The Subway

Monday morning, and the plug has been pulled. Or at least, that is how I have come to think of it. My neighbourhood is one large, unwilling tub of bathwater. Each morning the chain is jerked, and we all rush for the drain. Tripping and swirling into the subway, there hardly seems to be an ounce of free will in the whole crowd of us. Hurtling through the plumbing under the city toward our inevitable destinations we are drawn not by desire, but by some unknown yet irresistible force.

Today, I know, is a bad day. I know this because it is only on bad days that I think of this all as a toilet instead of a tub. And I certainly feel that I’m being flushed right now. On these days, I feel terrible for myself and my fellow commuters. The weekend has shit us out, and we’re headed for the sewer of the workweek once again.

I used to enjoy walking in these sullen morning marches, looking around at the faces of those around me. “Poor bastards,” I used to tell myself, seeing the blank expressions on their faces. I’d seen that same expression once before when I was just a kid. I was playing with my best friend in the woods near my house, when we came across a dead groundhog. It was strange, it still looked alive in every way, but it had clearly headed for burrows beneath greener pastures. The eyes stared off into nothing, glazed and unfocused, but with the disconcerting shadow of life still behind them.

When I first started working I was filled with the same urge each morning on the subway as I was so long ago. I imagined poking these people with a stick, or nudging them with the edge of my shoe. Would they move, or would they have the same stiffness I found in the furry and recently deceased?

Poking people on the subways with sticks and other sharp objects, I am sure, is socially unacceptable, and is bound to lead to awkward moments and perhaps even trouble. So instead, I would entertain myself with more clever attempts to poke, cajole or otherwise elicit any sort of response.

Some mornings I would feign exasperation as I pushed my way to exit the train. “Excuse me! Oh, excuse me! Please, I really must get to my cubicle!” I would cry, looking out of the corner of my eye for even the faintest reaction.

One morning, after calling in sick, I dressed up as a tourist and made the train in morning rush hour. Camera in hand I would snap pictures of people as they stood in misery on the subway platform. I would board the train with them, blinding my victims with the flash as I exclaimed to myself in mock awe, “My God, they’re just packed in here!”

To most I was a mere passing nuisance, forgotten moments later. To a small few I was an amusing diversion from their relentless routine, and to others an unacceptable disturbance that had it not been illegal they would have been more than happy to forcibly eliminate. But for most, I was not there at all. Those people on the train – they were alive, I am sure (how else could they have gotten there?), but poke as I might – and no matter how sharp the stick – those eyes would keep on staring off into space.

I didn’t really realize that I was in the company of zombies until one decisive incident proved it to me beyond a doubt. As we pulled into one of the stations someone near the back of our train car keeled over, collapsing on the floor. Heart attack, stroke or seizure I will never know. I was mesmerized by the reactions of those around me. In our relentless drive for work, the zombies stared in absent impatience at their watches as the defective component was dragged off of the train. Grunts of disapproval indicated their displeasure that the train would have to wait for the arrival of the emergency crew. The most chilling reaction, however, was none at all. Standing, staring, waiting. Where was my stick then?

If I had a stick now, I would poke myself. Or maybe throw a tentative pebble or stone at myself. I am in an increasingly rare lucid moment right now, as I think of all this. But even now, I know, I am a zombie, too (although I dress much better than most of the other zombies). But now I understand the mysterious ways of the living dead. One subway poster summed it up for me perfectly, and was my first clue into the clever psychology of the walking dead.

“In your 20’s and on your way to work? Time to think about retirement!”

And now, that’s just what I do. I suspect – if I have learned well – that that is what we are all thinking about, each morning.