He wanted to feel secure in the warm womb of the train.

He was a long distance commuter: one of that hardened breed that criss-crossed the city every day. One of the many who sat in cars, buses, trains, trucks, trams, ferries etc. for hours; ‘downtime’ they called it. For what? Work = Money = A Lifestyle Back Home.

These were the ones that saw little sunlight: up before dawn, back home after sundown; urban troglodytes living in a work/commute cavern only really seeing the sun on days off. And without sunlight, and quarantined by the commute, they existed in a fugue state; hazed, dazed eunuchs neutered by routine; metronomes swinging to the money tune.

And their cityscape – when it could be seen – offered little respite, the backblocks a wasteland of factories, weathered infrastructure and decaying suburbs. A rusting, unplanned urban mess.

For the commute he had opted for the train long ago. The car was dear to run; the expressways were scary. And buses, ferries, trams were out of the mix of options – they didn’t go his way.

Each morning, he would rush down to the station to jostle for a position to be first on the train, in the same carriage, in the same seat. And do the same on the return journey. Every working day. If this all worked to plan, and the trains ran on time, it would be a ‘good train day’; if things didn’t work to plan, he felt dishevelled, out of kilter i.e. ‘a bad train day’.

The train controlled his moods.

But unlike most of his colleagues-on-the-train, he had train insomnia. The others slept in the morning, slept at night. And he, he couldn’t sleep, not even a wink. You would think the repetitive clickety-clackety of the moving train coupled with its gentle sideways rocking would be soporific, as sleep-inducing as being rocked in a cradle. But no, he was wide awake.

And what do you do if you can’t sleep for hours in a train carriage? You could:

• read
• eat
• do a brain-teaser
• do something techno
• twiddle your thumbs
• do nothing
• gaze out the window at nothing
• watch others

He opted for the last on the list. ‘Trainspotting’ he called it.

They were creatures of habit these habitual ‘trainers’, sitting in the same seat, going through the same rituals. However, when not sleeping agape like clowns in a sideshow or snoring like grunting pigs, they showed glimpses of personality. He enjoyed watching them.

Always in the front seat on the left-hand side was ‘The Wizard’ (he had a name for all the regulars in his second last carriage). The Wizard, when not asleep, would conjure up a way to draw some newcomer into a conversation around a pet topic. The magic was in the method. For example:

Wiz: Nice day?

Newcomer (NC): Some rain is forecast

Wiz: Rain? Did you ever see that movie ‘Singing in the Rain’?

NC: I don’t watch many movies, but I thought I saw it many years ago

Wiz: Oh, you talk about movies. Have you seen the one I’m watching at the moment called ‘Vampirelicious’?

NC: No, but it sounds…well, interesting

Wiz: Let me tell you about it and vampires…

Another newcomer was under The Wizard’s spell of vacuous verbiage! Canny Wizard, he thought.

And there were others he watched that succoured his interest. In the second back row on the right hand side was ‘Mister Trivia’. Trivia was behind his own seat (which was on the window on the left in the sixth row from the front), but he could always hear Trivia. When not snoring, Trivia would, extremely loudly, conduct a phone conversation with another quiz buff that involved practising the answers to possible trivia night questions (how many possible questions could there be? he thought). For example, Trivia might call out ‘What is the capital of Botswana?’ ‘Is it a. London? b. Gaborone? c. Guatemala City?’ And a discussion around the correct answer ensued, and then more questions/options/answers, broadcast to all that were awake. All trivial pursuits, he thought.

And across from him always was ‘The Lady’. For most of the journey Lady slept cocooned in a blanket, probably dreaming of walking down a Paris catwalk in some exotic gown. For The Lady liked glamour, or pretensions to glamour. An automatic alarm would then ring in her brain with fifteen minutes to go on the journey. She would spend this remaining time pimping, preening, prodding her face, pasting on mascara, blush, eyeliner and whatever else glamour-inducing that was in her makeup bag. He thought of Eliot’s line: ‘to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet’.

He could accept these same behaviours from these same people.

But rapid change came to the train. The Wizard was now only an infrequent passenger (may be Wizard had a new job in marketing, he thought). Mister Trivia was nowhere to be heard (may be now a game show host?) and The Lady, although still a regular, no longer put on a face but went au naturel (had she found a fellow or religion?). And many of the other ‘names’ changed in some disturbing way. Maybe it was the financial crisis? Or some type of pandemic? Or a drop in petrol prices?  

To add to his resultant voyeuristic angst, newcomers were invading the carriage. These newcomers were either ‘one-timers’ or those that didn’t care what carriage or seat they sat in. And their irritative behaviours:

• Chip-crunching
• Apple-munching
• Mobile phone-arguing
• Baby-screaming
• Nose-snuffling
• Lolly-sucking
• And, worst of all, newspaper-scrunching.

These were not minor disturbances; collectively, to him they were major geological upheavals to the stability of the train: tremors that shook his world.  ‘Bad train days’ now far outnumbered ‘good train days’.

But what could he do? He loved the train – when it was the same, ordered. And the non-train options were out of the question. So wracked by anxiety he pondered his train future: how to embrace his love of train routine and control the irregularities.

And then it came to him – he would give his life to train.

Several months later, it was time. It would only take one step. He nervously glanced around at the surrounding passengers. What would they think when he did it? Would they respond? Beads of perspiration dripped off his brow. And summoning all his inner strength, he stepped…off on the platform and commenced his first day as a trainee train guard.

© Neil Dufty