I recognized it immediately–the gentle, familiar nudges and consoling words whispered in her ear. The way he held tightly to her arm and corralled her in the right direction. The way he looked up pleadingly, embarrassed, overwhelmed. The way she pulled away from him–dark, hollow eyes, seeing but not seeing, knowing only that she must flea–from what or whom she’s not sure, just that she must get away, from him, from herself from this confusion, from this dark, smelly place. Where am I? She must have thought, hearing the screech of the Q train in the distant tunnel. Who are these people? She must have wondered, feeling the staring faces of nervous strangers on her.

Did you ever see Defending Your Life? It’s a film about this guy who has never done a particularly good or brave thing in his entire existence. Therefore, he has to prove that he deserves entry into heaven. I think of that movie often. The way they played scenes from his childhood like it was a TV show. Intimate moments, fights, embarrassments. All if it caught on film. Well, the collective pearly gate “film reel”–for purposes of standing on trial to determine where you belong in the afterlife.

I thought about that movie today when I held a strangers’ baby while she battled her stroller, when I helped a woman get through the turnstile with her giant bags and scooter, when I co-carried a woman’s stroller up three flights of stairs, when I looked on and did nothing for the old man struggling to get his wife off the subway platform.

Couples kissing, homeless men shuffling, men in suits texting, mothers with children held tightly to their chests, but no one, not one single offer of help. Standing on the downtown platform I wavered. Run up the stairs and over to the uptown side, ask if they need help? Risk spiraling into my own darkness, risk offending, risk an empty offer if I can’t actually help to physically carry her out? As my train screeched to a halt, I watched the couple disappear. He’d managed to calm her, they sat side by side on the bottom of a dirty stairwell. Bodies piled alongside them, figures moving, but unmoved, seeing but not seeing.

What will those strangers’ movies look like when they’re defending their lives? Will they be reminded of the time they left two elderly humans to struggle on their own, two helpless, frightened people to fend for themselves? Or, will this play out only in my own reel? Because, I alone saw, I knew what I was seeing. And, yet, I boarded my train, I sipped my coffee, I got to work on time and lived my life.