I went to see Inception last night. Awesome.
Anyway not what I was writing about. I got on the last train to go home. I picked a seat and got out my book, as you do (it’s a 40min train ride to Pukerua Bay).
I was just settling into Dickens, when two people sat down in the seat directly in front of me. Before I so much as took in their appearance, I was aware of them for a completely different reason. The Smell. They smelt dreadful. Like something died. They were oldish, unkept, and nothing else about them was obvious from my vantage point except the smell, that absolutely invaded my comfortable little world.
Now I’m normally the kind to grin and bare that kind of thing. But I spent the next few minutes desperately wondering if there was polite way I could find a different seat without their discerning the cause for my action. Failing that I wondered if there was a natural looking way of reading my book that included breathing through the sleeve of my jacket, or perhaps if there was a way to accidentally get my train ticket stuck securely in both nostrils.
I was in this situation, feverishly reading the pages hoping that my nasal senses shutdown as soon as possible, when the train started to move. Having gotten himself and his wife comfortable and seeming about to fall asleep, the man turned around to talk to me. Oh God…
In this situation I realised that this conversation was going to be at least as difficult as ignoring the stench. He was missing at least four front teeth. He spoke with a ..lisp that made almost everything he said incomprehensible.
“Wher’ are ya go’n to?”
“Pukerua Bay, how about you?”
“Porirua” [oh thank God],
“Do ya think ya coud put a hand on m’ sholder here when we get to porirua, and wake me up, my wife and I are very tired..”
“Of course, I’ll wake you when we’re near Porirua”
“Do you have three dollars..?”
He then showed no particular interest in going to sleep. As we roared through the dark tunnels, he told me all about how little sleep he had the night before. Then he started to talk to me about music, I think. I did my best to follow along without asking him to repeat every word. I was getting over the initial shock that I might have to have a conversation, and managed to decipher from his story that he was at some kind of mental health institution in Porirua, but he wanted to buy a house and start a new life. And liked Led Zeppelin. I tried hard to keep up my end of a conversation where I wasn’t really understanding most of the words. But I could confirm that I had no girlfriend, had heard of Led Zeppelin, an probably hadn’t heard of any of the other bands he mentioned (or at least hadn’t caught what he had said). We talked about Peter Jacksons new 39 million dollar jet, an area where I felt I was on more solid decryptive ground. Then as we rolled gently out of Tawa we started talking about v8 racing, another area I know nothing about, but at least I could ask him what he liked about it.
They got off at Porirua. In the clearing air, I looked around the carriage. Every second seat was filled with clones of myself. Youngish, clean, people, making their way home late at night, alone. Each absorbed in her own world, gazing into the darkness, brooding in isolation on whatever lay deep in their souls. No one spoke, there was no eye contact.
I missed my new friends. It had taken me 20 minutes, from Wellington to Porirua to learn to begin to love someone that had taken me out of my comfortable isolation.
Why did it take someone, who’s social skills were not all there, to force me to open my heart to the person beside me on the train.
Why don’t we talk in the street, or on the train? Why do we not talk in the elevator? What is wrong with us. We’re so concerned with being safe and polite to our neighbor, that we dare not disturb them, most of us have nothing to say anyway.
If only I had to confidence to dare to be seen as something other then normal… to dare to start a conversation with someone I don’t know.
