This is Me

I live for little moments. This is what the blog is about.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Three Shorts

Three metro stations, the same day.



Berri-Uqam



I'm on my way home from work. The term is almost over, and everything has the sweet-hazy feeling of an end to it; immediately, the small daily things which used to be a burden while the term was going on full-blast are easy, almost unnoticeable. My work bag is not even heavy, and when I get on the train at Atwater, I decide I don't want to sit so I remain standing, feet firmly planted on the finely vibrating floor in front of the door, where, a few stations eastbound on the green line, I will get off to change trains and head north. On the corner seat to my left and facing me sits a round, ageing man in a buttoned-up short-sleeved shirt with discrete sweat marks just below his armpits. His most distinctive feature are watery, protruding eyes (like those of Tasko Nacic, or Ljuba Tadic, or perhaps, Steve Buscemi), which have been fixed on me for a while. When I look at him openly, his face is blank but he gestures towards his seat, and I smile politely, shaking my head: thanks, but I'm fine standing. For some reason, his eyes are still stuck on me, and when I look at him again, somewhat perplexed, he pats his knee offeringly, continuing to look, expressionless. Now my eyes are fixed on his too, my left eyebrow arches into an interrogation mark, and I look at him with what I can only imagine is a combination of scorn and disbelief. His hand freezes and remains listless on his knee, he shakes his head as if mirroring my wordless answer, and his bulging eyes spell a tentative No? The train is slowing down just ahead of Berri-Uqam. Slowly, without blinking, I shake my head coldly at him: well, honestly, what were you thinking? As the door slides open, I'm not looking at him anymore, but can feel his big eyes following me down the corridor.



Laurier


In the evening, I'm sitting on an oval, polished-wood seat inside the Laurier station. The mechanically polite automated voice on the PA system repeats calmly every few minutes that the service on the orange line is interrupted due to a technical problem. (Wait patiently. Don't panic. Is this what it means?). There are about three people on this side of the tracks, maybe two on the other; late-night travellers caught in an infrastructural glitch, resigned to an inevitable delay. Suddenly, from beyond our field of vision comes a series of strange, almost inhuman sounds, emitted at regular intervals and growing louder. Quick exchange of puzzled glances, then silence, then it starts again, and she appears on top of the stairs on the Côte-Vertu side. She walks slowly down the stairs and, entirely lost to where and when she is, keeps a straight line towards the seats half-way down the platform. With a frightening regularity a sharp, animal-like wailing sound is ripped right out of her lungs. She slumps down on a seat, her body a desolate lump, her eyes two black cavities from where I'm sitting, across the tracks. Time passes in silence and inefficiency, interrupted by her resonant moans issuing from a bottomless sadness. She looks like a hurting animal, innocent in utter helplessness and completely unaware. A few more people enter the platforms on both sides, and almost immediately attempt to identify unobtrusively the source of wailing; those on her side stay away from the seats and try not to look at her. Finally, the automated lady in the loudspeakers announces the recommencement of the service, and even before she finishes, the Côte-Vertu train booms into the station. Everyone gets on, the doors close, and the train pushes on, carrying an unspeakable burden of a human soul beaten and crushed.

(Wait patiently. Don't panic.)



Jarry




The ride from Laurier to Jarry on a late-night train takes about 5 minutes. By now I'm tired and am sitting, pleasantly drugged into a state of rocking-induced numbness. Across and to my right sits a middle-aged Asian man in a blue denim jacket with cut off sleeves. He has a small moustache and somewhat dishevelled hair. His bare arms are streaked with protruding blue veins; there's an end or a beginning of a tattoo close to his right wrist but his arm position makes it impossible for me to see it all. At Jarry we both stand up to get off, and I catch a glimpse of his tattoo: on the soft inside of the wrist, where you would normally take your pulse, the simple unembellished letters Own me are written.


And at that moment, for entirely unclear reasons, I quite like it.




3 Comments:

Blogger Centigrado said...

very nice, I quite like it.

I was intrigued by that dance of looks with that middle aged man, what did he want?

and could we expect Tijana with a Tatto that reads "Own me" in the near future? hahaha

Nice entry!

10:55 AM  
Blogger Tijana said...

What did he want? To buy me a candy, have me sit on his knee, to read me a story? Beats me... All I know is, it looked like "an indecent proposal" to me, and I reacted to it :-).

No tattoos for me, thanks. But this one was, well, weird but in an unusal way.

The whole day was simply a collage of somewhat "off" (but intriguing) metro experiences :-)...

2:04 AM  
Blogger Centigrado said...

well... Welcome that to me sounds like what any young gay man in the village would experience in daily basis... which you are not of course hahaha, but hey, you live you learn! :)

7:35 AM  

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