The day starts off in a heavy realm of slow brain waves and a distinct sluggishness that pervades it all. I stare at my feet on the train tracks and observe how the light affects the shadows of the raised yellow bolts that line the safety track of the platform.
Slowly people start to appear at my sides, close by but silent and looking everywhere except at me. I do the same. I watch tiny birds hop and flutter along the cracked wooden planks and squirrels weaseling through holes in the chain link fences that border the platforms.
Three minutes before my train arrives, another double decker engine soars through the station, towering and
massive, a distinct rhythmic clunkachunk as it passes through. I take a step back and let it. A woman next to me clasps her hands over her ears. Too many days she has allowed the train to roar through her structure and shake its frame.
By now she feels she may fall apart if she allows it to rattle her unimpeded. She has no shame about her actions, they’ve become part of the daily routine, the automatic autopilot nature of all things. As the train passes, the trailing squelch of residual electricity whines along the third trail and fades into the atmosphere.
In a few minutes the platform is thick with bodies in casual business attire, briefcases, newspapers, iPod, and completely devoid of any human interaction or emotional investment. The few friends that do line these platforms waste the seconds with tired banter that neither party seems incredibly interested in. At 7:17 my train appears on the horizon, sometimes clear and distinct in sharp morning light, other times only a single fog lamp appearing through a thick boundary of moisture in the distance. The machine burns in the gap between platforms like a silver fuse and stops at my feet, a black magic marker drawn on the platform to signify where the door will appear.
Some neurotic commuter has been destroyed by the tediousness of it all, at some point he decided that if he had to deal with the mystery of the door’s location, and the possibility of not getting a seat, he would go crazy – but I’m a victim too and I’m thankful for the markings.
As the fuse slows the crowd around me pushes closer. Close enough to touch on all sides. A nervous group, each person only thinking for themselves, each one wants a seat and doesn’t care about what anybody else gets.
They make this sacrifice every time, the time of their lives for a chance to work, and they all deserve the seat they want after all. I’m a victim of it too, and I’m the first on and I’m filled with critical mental remarks when people push or take the seat I’ve got my eyes on. But every day I get a seat anyway. Everyone does, but we don’t learn. Tomorrow we will be back, shoulder to shoulder, rushing to get our seats, our eyes focused and tense on the door, counting away impatient seconds before it slides open and the mad dash begins again.
Rinse and repeat.
The train burns out of the station and I rest my ahead against the window and watch the island unfold under gray or sun, one long panoramic sheet of unfolding geographical tapestry, each scene and seam melting seamlessly into the next, unfolding forever, there is no end to any of it.
The roads are clogged thick with vehicles, I can see the faces of impatient drivers waiting at the railroad crossings, feet no doubt hovering nervously over the gas pedal, or so I believe them to be, but for all assumptions and amateur psychoanalysis, their stories will always remain a mystery to me. I will only ever see the shell, the mask, even in those I believe to know well, something always hidden and beyond me. We all share the same I-experience. Every tired and anxious commuter, every automatic raven searching the sky, each of us are I, we are all the centers of our worlds.
I concentrate on my breath, the conductor fades into and out of the scene, I let my green frayed wallet flap open and reveal my monthly ticket. I’m too tired to return the wallet to my pocket so it rests on my lap.
The train pulls into a dark tunnel 45 minutes later. The nervous crowd has attuned itself to the pressure change, knows we are close, they glance up from their papers and take their suit jackets and briefcases down from overhead storage and nervously file into the aisles, packing themselves tightly around the door almost 8 minutes away from the station.
Everybody needs to be first.
Living with other people is only an inconvenience, a limitation on their ability to act and move in the way they like, everyone else is competition, I must get to the door first, I must get into the aisle because everyone else is slow and will block my way and ruin my plans and my routine. I’m a victim to it too but I stay seated and stare silently at the filled rows.
The train beeps and the engineer urges trash to be picked up but we’ve heard the message a thousand times and it means nothing any more. I step onto the humid platform and instinctively follow the flow of the crowds towards the nearest set of stairs or escalator to the main concourse. Some days it may take 2 minutes, other days more, everyone silent, staring at each other, waiting impatiently for their turn to ascend.
-Josh
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