The commuter's life is one of repetition. What happens today is, more or less, what will happen tomorrow. And what will happen tomorrow is, more or less, what happened three days ago...on the train, at least. You get used to it. You come to expect it. In time you even start to like it. That nothing new will happen sort of removes any responsibility to pay attention. Why waste time looking out the window when nothing changes?
The other day, however, this Groundhog Day-esque ritual moved on to a new level of surreal duplication when the person who sat beside me on the way into London in the morning sat beside me on the way back up to Beaconsfield that night. This same-day seating dopio is among the most unnerving and, indeed, rarest of on-train coincidences. Most will go a whole working life commuting without experiencing it, but I am no longer a member of that club. I have been blooded.
In this situation the question that comes to mind first is does my repeat seating partner know what's happening or not? Secondly, do I mention it? It feels weird not to, and yet exactly what conversation is meant to commence whether he has noticed or not...one about coincidences? How deep could that be, especially when we both know we'd rather be reading World Cup predictions in our Evening Standards?
No, as you might expect, neither of us said a word to each other about the coincidence or, for that matter, about anything else.
Plus ca change.
No comments:
Post a Comment