random vomit

Or: When you don’t need anything more than the headline.

I had a weird sign-of-impending-apocalypse moment at Waterfront yesterday morning.

My route to work starts by taking the Expo Line from Sapperton to the terminus station downtown, Waterfront. From there I walk through the old Canadian Pacific Railway building to the stairs leading down into the Canada Line Waterfront station. I sometimes wonder how much it confuses tourists to have two Waterfront Stations for two different rail lines about a block from each other. At least a little, I think.

As I’m approaching the stairs I see a guy standing at the top of them, facing toward the stairs. I make a quick mental note to pass him on the left. He starts to pull off his jacket but otherwise does not change position so I revise my mental note to pass even further on the left.

Immediately as I did this he bowed his head forward and barfed onto the stairs. Whatever he brought up was mostly liquid and landed with a curiously loud splat on the concrete steps. He quickly said, “Sorry” and I simply kept walking down the stairs, appreciating his politeness in what must have been a difficult and embarrassing moment for him. I lament that I never stopped to make sure he was okay. I don’t know why but something just told me this was nothing more than a simple bit of vomiting (however simple such a thing might be), not something that would end with him crumpled in a gory pile at the bottom of the stairs.

It was later that I started picking up the sign-of-impending-apocalypse vibe, for a couple of reasons. First, we were in a building that serves as a hub for three commuter rail lines, a commuter ferry, buses and has nearby seaplane and heliport terminals. The Canada Line connects directly to the airport and from there the rest of the world. What if this guy was on a trip to Vancouver and also happened to be Patient Zero, carrying some new superbug? He’s now spewed that bug into the middle of one of the busiest transit hubs in a region with over two million people. That is some first-rate transmission there and I ain’t talking engines, unless you mean engines of DEATH. The apocalypse vibe was further strengthened by the fact that my short story “Hello?” has the protagonist–finding himself the only person in Vancouver, everyone else mysteriously missing–spending a scene in this very terminal building, musing about how it would be the perfect location for the zombies to manifest. Basically, these cavernous old transportation buildings kind of creep me out and people spontaneously barfing in them gets my mind a-working, as it is wont to do at times.