The escalator does not stop. That is the defining feature of the escalator. It keeps delivering people to the top at a steady rate, and the top is therefore not a place to stand and consider your options, and yet here you are, standing, considering.
Behind you a queue is forming that cannot un-form. We are arriving whether you like it or not. We are doing the small shuffling dance of people who do not want to touch a stranger but are being physically pushed into one by a machine.
Walk three steps. That is all. Three steps forward and then stop as long as you like. Read your phone. Admire the ceiling. Three steps is the difference between a station and a crush.
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