Sept. 16, 9:48 a.m.
Q Train – 7th Avenue to Times Square
Few human beings do blank stares quite like toddlers, and this particular toddler’s got a particularly blank one beneath his curly brown hair. He barely responds when Mom hands him a toy school bus, instinctively lifting his left hand to grab it but not moving his gaze. In his right hand he lazily holds a sippy cup at just enough of an angle so that there isn’t a pool of milk on the floor.
His mother is young and well heeled, her hair in shades of Jackie O and her pale blue trench and silver watch distinctly Fifth Avenue.
His head now rolls from side to side, though there’s no more look of comprehension in his eyes. He does have two moments of excitement, one as he stretches beneath the straps of his stroller to glimpse at a man loudly selling Rubik’s Cubes out of a cardboard box, and later, several stops into the ride, when he realizes he’s on a train of sorts and cries out, almost inaudibly, “choo choo.”
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