The subway card still worked. That cannot be taken for granted - the yellow cards that are slipped through a narrow metal slit in New York to loosen the turnstile from its solidification have an expiry date; when they expire, they turn into a worthless piece of plastic. But my card still worked. The last time I used it was a year and many months ago. In that long-blown epoch, when I still thought the virus from Wuhan was none of my business. Through. The train was ready: line one, the red line.