The bus is bumping toward the station. There are few people waiting at the stops, so early in the morning. The bus moves fast—is the driver trying to drive himself awake? A meditative state, clasping nebulous sleep. Before I know it, there is the underpass. The bus stops, everyone gets out. Grudgingly. We move again. It is cold, it is dark in the station's entrance hall. We wrap ourselves in whatever warmth we have.
None of us wants to be here. I read it in the faces coming down the escalator. Tired, reluctant, doleful. All kinds of faces, all the same: serious, submitted to fate. Has anyone ever laughed in a train station so early in the morning?
I do not stand apart; I am with everyone, whoever comes my way. One woman, crossing as I am about the step into the station hall, is near tears. I am slow to construct her image, but I detect sadness. I feel a burning and look away too late. No one deserves to be stared at in a train station so early in the morning.
I am in the hall, in the unnatural light, artificial air. On display. I walk to the platform, shiver in the cold, finally get into the train. I find a lonely seat. I close my eyes, there is the woman on the escalator, her sadness again.
I think of Dostoevsky, White Nights. "It is always so: when we are unhappy, we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; our feeling is not shattered, but becomes concentrated." Unhappiness concentrated, in essence, the sadness of the world. How easy to miss.
I think of Osamu Dazai, Lanterns of Romance. "It seems that when people are in a state of euphoria, they don't always notice the suffering of others." Moods like guides, feelers, can we feel outside ourselves?
The things one thinks about, in the train so early in the morning.
I liked this--it reminds me of the opening pages of Gravity's Rainbow. The same forlorn tone, if not (thankfully) so dire.