train etiquette is quite absurd when you think about it. the way no seat is left bum-free, and yet there might as well only be one bum there because everyone pretends to be alone, ignoring everyone else. we sit. staring out the window or at the graffiti on the back of the chair in front or eyes closed to contain the beats inserted into our minds through little white earphones. or flipping through the telegraph. or struggling with the enormous pages of the herald. or highlighting furiously in an attempt to finish several hours of university readings in twenty minutes.
anything to keep us occupied. anything to disassociate ourselves from the guy with the lime-green bumbag, from the business-suited dude speaking loudly into his mobile phone, from the girl in too-tight jeans and a pink trucker hat.
why is it ok to deny the existence of the others in our carriage? not just ok--socially appropriate. i can't even admire the earrings of the trucker hat girl, for instance, because it's rude to even glance at her. yet if i was to meet her at uni, say, then i would be expected to introduce myself and excel at small talk...i'd probably even tell her that i like her earrings.
but on a train, she remains trucker hat girl. nothing more. and in fact, if i'd been doing my job properly i wouldn't have looked up as she sat down heavily on a nearby seat. i wouldn't have noticed her at all.
it's like trains are somehow separate from the outside world. like the world can't see through their windows, and like those inside them can't see each other. every morning i see ladies doing their make-up in between stations. reddening their cheeks and plumping up their eyelashes. for some reason it doesn't matter if the people on the train see them with bare faces, as long as their office colleagues see the painted version.
oh. wait.
people on trains are supposed to ignore each other.
so i shouldn't have noted their rouge brushes.
i should have been busy denying the fact that humans are social beings, like everyone else was.

when i got off the train today and headed to the escalator, i couldn't be bothered to walk up the right side and so i leaned on the left-hand railing and waited while it chugged up a level. the people who chose to walk up looked really funny like zombies and it was probably because toby was talking about zombies last night, but still. as they filed past me their arms were by their sides, their leg muscles moving mechanically and their faces stony and forward.