I’m on day one of being a commuter. Five days a week I’ll be packed into a tube with thousands of other worker bees transiting to and from Hell. From the looks on their faces I begin to realize that Hell is at both ends, the skytrain is a like a purgatory or limbo of sorts. It isn’t until later I find the true horror of my situation. Maybe each person is their own Hell, maybe not, but I’m certain now that Hell has something to do with public transit.

On the way home everyone packs back into the tube, we’re closer now. Like we’re best friends. Or like we’ve just met and we’re and drunk and lookin for fun but instead of grinding on each other we smash each other into walls and windows and doors and god damned hand rails that are way too sticky for me to wonder what happened. All those grubby hands all day long, everyone leaving their own residue, this is how the world ends, with a transit related outbreak. We don’t need terrorists and we don’t need global warming, we just need to ride the skytrain.

The added bonus for the return trip? We’ve all been sweating and working and doing our things. So now we’re salted. Now it truly is a sardine can. Salted beings packed in air so heavy and humid it might as well be liquid. However bad you think it is, it’s worse.

A handful of people squish in to the packed tin can and I’m impressed. If you had asked me ten seconds ago if this could hold five more people the answer is a definite no. But four men and one girl pile in. She doesn’t look comfortable. I don’t blame her. They’re standing just close enough to her for it to not have anything to do with being crowded. And they’re looking her over like she’s some kind of buffet and it’s feeding time. It makes the ride that much worse and it isn’t even happening to me.

I remove an ear phone as she makes eye contact with me. She looks disgusted. I say loudly: “You look so comfortable right now!”

The men back off a little. I smile. She smiles. She says just as loudly: “So do you!”

And she’s right. I’ve been squished against the clear partition by the exit door for the last ten or so stops. I’m not excited about it but I was used to it enough I didn’t realize my current lot in life.

I think of how funny this must look, my broad shoulders, big belly, chubby smiling face pressed against this grimy glass that should be clear but isn’t. I laugh some more.

The guys who were crowding me and crushing me get concerned and back up a little. The girl and I share our misery. Maybe this is all you can do in the world. It seems, at least, it’s all you can do on public transit.