Train stations, airport terminals, subway stops: soulless spaces full of distracted, stressed zombies, or magical sets for fleeting, interlocking human stories?
Why can’t it be both? This is one of those ‘glass-half-full’ scenarios…
I see them all as places full of distracted, stressed zombies – it’s nothing like they make it out in the movies, where people are having their ‘chance encounters’ with a complete stranger in an airport terminal… instead, it’s full of dumbarses who are pissed off with delayed or cancelled flights; or the people who are running late for their flight, and then have to deal with the line at security, and then getting patted down for a drug test.
Train stations are just as bad, it’s people refusing to even acknowledge anybody around them, then if they’re not rolling their eyes and huffing and puffing over delayed or cancelled trains, they’re trying to force themselves onto already packed trains when there is clearly no room to move, and then when the train driver calls these people out they stand around wondering why the doors aren’t closing.
Every day on my commute to and from work, I travel in almost completely silent carriages – everybody is either sleeping or tapping away on their phones and / or have their earphones in listening to music. Nobody has a conversation any more, because nobody seems to have an interest in interacting with people in an environment like that – besides, it’s a bit uncomfortable trying to have a conversation with somebody when there are people completely surrounding you, and you don’t necessarily want everybody to listen to what you’re talking about.
Perhaps it’s a blessing that nobody talks. If everybody did, then people would end up just trying to talk over the top of each other, getting louder and louder until it’s unbearable.
…like when a group of private school kids get on the train… those are the times I sometimes wish that the train would derail and crash and burn in a fiery mess, because if there’s one thing I dislike more than kids, it’s loud-mouth over-privileged little shits who don’t know when to pipe the fuck down. It’s 7:30am you little shits, do us all a favour and go take a horse tranquilliser.
adorablyobnoxious 