My grandma told me once that she saw a girl get her fingers eaten by an escalator. I was ten and we were at West Edmonton Mall. "It was that one right over there," she said solemnly, and I watched her huge chin push deep into the folds of her neck as she nodded at an escalator thirty feet away. I remember staring through a crowd of people at that escalator and watching the moving stairs morph into a cold metal monster--with teeth. I pictured little girl fingers, squished in between the metal tracks, riding the escalator up and down with completely oblivious shoppers.
Who had to pick them up?
I never played on escalators again.
I'm still scared to death of them. Whenever I'm about to step off an escalator, I hesitate. My brain freezes up and I end up doing this awkward little hop over the last step. Then I think of that girl from the mall, and whether or not she still hides her disfigured hands in pockets and flower-print mini-gloves. Thanks, Grandma.
Excellent Jen...Don't quit writing.
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