A Day Like Any Other by Danielle Rhodes

Today will be like any other day. You’ll softly snooze the alarm clock as it sounds, just over an hour before your train pulls into the station. You will feel the groggy effects of sleeping fitfully, as has become the norm. Pressing snooze, you tell yourself you’ll get up on the first alarm tomorrow, already knowing you won’t.

This morning routine has been built up over many years – perfectly planned to provide just enough time to shower, dress and eat, before your working day begins. As you switch off the second alarm and rise, a sensation of falling will appear and disappear within your body like smoke. You’ve come to accept this feeling as a part of your daily experience, as expected as your regular 3.30pm meetings in the 11^th floor’s ‘insight and collaboration space’. You know it will pass.

With one hour left exactly, your shower will be short, the steam not having enough time to cloud the bathroom mirror. After shaving with the latest Iridium razor, an expansive walk-in wardrobe filled with row upon row of identical clothes in different hues will greet you. You’ll cast your eye over the seasonal selection and sigh, gently. Once it gave you joy, the process of building up pieces that expressed who you were, and who you wanted to become. You’ve spent half a lifetime cultivating your style but, when it comes down to it, you understand innately that people will judge you whatever you wear. Today, as with every day before and every day after, it won’t matter which outfit you choose. 

For breakfast, you’ll treat yourself to the good peanut butter. Crumbs will fall to the marble work surface. As you leave the plate sticky with the remnants of a half-eaten wheat-free slice, you’ll remember the last time you had sourdough and almost smile. You’ll tell him or her you’ll clean up later.

Twenty-two minutes to go. Outside, the sun will not yet have risen, the chill of moonlight still hanging in the air. As you turn from your contoured driveway along the newly paved road, a steady thrum of people will sleepwalk past. They all have their heads cast down – awake but barely seeing. You’ll pity them, yet know they are your reflection. Ask yourself why you do it, the job you do – early mornings and late nights – wonder if the latest ultra-premium tv and Arlo home security system are worth it.

When you started out, you believed that, if not following a passion, you were on a pleasing path. ‘Money maketh the man’, your father always used to say. As his face appears in your mind you feel a neglected echo of loss and realise how long it’s been since you last thought about him.

The walk to the station always feels quicker than it is, so engrained is it in your muscle memory. You arrive consistently early – twelve minutes – to allow enough time to edge your way to the front.

As you reach the platform you shift forward to find a space amongst the steady thrum of the crowd. Jostling is expected, but not welcomed, from you or from them. Once you’re in position you continue your carefully curated routine, take out your iPhone from your muted charcoal Ralph Lauren suit pocket and cast your eyes to their comfortable position of downwards. Scroll, like, share. Anything to pass the time and pretend you are not where you are.

With seven minutes to go, the sky will finish lifting into lightness, its rays warming the masses and lighting up the sides of blank faces. The familiar scent of tarmac will hit you and a general murmuring will usher forth in increments. The sound of waiting.

There are those who enjoy this time – a state between home and work, an ephemeral moment to think and feel, rather than do. But not you. The only thing of importance is what lies ahead. Always in a rush. Always wanting to get to the next place. Then the next. ‘Here’ is never enough.

It wasn’t always like this. You once extolled the virtue of mindfulness; understood how important moments of stillness were to maintain a sense of self in the velocity of the modern world. This ‘in between’ state was often the only time you truly felt free – no expectations, no disappointments. You’ve lost that as you’ve got older though, haven’t you? The ability to be in the moment. You used to dream of how big the world was. Limitless stretched out in front of you like a fairground of possibilities. But, one by one, the doors closed. There became only one way to go round the maze. 

Three minutes to go.

An intense stinging in your right big toe will catch you unaware, a reaction to a pointed heel as it crushes against your McQueen shoes. You look up briefly to see one of your doppelgangers barrelling past, eyes fixed elsewhere. You’ve come to despise them. Not any one individually, but then that’s not how you see them, is it? They are a ‘them’ – ‘the other.’ Their shapeless, faceless forms, to your mind, only exist to get in your way. You see them daily, yet they are unknown to you. Empty facades that represent the ebb and flow of daily life. Whereas your journey, your position in the scrum, is vital.

With two minutes to go, you’ll survey the crowd as you make your move. Straggling rows of grey, black and navy. You’ll spot this season’s Missoma suit and grow green inside, mentally noting to check the latest online reviews. With the sun’s warmth spreading through your body you’ll shake your own pressed jacket from gym-honed shoulders, the lengths of the sleeves draping over your forearm, soft cotton hanging from your form. Years of the same gym routine has given you bulk but you’ve lost the flexibility you once had. You’re no longer sure you remember what it was to live without pain.

As you make this manoeuvre you almost drop your Smythson leather case – but catch it between your tensed fingers just in time. No one will notice. You’ve discovered somewhere along the way that no one sees you at all. At least they don’t see past the clean lines of your pressed shirt, the Rolex, your Gucci cufflinks glinting in the morning sun. You’ve worked hard for all these things, but what do they really mean? What do you mean? You’ll try not to think about this, even though it’s possibly the only thing that matters.

With thirty seconds to go, there will still be several people in front of you. You’ll push, you’ll shove. You are following the laws of the platform; eyes low as the domino effect ripples from the movement you have created. One person will fall into the next, into the next. How could you know that the force of many would eventually lead to a single action? You won’t see the person standing closest to the platform edge forwards as they are shunted from behind, just an inch too far, an inch too much for them to withstand gravity. You’ll not consider how they were minding their own business, thinking not dissimilar thoughts to you were just a moment before they felt the wave of pressure beating into them.

It’s time.

As the train comes bellowing in, you’ll take your practised step backwards. And when the scream reaches your ears, all you’ll be capable of doing will be to cover them. You won’t ask what has happened, the thought won’t even cross your mind.

Just like I won’t get to see you.

I understand, I really do. On another day, you could have been me, I could have been you. When the crowd dissipates and murmurs of what has happened reaches you, you’ll shake your head. Another bloody hold up. And it will pass through your mind, that at least there will be one less now, one less to stand shoulder to shoulder with, waiting for this ordinary day to begin.

Danielle Rhodes

Image: Empty station platform with rail lines and fence. from pixabay.com