eddy

\EDD-ee\

noun

1 a : a current of water or air running contrary to the main current;especially : a circular current : whirlpool

b : something moving similarly

2 : a contrary or circular current (as of thought or policy)

To be an EDDY:

To feel yourself on a crowded train platform, moving like one in a herd toward the exit, blood rushing through your stretching legs, heat, steam, breath, the instant midnight of the tunnel, someone's foreign skin brushing your forearm, a slowing of pace to clear a congestion, discarded newspapers under your feet, one shoulder falling toward the earth with the weight of a carry-on, staring obsessively at a disheveled bun or a twisted strap or a de-centered necklace clasp, glancing into the empty train's windows, now a hollow bullet of fluorescent light, thinking how awful it would be to have forgotten something in the crevice of your seat—a book, a list, a bagged lunch—imagining the horror of having to EDDY yourself, to move backward through the drove, to a separate moment in time, to the once predictable car of a commuter train, now vacant, now a maze of empty blue and red seats, the museum of your recent past, to find something you lost.

But you checked everything twice (three times, in truth). So you let the current drag you and your belongings toward the river's mouth.