Author’s note: For 10 months I traveled to work in New York City from my home in southeastern Connecticut. Notice I used the word “traveled” and not “commuted.” The difference, to me, is mileage and duration. My daily “commute” was three hours each way, including a 45-minute drive, an hour-and-40-minute train ride, and subway rides across and uptown. Occasionally, I took notes on the people sitting around me on the train. What follows is the sixth of several stream-of-consciousness entries I made in an untitled journal.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The gentleman sitting across the aisle from me represents what I am loathe to become. The cell phone in the holster on his belt, Bluetooth earpiece attached to his head leaving him free to fill out some sort of official-looking pink piece of administrative paperwork, his laptop a convenient table to be deployed for use during his commute. He is plugged in, always connected.

And now, a drink of bottled water, his laptop opened and turned on. He is connected, in touch, communicating with other humans sitting in front of other computer screens, desktops, laptops, BlackBerrys. They are a community. The American workforce. Wired. Here, on a moving train, yet still in their offices, their cubicles. This train is their office. Until they reach home. Then they’ll use their home offices until morning when they get on the train again and their office carries them to work, where they have offices.

The gentleman sitting across from me is reading Moby-Dick. He has almost finished reading the book. He is plugged in to Melville’s story, into metaphor, into symbolism. His BlackBerry must have vibrated because he took it out of his shirt pocket to look at it for a few seconds. Then he put it away. Whatever message came through was not as important as Melville’s story.

Other people are plugged in. A woman on her cell phone. The conversation can’t wait. It is very important. The woman next to her listening to whatever sound is coming through the speakers stuck in her ears, just like the man one row away. They are part of the community. Other people are reading magazines. Women’s Health. People. Periodicals full of very important information about other people, about how to be more like them. How to be part of the community. Businessmen, I assume, because they are wearing what are referred to as business suits, are reading newspapers. No one is talking. The community doesn’t interact. All plugged in to a routine, a cycle, nine to five, Monday through Friday, but connected, connected always.

The train crawls along the same tracks every day, stopping at the same stations at the same times to pick up and drop off the same people. No one looks out the windows.

I work eight hours each day. I commute six. There is no view at the top of the ladder that can’t be seen from another point. The ladder is circular and has no ends. It goes around and around and around. Even gerbils know they’re not getting anywhere. That’s because they look out the window.

There are flies on this train.

I think we are all rotting.

Fourteen hours each day. Seventy hours each week.

The man across from me has put down Moby-Dick. He has turned on his laptop and plugged in.

If I get off the train I can hunt and chase. If I stay on the train the whale will get away. It is up to me. There is no guarantee that I will find the whale. If I want a guarantee I should stay on the train with the community. They will be on the train tomorrow. That is a guarantee.

Even the girl with the dreadlocks, dreadlocks that reach her knees when she doesn’t tie them above her head. Yes, even she, the girl with the metal spike through her nose, the individual, different from the rest, will be on the train tomorrow, speakers plugged into her ears, reading Women’s Health.

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