Transit is a gamble. Once you’re sitting on the train, you’re completely at the mercy of traffic. You hold no agency over the way you make your way through the world, albeit only for an hour, or until you decide to get off the train. 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.
The first is to remain as pessimistic as possible, enough to give Garfield a run for his money. Every step of the journey is a drag. The indistinctchug-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 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.
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 ocean of students and middle-class office workers, surrounded by other jean jacket-wearing drops.
The second way of seeing the commute is more on the optimistic, Jessica Day-meets-Leslie Knope side of the spectrum. Every step of the journey is one step closer to your final destination. The indistinct chug-chug-chug of the train as you soar along the tracks makes you think of the glug-glug-glugyou 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. He looks comfortable, you think. 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, ready for the rest of the ride.
Before you know it, you’re at Union Station. Without even realizing, you’ve finished an entire episode of The Blacklist while you zoomed 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 making their own journey.
