The faces of my fellow commuters are worn, some bordering on forlorn. Rough week, perhaps. But that's just what I think every week.
Here, onboard this mover of the earth, exists a sacred silence. No words are spoken, no niceties uttered. There is a quiet order about things - the doors open, you hear the shuffling of feet, and then the doors close, as if to shut everything and everyone up. At each station, people make way, they wriggle their way through, and then they close themselves in. Here is a script with no lines of dialogue.
Within this still stampede of zombies, it is a crime to make eye contact. Passengers steal glances at one another, but they don't make artful thieves. Being caught staring earns you a look of exasperation. Eyes bounce off one another - they cannot, must not, lock. There is a line you cannot cross, a space you cannot enter. After all, we're told to stand behind the yellow line.
A lady fumbling with her possessions finally drops her phone. Heads dart towards the "commotion" - like prairie dogs alerted to danger. The poor lady - visibly abashed by her clumsiness - kneels down to pick her phone up, before the commuters turn away, returning to their private, enclosed worlds. The train chugs on.
I wish I was on a bus. Here, underground and sucked of sound, I stare out of the window, but I'm only looking in.
The train hiccups its way into the next station. As it inches along the platform, I no longer see a reflection of myself, but a reflection of something greater. Hope has been injected into the bleary-eyed commuters waiting on the platform. They may finally board the train. But it's not the glimmer of hope we usually think of. It's a kind of spent, wearied hope. At the end of the week all they wish for is to return home.
The doors slide open, as if waving to greet the boarding passengers. An extravagantly-dressed lady boards the train, flanked by equally flamboyant shopping bags that are too full of themselves. A single step of her high-heels attracts the awe of her fellow passengers, or is it disgust? The air reeks of opulence. At that very moment, a man clad in a plain white t-shirt with torn sandals sinks into his seat. I sink into the inequality of our world.
A student trudges onto the train - books heavy, feet heavier, heart heaviest. It is the start of the end of the week, but for him, it is a temporary end to routine. Respite. Brief respite. Two days, to be exact, of which a significant amount of time will be allocated for homework. Just the thought of it makes him light-headed.
The doors shut, before the most talkative person onboard reminds passengers, "Next station, Novena."
--
Author's note: My experiences on public transportation never fail to provide inspiration for my writing. The idea of me "writing with my feet" captures how my journeys empower me to write. I'm not sure if it's just me but I don't tend to use my phone like everyone else. At the risk of sounding like a creep, I prefer to observe my fellow passengers. Watching others tells me so much; looking out of the window, too. Sometimes we need to look out to look in.
