Parallel Lives
Where I live, I am uniquely privileged to be at one end of a public transport system...
Why, privileged? Well, there are a number of advantages...
Firstly, your chosen means of transport is almost always awaiting you , like a vast and glorified chauffeur driven delight, it's like being Johnny Ronan, the guy from Treasury Developments who has a brand new Maybach Benz (there are only two in the country, the other one belongs to Enya, they cost about half a million euro) sitting outside his office all day, with his driver, on standby...
Obviously, it's not quite like that, but there is some similarity...
Clearly this cuts down on waiting in the rain time... It also means that you get to see the patterns of other peoples lives much more clearly...
Every morning, I sit in a certain place and around me, the same people gather... There's a girl, with blond hair and a dark coat, who sits at the furthest end, as close to the driver as possible, there's a man in a hat, who looks entirely different when he removes it, there's a girl in a tracksuit who smokes, there's a girl who's dad drives a brand new Mercedes CLK and drops her off every morning... This morning, he stopped to give her money...
And at each stop along the way, you get to recognise the same faces, there's an older woman and a dark haired woman, who get on together at the same stop, there's a man who always seems far too warm and insists on opening windows... there's a girl who looks familiar, but isn't...
All these parallel lives go on around me every morning... and it's weird to see and so different to driving in a car, in a little isolated world....
The thought that started all this was, the other morning, as I was walking towards the stop, a tall man, emerged from his apartment, he walked in front of me all the way to the stop, I watched his back pack bob up and down....
In fact, the only thing that drew my attention to him was that he seemed to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... he tried to bin it along the way and it fell on the ground... I spent a good five minutes wondering, why and how he came to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... I had no answer...
And that evening, as I returned home, the same guy passed me, back pack bobbing, departing from my view at the same apartment I met him at in the morning... And i wondered, what had he done with his day? And how odd is it that our days were exactly the same length? and what did he do next?
Why, privileged? Well, there are a number of advantages...
Firstly, your chosen means of transport is almost always awaiting you , like a vast and glorified chauffeur driven delight, it's like being Johnny Ronan, the guy from Treasury Developments who has a brand new Maybach Benz (there are only two in the country, the other one belongs to Enya, they cost about half a million euro) sitting outside his office all day, with his driver, on standby...
Obviously, it's not quite like that, but there is some similarity...
Clearly this cuts down on waiting in the rain time... It also means that you get to see the patterns of other peoples lives much more clearly...
Every morning, I sit in a certain place and around me, the same people gather... There's a girl, with blond hair and a dark coat, who sits at the furthest end, as close to the driver as possible, there's a man in a hat, who looks entirely different when he removes it, there's a girl in a tracksuit who smokes, there's a girl who's dad drives a brand new Mercedes CLK and drops her off every morning... This morning, he stopped to give her money...
And at each stop along the way, you get to recognise the same faces, there's an older woman and a dark haired woman, who get on together at the same stop, there's a man who always seems far too warm and insists on opening windows... there's a girl who looks familiar, but isn't...
All these parallel lives go on around me every morning... and it's weird to see and so different to driving in a car, in a little isolated world....
The thought that started all this was, the other morning, as I was walking towards the stop, a tall man, emerged from his apartment, he walked in front of me all the way to the stop, I watched his back pack bob up and down....
In fact, the only thing that drew my attention to him was that he seemed to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... he tried to bin it along the way and it fell on the ground... I spent a good five minutes wondering, why and how he came to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... I had no answer...
And that evening, as I returned home, the same guy passed me, back pack bobbing, departing from my view at the same apartment I met him at in the morning... And i wondered, what had he done with his day? And how odd is it that our days were exactly the same length? and what did he do next?
posted by Conformist No. 1 | 2:53 PM
1 Comments:
Unusual and fascinating observations. Isn't it odd how we dip in and out of the pools and streams of humanity around us, most often without ever knowing their names or anything else except for a few habits and schedules, as you described.
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