Sick Passenger

On the way home from Coney Island on Monday night, as the F Train curved around the tunnel between Church Avenue and Ft. Hamilton Parkway, I started to feel a little sick. No, not a little sick, but really sick. I had that feeling you get just before you throw up--that body awareness that says "You have about 30 seconds to get ready for what I'm about to do to you."

Then, moments later, as the train passed through the 7th Avenue station and out onto the above-ground station at 4th Avenue, I found myself being held up by Kip and Amy, slowly taking my own weight again, the train stopped, a policeman standing there, everyone staring.

I had passed out. Or fainted. Or something like that. Later, on the couch at Kip's house, with my toe raised and iced--I had slammed my fourth toe on my right foot into part of the ring curb during the 5pm Circus Amok show, while wearing this ridiculous goat mask which obscures basically all your vision, and we wondered if it might be broken--I realized that since breakfast, I'd hardly eaten anything.

Stranger, however, was that I have no memory of losing consciousness at all. In fact, in my mind, I was alert during the whole thing. I remember feeling nauseous, I remember telling Amy that I felt really sick, and then I remember thinking "Wow, this train is really shakey." What was really shakey, of course, was the three of them--Kip, Amy and a stranger--lifting me out of the seat and carrying me onto the platform. Even though there was a disconnect, my brain was still quite alert.

This makes me wonder about what happens when you die. No wonder people see a tunnel of white light, or hear voices around them. Thank goodness I was with friends, and thank goodness some stranger lept to the rescue.

I felt fine later that evening, and still today I'm okay. I'm sure it was the combination of the not eating and the strenuous task of doing two shows in the hot Coney Island sun. It's odd--when have you known me to skip a meal?