Train Fever: Catch It!

Relying on public transportation as I do, I have had some opportunity to consider the experience of hustling to catch a train. Where I live, the subway station is some ten minutes' walk, although I would call walk a trifle leisurely of a term for what you must do to get there in that time. At the very least, it's a very determined walk. No stopping or loafing is permissible if one is to catch the train, even (as I perpetually fear) if you encounter a friend along the way.

Most unfortunate are unanticipated detours of the kind forced by the construction of that movie theater I was ooh-ing and ah-ing about. I must either cross the street there or walk in towards the offices on the same side of the street. I fear that either one could cost me precious time as I rush to reach the station in the morning. Of course you may say that I could remove any risk of missing the train by leaving five minutes early, but then you must know what little sense there is in counseling me that way. Would you really waste time assuring a raving madman on the street that the world won't end?

The fear of missing the train grows worst when I am just about there. I urgently scramble across the surface of the station, cursing anyone in my way as I clatter down the stairs. I can't take the escalator, because no one else using it is trying to go somewhere. They clog it up like hair in a drain. I can move faster on the stairs. In a fit of terror, I pass through the turnstile (impatiently swiping my card) and sprint towards the stairs going all the way down to the platform as I try to guess how long it has been the exact minute or minute before the time the train is scheduled to leave.

Soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, I try to recover my dignity as I stride into the train car and seek out a seat. Find one or not, I either congratulate myself on making the train or scold myself for needlessly hurrying. I am somewhat self-conscious, knowing what I think about people I see hurry for the train when I have had the rare experience of being there in plenty of time. It's of little consequence though, for I have made the train, and I am the better of all people in that moment.