Midwestern Courtesy

by Pippa Storey

It’s a frigid Chicago morning. Commuters hunker inside puffy coats on the CTA platform, hoods cinched tight against the biting air. Shielding my face from its teeth, I head toward the heat lamp—but the space underneath is already occupied. As I continue past the early birds, people smile at me sheepishly, then quickly look down. Gradually, more passengers arrive, and I watch with amusement as the scene repeats. When the train finally pulls into the station, I board last and glance back at the pigeons, fluffed up in the cold like little round feather dusters, still huddling together under the heat lamp.

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Pippa Storey grew up in New Zealand, studied in France, and lived for several years in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. She is now a Research Associate Professor of Radiology at the New York University School of Medicine, where she develops techniques for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For more of her stories, poetry, digital artwork and videos, please visit her website.