attention à la marche en descendant du train

I was on the metro, standing in a fairly crowded car, but not too scrunched. we stopped, the station was françois verdier, I think, one stop before mine, and a couple guys got on - one standing right in front of the door was quite short, beige shirt and dark jeans, pretty muscular, north african with clear light skin and a just-prominant-enough nose.

but apparently someone else got on, too. a tall, built man got on one door down and started making his way over to our side of the car, repeating I don't remember what and pointing his finger at the short kid. short kid's friend was standing between the two and was kind of holding scary guy off while he kept shouting and pointing his finger in short kid's face, pushing it into his cheek, getting more and more angry, even slapping him once. all short kid did was say "excusez-moi" a few times in a neutral tone and step back as much as possible against the door while his friend tried to hold the guy off.

all this is taking place in one metro stop, but by the time we stopped at jean jaurès, I was getting a little worried at the increasing volume and violence of scary guy's repetitions and glad to be getting out. but I had to go past all this to get out the door. apparently, angry guy was getting off, too, and on the way out, he grabs short kid's neck and tries to push him down, but short kid wriggled out of it with enough force to be firm but not enough to get a rise out of the other guy. and I slid out with a few others.

as I went up the escalator, I looked back down to the metro and saw short kid still inside, unhappy but calm, as the metro pulled away and I gave him a little half smile as I thought to myself - good job! seriously, I commend him for staying calm, for not getting angry, even though he hadn't done anything. he was short, but he wasn't puny, he could have put up a pretty good fight along with his friend, but he was smart. and he wouldn't give in to a rise. and I was proud of him.

this from your occasional reporter on "hope for humanity metro moments". til next time.