Sick Day

There's a sound like someone dumping a bottle of soda out on the subway floor, and people scatter away from the source of the noise, making the crowded car even tighter.

At the center of the rapidly clearing circle sits a man, hunched over and swaying in his seat, clearly drunk or high, hovering over a puddle of the worst kind of thin, brown sick as it spreads across the floor. 

As he belches and then noisily looses another wet torrent down his front, I turn to the woman next to me and ask, "Should I push the button and let the conductor...?"

"Yes," she says, without hesitation.