There is no time on the
commute. The entire concept vanishes for
the hour or two that you’re stuck in that big metal box on wheels or rails or
whatever; you begin to think in terms of the schedules. The second I hop onto a 6:17 train it is
already 7:41 in my mind. That hour and
twenty-four minutes vanish instantly into the abyss of the commute. The promise
of reaching your destination, though, is sometimes shattered by an unexpected
squeal from the breaks, a light flickering above, or the ominous beep of the PA
turning on and this box quickly becomes purgatory on Earth. Then there are the times when all three happen
at once and this purgatory becomes your inescapable reality.
“The two engines just shut off
so we’re coasting now… Should have enough speed to get us to the next stop
though.”
We didn’t. The train slowed to a halt. Eyes in the dark were darting from left to right attempting to get a handle on where we were.
“Do you think we’re close
enough to get out and walk to the next station?”
“Would they even let us off
the train?”
People began wandering up and down the aisles of the train looking for an unlucky conductor they could berate with these questions and more.
“We’re about halfway
in-between the two stops!” exclaimed one rider who had maintained the presence
of mind to consult Google Maps.
People were already losing hope. Cell phones were drawn in acts of desperation to call a friend, a mom, an aunt, a lawyer, anyone who might come pick them up. This got interesting when the conversation from the other end inevitably came to, “Ok, where are you?” “Well, we just left Nowheresville and we got about halfway to Stillnowheresville.” Silence and then, “Yes I’m sure they’ll let us off in-between stations.” They wouldn’t. More silence and then, “Well I can’t really tell, there are a bunch of trees in the way but there has to be a road or a Starbucks or something right past that pond.”
This is about the time the bottle of water I drank on the platform demanded to be set free so I got up to use the bathroom. Seven car lengths later I had finally arrived but what I found there was so astonishingly absurd that I forgot why I had made the journey in the first place.
A group of five commuters were huddled together around their glowing cellphone screens, like cavemen would huddle around a campfire during a winter storm. It soon became clear that not only had a natural hierarchy already formed but they were developing some sort of an overly elaborate scheme on the best (their words not mine) way to break free of the idle train and traverse onwards to the next station.
I sat down on the bench like Jane Goodall settling in to observe the primitive yet astounding society of the chimpanzee. I quietly looked on until the crew exchanged cell phone numbers and slowly turned, with a comically purposeful swagger, to speak with the conductor. On my way back from the bathroom I noticed the courageous quintet sitting sullenly at the end of a car, splitting up a sole banana someone had left over from lunch, and I deduced that their campaign had proven ineffective against the mighty gatekeeper armed with his hole puncher and ultraviolet flashlight.
Shortly thereafter the lights began to flicker. People, a new gleam of hope in their eyes, began to pick their heads up to see what was to follow. The flickering stopped and the lights returned in force. The warning whistle sounded at the front of the train and we were off once again, some of us with the bitter taste of defeat still fresh in our mouths, others simply excited to continue towards the heaven on Earth that was our stop on the wonderfully mind-numbing monotony that is the daily commute.
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