Life-threatening Situations in Which I Didn’t Die.
The one I die in hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll tell you that later
The stampede
I was going back home from my hostel. I had to take an escalator to reach the platform where my train would arrive. When I was about to reach it, a man blocked my path and let his wife and two kids get on. I was annoyed, but I let it slide; people do such things for their families. Impressed by my empathy, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. I couldn’t give a physical one because my hands were full.
I got on the escalator after them. The woman, who stood on the edge of two escalator steps, lost her balance when the steps separated and fell backward on my hand. I lost my grip on my bag. The man too began falling and so did his huge black bag. I thought, “This is it. The front page news tomorrow will be: 22-year-old engineer and occasionally funny writer with less than a hundred followers on Medium passed away with a family she didn’t belong to. Pretty sad.” Meanwhile, the couple’s younger kid rolled down the escalator steps in slow motion. For me, it was one of those weird moments when you’re scared but you want to laugh as well. The kid didn’t cry; he just made this disgusted face as if he was thinking, “Ew, this ride isn’t fun.”
Soon, the escalator stopped and so did the stampede. With the speed of a mediocre cheetah, I rushed toward my train and it started the moment I got in.
The fire
I was at my coaching class. We were around forty teens in a room chit-chatting before our lecture was supposed to start. Instead of our teacher, the admin guy pushed the door open with a concerned look on his face. The kind of face you have when someone confidently says two plus four is seven.
I knew something was wrong, so I picked up my pouch and dropped it in my bag; I didn’t want to lose my precious pens, pencils, and chalk I’d stolen from the classroom. The guy said, “Don’t panic. There’s a fire outbreak.” As we ran downstairs, we were giggling. I don’t know what was wrong with us. Maybe it was the adventure of running away from fire or maybe saying ‘Don’t panic’ worked for the first time in the history of disasters. Once we were outside, I thought this event would make it to the news with the headline: Forty kids escape a fire giggling. Did they start it?
The second stampede
Yes. Another one. I don’t know why my life is unnecessarily dramatic. Most people don’t get into one stampede in their entire lifetimes and there I was, getting into two.
I was having my breakfast in my hostel’s mess. It was supposed to be a normal day. I’d eat, get ready, and go to college. Simple. That’s when somebody yelled, “There’s a gas leakage in the kitchen!” All the girls began rushing towards the door. I fell as somebody pushed me. When I tried getting up, someone stepped all over my body. It felt like a massage, only ruder, cheaper, and more awkward.
Once I managed to make it outside after scraping my knee, it turned out the leakage was a misunderstanding. Nothing actually happened. I imagined a news article that’d be published the next day: False alarm leads to real panic. No lives were lost. Only half breakfasts, minds, and jobs were.
