Thursday 6 December 2012

Faces on the Train Part 2

Three stops into my journey to work a couple clamber on board the train. Both of them in tracksuits and trainers. She is hopping, she is only wearing one trainer, the other is grasped in her hand. He sits opposite me, she sits on the seat opposite him on the other side of the aisle, both of them turned to face each other. Next to her is a giant Bargain Booze carrier bag with a Sports Direct bag shoved into the top of it. She is still only wearing one shoe. She admires the Staffordshire Bull Terrier which was previously being stroked by a stranger. 

"Can I read that paper please?" a business man in a woolly hat passes the one shoe-d woman the Metro lying next to him.

While catching up on the day's update on the royal baby*, the woman stretches out her leg and rests her foot on her partner's knee, "do that for us?" she says. "What?" "Me sock". Entirely unphased the man rolls up the leg of her tracksuit bottoms and adjusts her sock. She puts her trainer on. She takes her trainer back off.

A man two seats behind looks on, he is smirking at the scene.

There is a young man diagonally opposite me, after some discussion with her partner the woman calls out to him "'Ey, if I've bought something from Burtons in town, I can change it 'ere, can't I?" He tells her she can, "told you so" she says to her partner.

"What time is it?" she bellows to the man next to her "shit, I'm five minutes late" and carries on fiddling with the shoe in her hand.

They are getting off at the next stop, they stand up and walk towards the doors, she puts her shoes on at this point and falls onto her partner. As the train trundles into the station she presses her back into his front and he looks at their reflection in the doors opposite. 



*probably, I don't know for sure

Friday 16 November 2012

Faces on the Train

A young couple run to get on the train as the doors are about to close, they have a pram, he pushes it into the space for bikes/wheelchairs/prams/people who don't want to sit on an ordinary seat with such force that it slams into the emergency alarm. He doesn't notice. 

He is furious about something, she says nothing. The driver comes through the door to reset the alarm the furious man is oblivious to. He asks him to move the pram, he shoves it so hard into the woman's legs I'm surprised she doesn't explode at him (I would). The alarm won't reset. The guard walks through the carriages and stands, scratching his head, unable to reset the alarm. The power is switched off. The furious man is getting more and more angry. I am getting later and later for work. He drinks the child's juice. He huffs a bit, he puffs a bit, then he huffs and puffs more. There are phone calls being made from inside the driver's cab (is that the right word?), he's tried resetting it, he's tried switching the power off, no that's not worked. They try to attract my attention, they want me to call them a taxi from my phone, I don't respond, I can't call, I don't have signal. The furious man stands up and bellows to the rest of the carriage, they don't seem to answer him.

There is an announcement, the train is broken, all passengers must alight. The furious man huffs even more, then he puffs even more. Everyone files off the train. The furious man still trying to get people to call him a taxi. We wait for the next train, everybody late for work, 15 minutes added onto their morning commute.

They have run the length of the platform to get on at the driver end of the train, they could've got on at the end where the guard sits, they wouldn't have had to hurry so much. Maybe if they'd thought of that the train wouldn't have been cancelled.