T(r)oy's Marbles
passing time down below
I forgot to put my watch on this morning, so I had to go back for it—mustn’t face the day without marking its passage. Call it our compulsion to keep track, to tally the dying minutes, to know how long we have till school’s out.
Down below, in the garden, my feet trod the uneven paving stones. Once or twice a year these stones need to be reset, made even. But it is all futile, for with the arrival of autumn rain, as sure as the pale moon wanes, the path becomes jagged. Still, I take care to step on the stones, as certain of the path’s sloping security as one can be. At any rate, mustn’t step on the shifting mud between rock and rock.
The traffic on the corner is unusually backed up. It is moving slowly enough that I, standing on the sidewalk, can mark the faces and stories of those in the cars.
A worker in blue coveralls smoking with the windows closed.
A mother turns around in her seat, frowning at her child.
A suit talking on the phone, no doubt discussing a matter of great import.
A watchless woman honking her horn.
Dirty cars, trucks and motos press into the circle. It is as if they are trying to shove too much soiled laundry into too small of a washer, hoping to get by with just one cycle.
The light changes. Yellow. A surge of movement. Clouds of exhaust. Desperation. A few feet gained. We made it.
I cross the street and for the first time look up. The day already looks like an overflowing ashtray, boundless grey. Whether this is pollution or the weather or both I cannot tell.
Another suit—this time with a backpack—breezes past me as I approach the entrance of the underground. He forcefully pushes the door just ahead, showing it who’s boss. The door seems to be made of lead. As the man passes over the threshold and releases the door from his grip, it closes gruffly, as if it is determined to make life difficult for us all. A child just behind him is knocked backed abruptly by the slamming. The inertia of innocence meets the momentum of violence.
I am far beneath the surface now. There are many, many lost but determined souls down here. Mostly we ride along in darkness, but from time to time there is the respite of intermittent light. But the light only abides for—what?—five seconds?—ten? Then, into the dark again. Still, with that, most try to look ahead, craning their necks to catch the first rumor of illumination. Even if we only see snippets of light, it is still worth looking.
But it is hard for some, because the train car is dense. So, some while away the time reading, hoping to ignore the darkness by learning more words, thinking that if we just know a little bit more the dark will perhaps go away.
Others are content to simply look out the side window, to the black, empty wall of the tunnel, into nothing. Though we know there are rats out there, at least one can look at oneself in the reflection of the dark, eh? Better that than nothing. And the light will come when it will, there is no controlling it—so why worry about it?—for we are at the mercy of the conductor, and hopefully he will slow down to stop gradually so that, at least, we won’t have to bump into the person standing next to us, or be jarred into the lap of the small unshaven elderly man seated with bruised fruit.
Still, even with the most considerate of conductors, the ride is unbearable, long for most. And it seems that fewer get off than get on, people by the thousands, stepping out of the light, forever, it seems, riding in the dark, just going back and forth from one dead end to another, hoping that next time, maybe—just maybe—the final stop will not.
I get off the train and walk the path to get out of the underground by rote memory, more slowly now with my head bowed. I hear a man, barking out in gravelly tones something about luck. Supposedly this is good news. Supposedly the ridiculously remote possibility of winning a little money punctuates the run-on, like five-second-stops sixty feet under.
But the man bringing his gospel just sits in his small booth, which is not much bigger than his own body. I wonder at what hour of the morning he crawled into his plastic box only to begin shouting hollow promises to numbed spirits. I cannot bear to look up at him.
I proceed down another tunnel, this one populated by people walking, or trotting, or loitering, shuffling. There is a man, skinny, playing an out-of-tune guitar with a busted fret.
The passage is missing a few tiles, holes in the mosaic, but it is lit, if even only artificially so. A middle-aged woman walks past in large sunglasses. The day is by no means bright, and, even though there are lights mounted on the ceiling, the tunnel is perhaps less so. Yet, even with that, the dim cloud is too bright for her.
Apparently, we prefer to live in darkness.
I notice on the wall of the tunnel a wordless exit sign. In the picture, a formless man is making his way towards a rectangular shape. I ask myself, “Is that a door or a wall?”
Some minutes later, I arrive at class. There, the teacher is already underway, scribbling illegibly on the green board with chalk that marks the slate in mere ghostly strokes. The students are squinting to make out what she’s writing.
The pale green desks are arranged in two distinct clusters, left and right. The path between the two rows is wide, disproportionately so. I have been in this classroom before but only just today did I notice the largeness of the chasm between the two sides, because, to my astonishment, this morning all persons—save one—were seated on the far end.
Regretfully, I did not have the courage to join the sole dissenter. I joined the crowd.
journal | Comments (0) | October 19, 2007