I am waiting, for the umpteenth time, at the break line of a P-turn. Waiting for the red P to turn into a green P, thinking about the timing of all this; all the red, white and blue cars heading in all the directions to all the destinations. How is this is even decided? At the peak of juvenile imagination, I’d wait at intersections like this one and envision a single person behind a door that spelled out an allocated suburb. This person sat at a desk in front of screens, too many screens for two eyes to comprehend. This person was a superhuman, in charge of all the buttons of all the traffic lights in their postcode, manned with the very important solitary job of making sure we don’t collide.
In my rear-view mirror is a blue Hyundai, relatively new, in the control of a composed woman who is seemingly unphased by the intersection and the trajectory of her day. I wonder where she began her drive this morning, where she is headed right now and where she stopped for the steaming take away cup in which she drinks from. I wonder further about what is in it. Something with whole milk, I like to think, because she seems like the kind of person who enjoys the creamy richness of her morning coffee. I wonder what song or radio presenter is sounding throughout the interior of her relatively new blue Hyundai to make the corners of her mouth turn up the way they are. I’d like to listen to it too or go where she is going -somewhere that warrants smiling on the way apparently.
When she looks up I very nearly rear-end the car in front of me.
The car in front of me is a matt-black BMW with tinted windows which stands on the road like a thick dark bulldog. The bulldog casts my hammy down Peugeot in shadow. We make eye contact in their rearview mirror and I become acutely aware that I am not invisible. Rachel Cusk thinks of driving as a metaphor and I am stunned by the accuracy of her observations as I look into a set of human eyes through the BMW’s mirror. Cusk says ‘the spectacle of mass movement can look like something unstoppable’. As I move down the highway every day I can’t help but notice all the people on the way to all their things; all pursuing private aims in public ways. Mechanically aware but emotionally indifferent to one another. Cusk is correct in saying the motor vehicle in which I drive today lends me an increased sense of false privacy. It is traffic lights like these that annihilate the anonymity and distance that a trafficless road encourages.
I wonder what the BMW can ascertain about the contents of their rearview mirror; if they can tell I am upset for being called in on my day off or if they can tell my car wreaks of South Melbourne Market dim sims from earlier this morning when I still thought I was on my day off. I wonder if they know my car is -well- overdue for a service or if they can spot the pimple about to erupt on my chin. I wonder if they can tell I’m so fucking over waiting in line to make this P turn every week.
Work is fine up until the 6.30 pm point. It is at the 6.30 pm point I start to feel thirsty and find that no matter how much I drink, water will not satisfy me. It is at this point that I begin to struggle to resist the temptation of an alcoholic beverage. The fact that I committed my body to sobriety by driving is a fact that makes each beer I pour or drink I mix all the more appealing. At 7.05 pm I have a thimble of cider, which turns into a pot of beer, which then turns into an americano which turns into a glass of wine. It is also at the point of sitting down with my glass of wine having successfully come out the other side of this ‘rockstar’ shift that I remember I have axed my convenient -free- way of getting home. I feel far from rockstar. I think back to purchasing a whole snapper this morning at the market and how terribly I would like, right now, to be in the room of my kitchen with Tom preparing it.
It is at this time that I hate the train, I hate uber, I hate my job and I hate myself for not sticking to my very pragmatic plan. The walk to the station, though short, is grim. Packs of men bounce past me towards public houses that pour all the beers. They are planning to drink them all.
The elevated platform design of Richmond station puts me in the line of icy wind not customary to Novembers I have known in my time. I’ve had twenty-two of them -Novembers. The planet is changing; not the kind of unfathomable change like our earth rotating on its axis while I stand here at Richmond station perceiving stillness. But the kind of change one notices and feels hit their body, rewrites seasons, tolls death even. They say soon November will mark only the beginning of Spring.
I see a young guy reading the epilogue of a thick book, waiting for a Flinders street direct. Another one of a similar demographic, slightly ‘cooler’ perhaps, sits cradling a green mesh bag of olive oil, two eggplants, a block of firm pale cheese and deli butchers paper preserving some sort of charcuterie. My mouth fills saliva at the thought of the good kind of mortadella where the fat circles are full moons that dissolve on your tongue. The owner of the good bag of groceries writes in a thin brown notebook that doesn’t have any lines, just empty space -just like mine.
Cusk admits nearly everything she does has been simplified by the car. How complex this train journey already is in comparison to my journey into Richmond. Out of the car, on foot, taking this train, one is naked, exposed and free from responsibility to observe. Cusk aligns a sort of death with the motor vehicle as if the lazy convenience of it prohibits one from knowing the truth of their situation.
The two-minute warning bell sounds and I take my position behind the yellow line. As the train breaks, I try my best not to engage with its reflection. Instead, I engage with my black work Nikes which both have puncture holes in the area of mesh that covers my two big toes. I wonder if other people can tell I have let my big toenails grow long for too long. Probably. I curl them into my soles.
Inside the train is quiet and full of people, rendering the air stuffy. A lady, a real one, makes an announcement over the intercom apologizing for the delay. She alludes to an obstruction on the tracks. Her long pause between obstruction and signing off her announcement makes me think the incident is of the voluntary kind, makes my red wool knit feel prickly against my skin. A human life maybe. Someone who didn’t have the tolerance to wait behind the yellow line anymore.
I wedge myself between a man in a tight business suit and a woman with many belongings. He fumbles with turning his phone screen off as I take the seat next to him. A tanned half-naked woman fades so that all that remains is his reflection in his hand. He has large nostrils and straight away I am sure he trims the hairs inside them. He knows that I have passed judgment and so for the remainder of the journey he sits at sorts, fidgeting often, not knowing what to do in the world of this carriage without the escape of his smartphone.
On my right is a woman in a grey skirt suit on a call she should save for later. She has three bags at her feet, a large navy coat on her lap, on top of which rests an open laptop. The laptop keeps sliding on to my right leg while she speaks with as much vigor as if she were confined to her own company. I realise now why the seat in which I sit has not been snatched by all the tired suits leaning up against one another. The woman is trying to change her password with one hand; trying and admirably persisting to achieve capital letters with the shift button.
All I can gage is the first letter: capital B.
Yellow Days 