Getting there
Adam says, ‘Will I make porridge today?’
And I say, ‘If you like - but you make porridge every day. I don’t want you to feel like you have to make porridge every day.’
He says, ‘I don’t want you to feel like you have to eat it every day.’
‘I love porridge every day, as long as you don’t mind making it.’
‘I don’t mind.’
But we haven’t eaten porridge for a while. It’s not that Adam is sick of making it. It’s because at some stage after I started this new job, I stopped having time for porridge, and reading and writing and Adam and my dog. Now every day I rush to work so I can finish on time, and then rush home again. But home only lasts a minute and then it’s the next day and I start rushing again because it will make the weekend come quicker.
PRESTON STATION
The faces on the platform have started to become familiar. The middle-aged lady with the pink backpack and the walking stick is with her daughter today. The lady has bowed legs and her daughter is knock-kneed. How did that happen?
My face is stiff with cold but I know when I get on that train it will be warm. The loudspeaker speaks,
“The next train to arrive on platform one goes all stations to Flinders street.”
Preston, Bell, Thornbury, Croxton, Northcote, Merri, Rushall…
There is no seat for me today. There is never a seat, even at this early hour. I stand next to the school girl with the fluffy phone cover because I know she gets off at Clifton Hill, and then I am ready to take her spot.
A lot of people are sleeping. Everyone else’s eyes are glued to their little screens and their ears are hooked up with little white ear plugs. The young boy next to me has cheap ear plugs - I can hear his doof-doof music. I’m not shy about looking over people’s shoulders to see what’s on their screens; poker machine games, a newspaper, Facebook and SnapChat. I protest by not pulling out my phone because I am demonstrating what it’s like to be present in the world.
My ultra core thermals are very warm but they don’t exhale. I am overheating. I imagine fainting.
My legs buckle and I sink to the floor. I am lying in a forrest of legs. An emergency signal goes off and I am carried away in an ambulance. I am very late for work.
RUSHALL STATION
The two Hipsters talk loudly above the phone texting. They usually discuss work colleagues, but today the short bearded Hipster declares he has broken up with his girlfriend.
‘Like no one saw that coming!’ says the tall Hipster.
In less than a week, Short Hipster will have moved out and found a new house. He will also start planning a two week trip to South America. Tall Hipster will tell him that two weeks is not enough time to see everything, and that he should ‘just do Colombia’. I have always wanted to go to South America. I will plan that trip and give myself at least four weeks.
CLIFTON HILL STATION
The girl with the fluffy phone cover gets off but someone else had their eye on her seat and they slipped into it while I was planning South America. I watch over the shoulder of a girl fixated on her phone. She is looking at a picture of herself. She doesn’t stop looking at herself. She enlarges the photo with her finger and thumb so she can admire her duck mouth pose, then she rotates the phone so she can see it from another angle, then she zooms back out and takes another look. She is still looking at herself when we reach Collingwood.
COLLINGWOOD
Somehow a few more workers manage to squeeze through the door. So many of us! We have become a herd of cattle. A cow pushes through the door and asks everyone to move down the isle so she can get on. There is a shuffling of hooves as she pushes us aside with her large rump. I wonder who decides when the amount of passengers becomes unsafe?
We are all squashed, Mecca style, up against the doors. The pressure of our bodies forces the door open and half of us fall onto the track. A train is coming towards us. I have broken my leg and the bone is sticking out through my skin, but I manage to roll over and push the old Chinese lady off the track, and then crawl away, just as the train cuts the Hipsters in two like a couple of sausages. I am very late for work.
FLINDERS STREET
The Metro man greets us on the platform with his microphone and I am happy for that.
“A big warm welcome on this cold morning! I can see some of you have smiles on your faces. Some of you love your jobs. I love my job. You'll work hard today and have a day off tomorrow. Good on you! Have a great day everyone!”
I dodge the tide of commuters coming towards me and push my way onto the escalator. I stand to the right. The right is for people who are in a hurry because we walk up the moving stairs to help them along. Then a dash through the station coffee shops, and a push past people asking for money to save animals. Someone asks me if I want to save a turtle. I say no, I have to get to platform twelve to get the 8:05 train. Some people have not managed to get off their phones, they are like rocks that do not give an inch and I am an annoyed stream that slides around them.
The train pulls up and we all rush to the side of the opening doors so we can be the first on the train after the people get out - all of us except the girl who is not included in that rule and pushes her way through the disembarking passengers so she can get her seat first. I stare hard at her and her thick makeup all the way to Balaclava, sending mental messages of my disgust across the isle and into her brain.
There are plenty of seats for everyone and the train is not going any faster because you pushed people aside. And also…
Then we arrive at Balaclava and I realise I’ve wasted ten minutes, because she has not changed.
I get to work thirty minutes early and eat my muesli in front of the computer. When the day is done, I run back to Balaclava station to catch the 5:11.
BALACLAVA STATION
I race up the stairs, just in time to catch the Metro announcer.
“Here comes your train now. Careful of the wet ground in this weather. In a minute you can jump on one of Metro’s warm and toasty carriages. It's going to be a cold one tonight. Three degrees. So rug up! Perfect for eating Tim Tams. Have you tried the new pineapple flavour?”
I have not. I wonder if they’re yellow inside.
The carriage is warm and I am grateful to Metro. I get my computer out and start writing. But I get nothing of value done because there are only five stations until Flinders Street and my head has been turned into porridge by standing in front of a computer all day. I write down what the Metro lady said at the platform and add it to my list of amusing platform announcements.
FLINDERS ST STATION
“Hello everyone. This is a safety announcement. Do not run down the escalators and mind the gap. That’s all and bye for now.”
I see my train from the top of the escalator and run to the doors.
I open my computer and start to write, but I can’t concentrate because the girl opposite me is yelling her dinner plans into her phone. She is making chicken tonight. The girl next to me is texting furiously. I peer over at her screen and am surprised to see a photo of the chicken cooker yelling into her phone. The text underneath says, ‘This is her. She is so loud I can hear her through my headphones.’
I send a text to someone, telling them about the text.
CLIFTON HILL
“Due to an accident at Preston, this train will be terminating at Bell. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Everyone rolls their eyes. I presume it is a car on the tracks. That happens sometimes. I’m not worried though, because Bell is only 400 metres from my home, so I can easily walk. I might just be a bit later than usual.
THORNBURY
“Due to a person being hit by a train at Preston, this train will be terminating at Bell. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
An old man waits on the platform at Preston station. His eyesight is bad, so he stands closer to the edge than he imagines. The train approaches. He is too close to the edge. The train sweeps past and he is sucked into the gap.
An old man waits on the platform at Preston Station. His eyesight is fine but he is too close to the edge. He has been riding these trains to the city for fifty years. He has spent over ten thousand hours on these trains; sleeping and day dreaming his time away, while he waits for the day when he will arrive at his destination. But after all that travelling, he never arrived in the place he imagined so he has wasted all that time and now he stands too close to the edge. The train sweeps past and he steps into the gap.
BELL
There are two hundred people trying to squash through the exit gate. Two hundred people have to find their own way home from here. Two hundred people are on their phones, trying to rustle up a lift. I start to walk.
Everyone is rushing, dashing between the cars to cross the road and make up the time they have lost because someone died on the tracks. The girl in front of me is on her phone.
‘The one night I wanted to get home early!’
She carries a set of noisy keys. She has a huge bag so she could put them in there, but she chooses to rattle her keys about because she owns something that has a door, and she needs to get to it so she can open it.
PRESTON
Adam and I sit on our back verandah in the sunshine and drink a beer and say thank god it’s Friday. Adam gets his phone out and finds the story about the person who was hit by the train at Preston Station - there are no details about how that person died, but at the end of the article there is a referral to Crisis Line for anyone who is no longer enjoying the journey.
On Saturday we wander over to the Preston train tracks. Adam fixes a plastic bunch of flowers to the safety fence.
On Sunday we write, and plant trees in the garden.
Monday morning again. Adam has fresh coffee and porridge on the stove when I get home from the pool. The sun is just reaching through the kitchen window and warming up the breakfast table, especially for us. The roses are fluorescent orange in that light and I can smell pockets of their perfume as I rush around the house getting ready for work.