Don't Wait For It To Scream

Eager to get home after a long day of doing who-knows-what, I slipped onto a train at the Châtelet Les Halles metro station in Paris. The car was packed to the brim, leaving me wedged by the doors, facing the platform with my arms full of groceries and an air of quiet defeat.

Exhausted, I peeled my chin off my chest and my eyes off the floor, meeting those of the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

He wasn’t just handsome—he was captivating, all sharp angles and quiet intensity. Just my type. For a moment, I thought about stepping off the train, right into his orbit, to say… what? Something charming and devastatingly memorable, surely. But no. I was carrying half of Monoprix in my arms and too tired to engage in spontaneous acts of bravery.

Still, there was no harm in a little eye tag. He smiled. I smiled back. The train didn’t move.

This dragged on for several minutes, and I only had so many flirtatious gazes left in me before this moment morphed into some awkward bemusement. Why wasn't the train moving?

Pausing to exchange confused glances with the other passengers, I was just about to admit defeat and pull out my phone to check for a delay when an arm—hairy, stout, and alarmingly purposeful—shot into my line of vision. It was reaching for the emergency button.

The effect was immediate: flashing lights, urgent announcements crackling overhead, and the kind of collective outrage only a packed Parisian train can muster. The car erupted into a symphony of furious French. Even without speaking the language, the sentiment was clear.

Overwhelmed, I started thinking about how nice it would be to just step off this cursed train and call a car; maybe talk to our mystery man on my way out! But before I could make my escape, things escalated.

A man lunged--yes, lunged--at the button-presser. The two collided, and the force of their chaos sent them crashing into me, nearly knocking me off the train. I stumbled but managed to regain my footing, only to find myself staring wide-eyed at mystery man once again.

He was looking at me now with a mix of concern and something else I couldn’t quite place. My face, no doubt, was a perfect cocktail of exasperation (I just want to get home), irritation (men are idiots), and mild panic (I'm feeling overstimulated).

The yelling and the fighting continued on, an then, as if out of a movie, mystery man reached out. Hand hovering in the air, just as I saw him motioning for me to step off the train and away from the general absurdity, the doors slammed shut.

The commotion almost instantaneously stopped, the crowd resuming their state of indifference as if nothing had happened. Jaw on the floor, feeling like I just experienced a walking fever dream, the train began to move as an announcement blared over the speaker: next stop, Gare-du Nord.

I was on the wrong train.

Looking back, the signs had been clear all along. The universe sent me a gorgeous stranger to coax me off. When that didn’t work, it added flashing lights, blaring alarms, and a minor physical altercation for emphasis.

And yet, I stayed put.

Let this be your reminder: the universe whispers before it screams. And when it screams, it sometimes sounds like a fifty furious Parisians yelling over the wail of an alarm system. So take it from me: don’t wait for the scream. Listen to the whisper. Especially when it comes in the form of an impossibly handsome stranger.