In Queue

Trains are fast. They are also much bigger than you. As a result it is good general practice to avoid standing in front of them. To minimize the risk of these behemoths thundering across civilization there are loud whistles aboard and designated stations with gates and fences. There are conductors and engineers who diligently monitor passenger safety, train speeds and the tracks ahead. There are people remotely coordinating train routes, even rerouting them when necessary. The safety precautions and procedures in place are more far reaching than many notice and trains are, as a result, one of the safest ways to make it from A to B daily.  Despite these substantial precautions one must still, as always, leave a margin for human error during the commute.

People have the impressively consistent ability to overlook detail even when time is abundant. At the end of the evening commute this abundance doesn't exist. There is the unshakable sense that time is of the essence, that brevity is the all-consuming purpose of life. 

People anxiously line up in the train corridor minutes before the train arrives at their stop.  They push to the front of the car in a ridiculous attempt to arrive earlier than if they had remained towards the back. The train slows to a halt and with agonizing indifference a beep signals the commuters release back into the wild. The doors slide open but for some this is yet another level of purgatory. Those who need to cross the tracks aren't free until the whistle bellows and the train pushes forward once more in an underwhelming huff of the mundane.  Some of the more daring commuters, the thrill seeking, paper-pushing pioneers, throw caution to the wind. They dual with death for the right to cross early by attempting to make it past the gates before they descend and the train starts rolling.  

Please don't do this.  You can slip, trip, slide, or fumble your way to the ground. Apparently, though, this isn't all you will face in your dash for freedom. There is another danger which I, and as I imagine any other remotely sane human, hadn't considered.  It is often that the gates will begin their descent before everyone has made it through. I believed the mantra don't get caught on the tracks to be obvious until I witnessed something so inane that I was forced to reevaluate my opinion of humankind as the front-runner for intelligent life.

A woman, oversized bag in hand, wearing dark sunglasses and an eerily empty smile stood behind the descending gate.  Surrounded by flashing lights and blaring whistles she stood patiently waiting in queue for the gate to open assuring her safe passage. To the horror of all bearing witness, though, she stood waiting on the wrong side of the closing gates. Like hopping into a shark tank to avoid a fly this woman stood behind the closed gate on the opposite side after having already crossed the tracks. A full grown adult human being remained on the tracks waiting patiently for the very gate meant to keep people off the tracks.

Bystanders, horrified by what they were seeing, quickly ushered her onto the non-lethal side of gates. No man, woman, child, or fool was lost that day as the train passed, its whistle a sigh of relief, as it left the station and continued on the wonderfully mind-numbing monotony that is the daily commute.