“My name is.” I repeated over and over, preparing for the trial to come. The job interview leaning over me like my impending doom.
I am how many years old now? 25? 26? 27? I can’t recall.
I am here because it’s all I have left. Empty body, empty cart, filled seat. As my metal coffin marches on and on.
It’s too early to wake up, too late to go to sleep.
Just the right time to weep
As my anxious thoughts begin to seep
Into my core and pierce so deep.
Please just let me go to sleep.
As the train begins to creek.
I have often thought that routine is all there is. Wake up, train, work, train, sleep. Day in, day out. Nothing new. Like the very train I sit on just arriving and leaving on schedule.
It’s freezing, despite the scarf I can see my breath crystalise in the air. The world outside is dead. Yet the light gleems piercingly on.
It annoys me that I’m just a cog. Just a task fulfiller, another body in a seat, slave to the emperor of the world.
I could have been everything I ever dreamed of. If only I tried harder. If I gave up more of my time… but why should I have? Time is all I have. Each clatter on the tracks like a clock, as the train travels on for eternity.
Clatter, rumble, clatter, rumble. The train shakes to and fro. My senses so drowned that my thoughts cannot breathe.
I desperately want to be a bird. I want to soar above this prison, see the bugs crawl, the horses gallop, to be free. But I am an ant.
If I were in charge I wouldn’t even be able to fix it. If I made this train it would fall apart. I’m no king, just a pawn. A space filled, a body in a seat.
In my pocket lies my phone. I never deleted the old numbers. But I still ride this train away from them. Away from my life, but I’m still on the same tracks.
Once my friend asked what I wanted to do with my life. I jokingly responded with taxi driver. But here I sit. No licence. No dream. That joke appearing like a throne from here.
When people look at me they see a mannequin. A blank slate… nothing.
Earlier today… Was it earlier today? I don’t know anymore. The rattle eating away at my thoughts and my time.
I have always believed in a god. Maybe it’s just deluded hope. But to believe I was made with a purpose fulfils me.
It lets me believe that maybe there is something more for me. More than this train. This routine. This checkbox life. More than this body in a seat.