Accordion

I've taken to eating a challah roll while walking to the subway. They are fattening and high in cholesterol, but they are also very filling and at least I'm eating the whole wheat kind. It’s a sort of emergency measure: I'm too late for work to eat, or even buy, a proper breakfast, and I've got a package of rolls that will go to waste if they aren't consumed in the very near future.

The roll is gone by the time I enter the station. Naftali P. is at the metrocard machine. On the platform, I recognize a tall chap I met a few weeks ago at Susanne's place. I don't remember his name, just that it’s funny sounding.

On the train I sit across from a gray haired Orthodox Jew in business casual. He is intently studying a volume from the Talmud while holding the hand of the woman next to him, who's head is resting on his shoulder. He is wearing a wedding ring, she is not.

At 59th, I see Yaffa Z. and saw hello. She seems busy reading, and I'm too tired to talk to anyone anyways, so I walk a bit further down the platform.

An elderly man is playing Jerusalem of Gold on an accordion and I wonder if he knows the song because he is Jewish, or if he has learned to play it because so many Jews traveling on the MTA will recognize it. A little blonde girl is sent by her mother to drop a few coins in the man's cup. I, for one, am not particularly fond of the accordion sound and although I like the song, I eagerly board the B train as soon as it comes.