There’s a strange little creature on the Metro. I just noticed it recently despite living in DC for the last two years. A little friend, poking its head out of the partition by the train door, about shin height, with a twin mirroring its position on the other side of the carriage.

It has two screws making wide-set eyes and a long open mouth and the planes of its pyramid face give it enough dimension that it could make it as an extremely background character in Robots (2005). When the train doors open, a bright blue light shines from its mouth onto the floor.

It has a frozen expression of low-energy shock—like a theater mask representing dismay rather than comedy or tragedy. Commuters by the hundreds shuffle through its gaze passing deeper into the car or standing, swaying and blocking its view. How many shins have you seen, brave soul?

You’re stuck looking straight ahead, only getting to see the specific slice of humanity that crosses your eye-line: the sort of high ankle/lower calf area, which might be the least interesting bit to see. You’ll miss most of the shoes and all of the faces. You won’t even get a good knee on most days.

Your view is constantly changing—you’ll rarely see the same group twice—and yet also always the same. No rain clouds, no blooming flowers, no X Games. No wonder your face shows such horror and such fatigue.

I’ll be happy to see you at least. I was especially delighted that first time. Usually my attention goes to the ads on the wall above me, or to avoiding making eye contact with the person across from me, or to my phone.

But I sat in the right seat for long enough, let my eyes wander a bit more than usual, and there you were. Just one of an infinite number of pieces of plastic and metal and fiberglass screwed into, popping out of, clipping into our complexly engineered environment. How many such bits and flaps and vents do my eyes skip over as they go right to the steering wheel or door handle or keypad? I don’t really know why we need a blue light right there when the doors open, but somebody somewhere does. 

The world is so stinking complex. There are so many things that have functions. I know what shoes and locks and engines are for. I don’t know about things like the little clip that popped open my car’s gas flap until it broke. That’s another little bit of metal and plastic that exists. And it went through a design change between the 2000-2002 Camry and the post-2002 Camry, just enough so that the replacement I bought fit into the latch and could keep the flap closed but not fully open it. But somebody somewhere did a lot of research and went to a lot of meetings to create that ever so slightly different bit of metal and plastic.

And somebody somewhere designed you, random Metro light, and they didn’t have to make you look like a townsperson from Bikini Bottom. But they did. And I couldn’t be more pleased.

Christina Ribbens

Christina Ribbens (’19) graduated with a major in history and minors in studio art and data science. After working in campus ministry for a few years, she’s getting her master’s in public humanities at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has a benevolent dependency on tea, is always down for a game of pick-up basketball, and would love to have you over for pancakes sometime.