"Jump! You Pussy"

Tim already at the door of the train while im rushing to get my bags together and stuff any miscellaneous thing in my pockets. Time freezes as i watch the platform go by in slow motion... a little voice in my head yells 'damn you India'. I swear to god the ghost of Mola Rom was watching over us.

I rendezvous with Shannon at the doorway and we have a short conversation about what the hell we are gonna do... i dont really remember it because my synapses are all signaling at once. When is the next station? Will we miss our plane? Can we jump? How fast are we going? This questions slowly give way to invulnerability... We just left the station... we're not going that fast. If we roll, we'll be fine. Homeless people jump trains all the time; how hard can it be. Eventually, one of us suggests what the other has been thinking since we first rode the train...

Shannon: Hahn, hurry the fuck up!
Me: that was Delhi...
Shannon: Should we jump?
Me: I guess, who knows where the next station is.
Shannon: .... (drops bag)
We both give a bewildered look as his bag violently hits the grounds and is briskly swept away in the distance.
Silence...
Me: Jump, YOU PUSSY!
Shannon: Knowing he can't say no to that, he plunges onto the stones.
It was kinda one of those situations where you prod at something to see if someone would really do it... then when they do it, you are like holy shit... especially knowing you're up next.
Watching Shannon hop off the train was surreal... Both of his hands where on the doorway as he was leaning out waiting to jump. It looked like he just hopped a couple inches away from the train and crumbled crumbled he hit the ground... immediately, i was concentrating on when to jump. While metal bars, boxes, and other rusted contraptions were flying i thought i could feel the train getting faster... fuck, i have to jump soon. On top of that, if i dont jump, ill be stuck in India. Yikes.

Ahh, an opening with no rusty metal, just rocks! In midair i realize that the camera I borrowed is in my pocket... to avoid smashing the camera I twist in midair. This was possibly the worst decision you could make as I was in no position to roll and absorb the impact. I landed in a squatting position with my back facing the way we were going... i leaned forward to try and counterbalance my momentum so I wouldnt smash my head open... oh man, no way... I dont actually remember hitting the ground but somehow i have a memory of seeing my feet in the air.

My glasses were gone, my back was on fire, and i was frozen in pain... i literally couldnt move. I rolled over to my side and the first recognizance memory is pile of cow shit basking in the noon sun about a foot away from where I landed. Seriously India. I lightly rubbed over my head with my one hand in hopes a piece of my skull isn't missing. No blood. I think my backpack saved me from splattering my brains on the tracks. I just laid on the rocks while holding my breath from time to time to deal with the pain. I saw Shannon in the distance holding his elbow and trying to walk it off. Like a real man... jump out of a train, walk it off. Glancing in the other direction, a group of village kids are standing next to the tracks staring at us in awe. The white men fell from the sky. Surely, that story will be passed on for generations.

They made they way over to my prone body. I got my bag off and sat up and stared back at the kids as to say 'what the hell did i just do?' They whispered some Hindi to themselves. I said 'my glasses'. I dont know why this was the first thing i said... but im literally blind without them. By this time the kids were repeating glasses like it was some taboo. I made glasses with my hands and put them on my face. Thats universally known. Of course, the next word i hear them say is goggles. Goggles. Me, being an english teacher, wondered why goggles are better known than glasses. Anyway, a kid found the glasses about 20 feet away from where i landed. Still in one piece.

Tim had moseyed on down holding his elbow and making some grunting noises. I still couldn't move well. I asked him to check my back... I lifted up my shirt and the expression on his face told it all. He said i had two cuts that looked like they just got punched into my skin at the end. Nightmares of rusty metal pieces. We thanked the kids for helping us. Hobbling back to the station, we start laughing like hyenas. I think this was some kind of natural defense mechanism because we couldn't grasp the fact that we almost died in India.

RESPONSE:
Yep. That's basically how that happened. Im standing there at the door, looking down the corridor, yelling for Hahn to get a move on as the train starts chugging along, accelerating every couple of moments. Nothing. No Hahn. Just a vacant walkway, with some random people staring at me from their seats. I look back out of the train. Yeah. All I see is rusted metal structures for the train and melon sized rocks pass me by (you can see the rocks next to the tracks we jumped out onto in the background of the picture above showing my elbow). Finally, after Hahn kisses those babies and announces his running for mayor of Delhi (to much little fanfare...white devils usually don't do well in general elections), he comes rushing down the isle. As I stand there, on the last step, I yell back to Hahn, "Are we jumping off this thing...?" Hahn looks at me and gives me his classic shoulder shrug. We didn't know when the next station was, and we would both be damned to miss our flight. At that precise moment, the conductor drops the hammer and we could feel the train really start going. It wasn't going full bore quite yet, but we didn't have any more time to debate. All I hear behind me from Hahn is "Jump you fucking pussy!!!" Obviously I couldn't let Hahn get the better of my ego, or let any decently thought out decision to stand in my way of getting to the Delhi airport.

So I reached my hand out of the door, and dropped my bag off the train. And sure as shit, it was gone in a heart beat. Hmmmmm... Well, I was pretty much committed at that point, and I poked my head out, making sure nothing large and dangerous was coming, and out I went. I remember looking down, thinking to myself, "I got this, I got this!", as my feet got closer to the ground. And that was it. I stood up, amidst a pile of jagged rock and dust, slumping over holding my elbow and my shoulder, which took the brunt of the impact apparently (landing with my back to the train). I look up, and all I see is the train going around a slight bend, with Hahn's head poking out, way in the distance. I really wasn't sure if he was going to jump or not, as after seeing my destruction, to his credit, it must have been a tough decision. But after a couple of seconds, I see him leap out, turning in the air, so his right shoulder is facing the train. I see him initially hit the earth, but a bunch of rock dust instantly clouds up, and all I see is his feet shoot into the air, making it almost impossible for him not to crack his head in half. I get a bad feeling in my stomach that I'm going to be seeing a lot of blood shortly.

So I hobble my way up the tracks to him, and as I get there, the train finally gets by us. Hahn is there, moving on all fours, shouting, "AAhhhhh Fuck!!...Where are my fucking glasses....My fucking back is on fire!!!...AAhhhh fuck!!!..." Hahn, the man who Death himself can't kill, saved braining his ass by keeping his backpack on. When he hit the ground, apparently the momentum jolted his backpack upward and around his head, of course creating a perfect helmet. Hence why his back was exposed, and the rocks gouging the hell out of it. Anyway, all his yelling caused a commotion, and the poor destitute village on the other side of the tracks came a calling. Must have been something like 20-30 men and boys searching for the white devil's seeing device. We thanked them for their search and their effort, as they did find them, and promptly returned them to Hahn. We grabbed his pack, said goodbye to the diligent yet confused peoples, and headed to the train stop. We walked about 50 feet and broke into laughter that would last about a month.