The two faces of commuting
Transit is a gamble. Once you’re sitting on the train, you’re completely at the mercy of the tracks. You hold no agency over the way you make your way through the world, albeit only for an hour, or until you get to your stop. For those of us who have places to go and no other way of getting there, there are two ways of looking at this unavoidable trip.
Every single step of the journey is a drag. The indistinct chug-chug-chug of the train as you trudge along the tracks mimics the cadence of the glug-glug-glug you make as you drain your glass to half-empty. You sit across from a man with long, spindly legs that stretch all the way onto your side. He doesn’t even try to rein them in. What the hell, man! I was here first, are the thoughts you send to him telepathically as you glare at him. He never gets the message. That, or he completely ignores it. You suspect the latter.
At each stop, the opening doors brings in a gust of damp, smelly fall air. You’d think these new train cars would be heated better, since they spent so much money on the refurbishment. You shiver and hunker down in your seat, pulling your scarf tighter around your head with each passing stop.
Finally, finally you pull up to Union Station. You’ve got to get to class, and you need to be one of the first ones off the train because you’re running five minutes late, as always. As you stand up and head towards the door, the crowd of commuters surges and you get pulled into the centre of the sea of people. You’ve become yet another jean jacket-wearing drop in the metaphoric ocean of students and middle-class office workers surrounded by other jean jacket-wearing and briefcase-wielding drops.
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Every step of the journey is one step closer to sitting in your lecture, surrounded by your friends and classmates. The indistinct chug-chug-chug of the train as you soar along the tracks makes you think of the glug-glug-glug you make as you drain your glass empty, because Yes girl, stay hydrated! You sit across from a man with long, spindly legs that stretch onto your side. You notice he’s left no room for your legs, so it’s a good thing yours are short! You’re content to curl up on your seat, phone in hand, headphones in ears, ready for the rest of the ride.
At each stop, the opening doors brings in a gust of damp fall air. You wear your favourite scarf, white and red plaid, just so you can wrap it around yourself when this happens. Fall is your favourite season, and you love watching the blurred medley of orange, yellow, and red leaves through the train window as you zoom past. You commute often enough to track the changes of the colours as each season passes. Fall is always the prettiest.
Before you know it, you’re at Union Station. Without even realizing, you’ve finished an entire episode of The Blacklist while you whizzed through the in-between cities. As the train pulls to a full stop, you stand, pull on your backpack, and move in step with the throng, each other person making their own journey.