escape from this hell hole, but I only continued to descend until I stumbled, catching myself on the grime coated cement of the subway floor. Like a spiral, the dim-lit corridor drew me further, and further, until time slowed to a crawl.

The yellow strip on the edge of the subway seemed to go on for infinity, falling into the tunnels gaping maw, eagerly awaiting to swallow it. A color to ward people away from a slip, a fall, a push. Yellow had always been my favorite color. Peaceful, inviting me to stand on the edge; to stand on the line between safety and danger.

Bright beams ripped through my drunken haze. Suddenly, I could hear the rythmic thumping, some sultry spoken poetry set to a broken beat pulsing to the strobe lights overhead. I was brought back to the piercing sounds and lights of that place, closer and closer, my pathetic sobs swallowed by its screeching. I felt dizzy, unstable legs crumbling to the floor. My head struck the yellow cement, and there I went, tumbling over the edge.


The author's comments:
I’ve read an article stating that 48 people died from subway accidents in 2016. I was inspired to write a tragic story of one’s unfortunate lead up to such accident, and also of the dangers of alcoholism, and the reckless actions it can cause people to do.

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