Commuter Dreams

A drunken stagger is perfectly acceptable when walking down the aisle of a moving train. I think this thought to myself while lurching gently towards the door, my station fast approaching, and just before my gaze snags, catches sharply (as stray wool of sweater on nail) on the scene of a middle-aged man whose snores grumble like waves, steadily over the shores of an open book.

I stop and stare, yes forgetting for a moment to maintain the courteous indifference train travelers exhibit to one another, observers of an unwritten code –“We shall not presume to be interested– no not even faintly—in one another.”

For I have been startled now into undeniable interest. By a man whose busy head is flopped forward in the rag doll abandon and recklessness of unintended sleep. I would give a great deal to know the hidden title of the book that prompted its reader into this public morning slumber.

He is attired in importance, in the pinstriped pajamas of the corporate world. A briefcase leans against his arm like a very tired teddy bear. In a moment the train will rattle to a stop and the scuffle of commuters coming and going will fill the air, will snatch the thin covers off this dreaming form and he will wake to the brief bewilderment of being who he is and where and when.

And glancing down at his book I wonder how much he will remember. Will the details of the plot be clear or blurred, an out-of-focus photo of a familiar place? Will he recognize all the characters and perceive the truth of their tangled motivations or will he use up a measure of suspicion and formality on them all over again?

The train stops, I do not wait to see his head lift, his eyes open, my feet carry me forward. I step off the train light as a falling leaf knowing suddenly, that we too drift, in and out of life with each passing moment, sleep and wake at nameless stations to find an open book cradled in our laps – the long-winded story without title that we started when the stars were children.

A  story whose brilliant and tender plot is concealed only by our human and endearing forgetfulness.