[fucking shitty night. here's a depressing half a story which matches my mood.]
In the underground, there is no night or day. Only shadows.
Only the shadows of people I watch in the slight rear-view on the side of the metro train. I toggle a switch and the doors open on the appropriate side to which passengers should be getting on or off. I make sure everyone gets on; toggle a switch, and doors close. A socket board of switches, levers and buttons rest in front of me which have absolutely no use besides their aesthetics and showing off brand sparkling new useless technology. The big red emergency stop which, if used, can jam the train to a dead, complete halt and seriously injure, concuss, or even murder someone in the cart, sending them flying across and falling on top of each other. The big red button tempts me with its lust. I want it. I am in control of hundreds of thousands and lives per day and can easily crash-and-burn every single one of their lives and every single one of their family’s lives. The possibilities are endless, but this non-sense only plagues my brain late at night. It really is non-sense. I was a serious man, raised in a traditional fashion, and there is no room for eccentricity in tradition.
These are the thoughts that have been consuming me for the whole fourth week of duty so far.
And so the shadows behind me enter and exit without a second thought, simply as second nature. I don’t exist because I am the ghost to their benign existence, and I can accept that. I can stare straight with no corrosion and go on for hours on end driving the cart through the darkened underground corridors, making sure they follow correctly on the tracks with zero crash-and-burn, driving through rush-hours and slow hours, getting on time. I even make sure to keep my doors open extra long if I see an elderly person struggling and running after my train before the doors close. Other than these rare occasions where I respectably wait for an elder to get on, the whole point is that people have places to be and things to do. And they have to do these things on time and following a routine. I solidify their routine. It’s not only the poor either who ride my carts; the young, old and wealthy but environmental friendly all ride my carts. When I look at it this way, the job is quite rewarding, you know. People trust me and I do my best to follow their trust.
It’s a simple procedure really. Other than the switch used to open and close the doors, there is a second toggle with a big red sphere handle at the top of it which controls the cart itself. I push it up when I want the train to go, back to stop, and left and right whenever the track takes a turn and the glowing arrows ahead of me on the track warn me to. These glowing arrows which hang as signs in the tunnel are essential for newbies like myself to get used to the system and when I have to turn. Besides this, it's not that tough to be a metro train driver. In fact, it's easy. It’s all sufficiently laid out before you, every little step and responsibility is as simple as listening to whatever the glowing signs tell you and then pressing a button. It's all a step-by-step procedure, and you are that blank area in between the cause and effect, to make sure it gets done routinely. And I am completely fine with the routine, because routine is how things work, it’s what keeps the earth spinning and my checking account growing.
Thing is, it’s been a month since the Montreal Metro system began staying open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They figured if there were a few willing employees to drive a couple trains a night, then why not add an extra charge after 1AM and leave them open for the night? This way, they keep about 8 (maximum) trains going on non-stop for the night and still make enough cash to pay the drivers.
Being my first month on the job, I got the night shift. And at first is really wasn’t all that bad. I get to work around 10PM, and drive straight until 3AM, take a coffee and "lunch" break, then drive continually from 3AM to 8AM. Then I take the metro home myself, being a shadow for the next early morning driver. I get home at 9AM, sleep until 6PM and then wait for my next shift to begin. It's rather quiet sometimes, but you get used to it after a while when you have your iPod in and the whole world shut off around you.
It’s just that things have gotten a little strange after the first couple weeks. Being completely alone all the time gets to you, creating a pretty bizarre existence. A reality defined by thought. It’s been a month of only me. Myself and my thoughts. And thoughts can be a very bad thing sometimes. My mother always used to tell me when I was younger to not over-think anything and to simply live life out to the fullest. She always told me that my father over-thought and that’s why he “crashed and burned” as the saying goes. His story is another, in and of itself, but let's just say that he didn’t live too long and gave into the pleasures which his body told him were good. He very much liked his liquor, which also didn’t help him when he tried to drive home at 3AM when he was getting back from the bar.
[...]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is beautiful Jordano, I really like this :)
I've always wondered about metro drivers, oddly enough. And I like what you've done with them here. The narrator is really interesting and I like the perspective he has on the situation, of the loneliness and isolation. I actually really like the tone of isolation running through, it's done quite consistently and effectively. The repetition of "shadow people" and stuff works well and ties it all together. The set up for a longer piece is done subtly and not in a super obvious expository way which was great :) I enjoyed this a lot. Lots of emotion and feeling behind the words, so although it was fairly simple in that there wasn't a hell of a lot of action going on, it still made it enjoyable to read.
Post a Comment