METROPOLITAN DIARY
Far From Oz
Dear Diary:
It was another afternoon rush hour on the subway. The train car I was on was packed with a standing-room-only crowd.
Trying to figure out where to plant my gaze while avoiding eye-contact, I looked down at the floor. My eyes focused on a pair of ruby red slippers, sparkly, newish-looking and totally out of place so far from Oz.
I couldn’t help it. My eyes drifted up to the face of a young woman who was staring directly at me with an expectant look on her face.
I felt compelled to say something.
“Uh, do they work?” I stammered.
“Well,” the young woman said, “when I click my heels together three times, my roommate from Kansas walks in the room.”
We were at my stop.
“Good answer,” I said. “Goodbye.”
— Tom Zebovitz
Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food
Dear Diary:
My sister wanted me to know that she loved me, but also, when was I going to move out? A week of apartment searching had turned into two weeks, then three.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. I wasn’t being picky. I had already given up on my foolish dream of a bedroom window. Dozens of visits across Brooklyn and Queens had gotten me nowhere.
On my fourth week of failure, I sat outside Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food and buried my tears in a $4 box of barbecue pork.
What did this city have against me? I wanted to give up.
A man on nearby bench looked over and, totally unprompted, offered me a cigarette. I guess I looked like I needed one.
Sometimes I still regret not smoking that cigarette. But the gesture itself was such an honor: New York City had offered me a minute.
— Robert Yang
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html