a tale of two stops

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

a tale of two stops Current mood: content Shelly, freshly released from a day's work, boarded the north hollywood bound train nose down in her already half-read novel. though the train seemed quite full of weary commuters, shelly was pleasantly surprised to find a vacant seat awaiting the arrival of her fatigued caboose. "good!" she thought, "a full 20 minutes of uninterrupted reading time." The novel of the week was none other than khalid hosseini's a thousand splendid suns, a beautifully written tale of unrelenting wartime hardship in the second half of 20th century afghanistan. The woeful lives of the two main women had already stolen a tear from the eager reader earlier that day, but, nonetheless, shelly yearned to know the outcome of their hopeless plights. So far in her reading, the women, bound by the same despicable husband, could not leave their home. They were prisoners. Not because they feared the raining of bombs and stray bullets – they would have taken their chances had it not been for the male-run regime that kept women from running away from abusive husbands in the name of God and His law. shelly hungrily flipped page after page, barely noticing that the once moving train had come to a halt. almost 10 minutes had passed before she lifted her head and met eyes with an obviously irritated woman seated across from her. Only then did she realize that this standstill was exceedingly longer than usual. Shelly, a metro commuter now for almost 2 years, was well aware of the los angeles subway's faults. From time to time, it went through phases of stop and go movement but these occurrences were so sporadic that she never felt much concern. "nevermind" she thought, "a little extra reading time never hurt anyone. I just might finish this tonight." And off she went back into the city walls of 90's era Kabul, where an illegitimate child was cause for stoning, where a home could turn into a prison. Little did shelly know that her very own seat, the one in which she was so thankful to place her rump no earlier than 30 minutes back, would soon become her prison, her subway prison! Another 20 minutes passed, then another, and another. Shelly couldn't believe how calm she was considering the fact that it had been over an hour since the conductor came on the intercom and almost accusingly informed the passengers that "the brakes were broken." Shelly chuckled at the brute honesty of the driver. No words of reassurance, no appeals to remain composed, just a short statement of fact – broken brakes, deal or squeal, and no use in squealing. It started to become stuffy. Shelly wished she had chosen something else to wear that morning, instead of the office appropriate skirt which kept sticking to her warm skin. She could feel the perspiration beginning to form on the back of her neck, the mass of her thick hair assisting in the quick accumulation of the unwelcome sweat beads. Slowly, feelings of entrapment began to rise from the pit of her belly. It didn't help that she had use for the lady's room as well. She couldn't help but think that had she only left work on time, she would have avoided this mess all together. But no, today shelly took an hour for lunch rather than her usual half, which meant she had to stay at work an extra half hour than normal. "what a time, shelly huffed, "for a Capricorn woman to change her routine." Suddenly, a noise from the front shook the car. everyone held their breath in silence awaiting the return of the gentle humming that signified moving wheels on tracks. However, rather than the anticipated hum, the passengers heard nothing but their own defeated exhalations. For a moment, shelly entertained the idea of prying open the doors and walking out into the open tunnel. After all, she was almost home. The train's brakes decided to give out only minutes before arriving at her final destination. As it turned out, the masses beat her to the punch. An asian man tore open the closest doors, letting the passengers flood out onto the elevated walkway beside the tracks. Shelly followed the people, stifling the bouts of laughter emerging from her throat. She observed how the hilarity of this situation seemed lost on the unamused fools surrounding her. She did her best to control the increasingly strong urge to proceed into hysterical cackling but the impulse had already began to tickle her belly and refused to be ignored. She let out a jolly "HA" and then quickly bit her lip so as not to endure any scornful glances. Stepping out from the center car in which she had been seated, shelly now found herself up against a wall in a subway tunnel with a line of people on both sides of her extending for what seemed like miles. A sign on the wall said she was roughly in between two stops; there would be 8500 ft to walk in either direction. But no one was moving. Shelly wanted to race ahead and lead these people to freedom but the walkway was only one person wide. She would have to climb down into the tracks, go to the front of the line on either side of her, and climb back onto the walkway to do so. She decided that the idea was unwise. Then the shouting began. "move" the people to her right began. "we have to walk the other way" the people to her left shouted back. Faceless voices argued back and forth deciding on which direction to walk. Shelly wondered on the whereabouts of the rude conductor and why wasn't he "conducting" this fleet of abandoned commuters through an appropriate exit plan. She envisioned him cowering in his driver's seat, refusing to come out to face the angry mob. Finally, the people to shelly's left began to walk forward, headed west as the signs claimed. Every so often, the line in front would stop moving. Shelly quietly wondered why they kept stopping but felt grateful for these quick picture-taking opportunities. She wished they'd stop delaying but what really got under her skin were the people behind her screaming at the people in front of her to "KEEP WALKING." an Indian gentleman was the most audible, his words were undistinguishable due to the thickness of his accent, but his message was clear - It said, "get the fuck going." Shelly was tempted to put on her headphones so as to drown out these insufferable peoples' whining and complaining, but then concluded that in doing so she'd miss out on observing the panic. their laughable hysteria summoned feelings of gratitude in the young observer. Not the retching "happy to be alive" feelings as seen in cheesy films or rubbish books, but the "happy to witness the vanishing sanity of a mass of intolerable morons." She almost looked forward to the moment when some imbecile would climb down into the track just as the train would unexpectedly launch forward, crushing him and his incessant whining. 8000 ft to go. Shelly tried to record some video on her phone, asking the person walking behind her if he'd like to say anything to the camera. She quickly realized that he didn't speak any English and probably couldn't understand why she was waving her phone in his face. "this is what refugees must feel like," she decided, "alone, desolate, but determined to walk on - to freedom." After walking another 1000 ft., the train's headlights, which still shone on in the distance, began to grow brighter. It was moving and, what more, it was coming fast. Shelly imagined that it would zoom right past them, that the air it cut would make for an intense wind, that it might even knock her into the next person and cause the line of people behind her to fall like dominos. The train skidded to a stop and a flamboyant man in an orange metro vest stepped out and told the pilgrims to get back on the train. Shelly grudgingly compiled but half wished she could have completed the journey to the next stop. She imagined climbing out of the train pit at the next station, clawing at the ledge. She imagined the bystanders' astonished looks, their bewilderment. She would have hammed it up, of course. "that would have be fun," she reflected as the train whooshed her and the others to the final stop. "maybe next time."