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CHICAGO–The rumble of the train mixed with the squeal of steel wheels upon miles of steel track rises like the sound of Miles Davis’ melancholy horn on the evening commute home.
People stare at an assortment of periodicals, settling in, the angst of a day’s work wearing more on some faces than on others. Thirtyish to middle-aged, most seem barely aware of the existence of humanity just shoulders, breaths apart.
A woman below me on the Metra line sits with arms folded, facing the twilight of another ending workday in the city, this 9-to-5 shift now making its southbound exodus.
“All tickets!”
I hand mine to the mahogany agent wearing a blue cap and holding a silver puncher that he fires rapidly before snaring another ticket, then another, and another… Sitting next to me, a woman with short, lollipop-like locs searches for her pass. She shakes out a book, pages flapping. Then she digs through a leather purse, exuding a momentary sense of desperation. She finds it, forks it over. Then just as quickly she retreats back to her own world.
With iPhones and earphones, most seem plugged into one world and yet disconnected, from another.
Some stab the digits of handheld gadgets. Or else they touch and slide. Others scan newspapers or pages of a book, nibble at candy or some other pre-dinner treat inside this evening time chamber as the train snakes toward our destinations.
Suddenly, a door between cars slides open. A young man wearing a blue knit cap, his music muffled but spilling from his earphones, breaks the silence as he whisks through. But few, if any, seem to notice. At least no one bothers even to look up.
From the train’s windows, barren trees and neighborhoods, wooden fences and concrete viaducts flick by like a video stuck on fast forward–like the days of our lives that by middle age seem to move so much faster than when you were a child.
And as I take in the scene, played out week in and week out across this city–across other cities–and understanding full well the desire to use the ride home to unwind from a day’s work, there still seems something eerie or sad, perhaps numbing, about it all.
It has to do with the silence, notwithstanding the rickety train and the intermittent voice crackling over speakers, announcing stops. It has to do with the predominance of machinery amid the absence of human interaction between living breathing souls.
And yet, nowadays, in spaces and places, we too often do not so much as speak to one another. Nowadays, some people value gadgets more than human life, like an idiot robber who, a few years ago, shoved an elderly woman to her death while fleeing after having snatched someone’s iPhone.
Maybe that’s just life in the city in a day when it is not uncommon to not know your neighbor. Maybe that’s life in a post-911, social-networking universe where text messages, Facebook posts and tweets seem to occupy the space once held by the social discourse and simple human engagement that used to transpire even between strangers.
I understand. The world in some ways indeed seems colder now. I understand that sometimes it’s better to keep to yourself, to mind your own business; the idea that the guy sitting across from you just might be a kook or worse; and that sometimes, you just want to be left alone and to get safely home. I understand all that.
And yet, as the squealing but still so silent train neared closer to home–and I pecked away on my laptop while listening to Pandora radio on my smartphone–I couldn’t help feeling that something’s been lost.
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
Website: http://www.johnwfountain.com
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