I saw him arriving from a far distance.
I was already on the edge of the car, right in front of the automatic doors. I knew there were at least 15 good cm from my gaijin nose to the doors when they would close , I was safe. And I would give some more space to the stinky salaryman behind me by squeezing against the doors when they shut. All was perfectly planned. I know the Oedo line, I always take the 7:46 at my station. This is my safe spot. I know that at the next station they will all get off, and I can grab one of the “gatekeeper” spots, on the side of the doors, those little VIP pieces of heaven in a packed train.
But this morning was different. This guy would ruin everything. Wearing his backpack in front, like a WW2 paratrooper, he was looking for a tiny space to compress his body and everyone else’s, scanning all the cars like a meerkat.
“No… no… no, don’t come here,” I thought, while trying to make myself look bigger, like a blowfish, to signal: “Dude, can’t you see it’s full? It’s not getting fuller.”
He saw my car. Shit. He was getting closer, already estimating how he was going to squeeze in. His backpack was huge, Uber Eats huge. He looked like Norman Reedus in Death Stranding.
I wanted to ask him so many questions…
“Why didn’t you wake up earlier?”
“How important is your job that you NEED to get in?”
“Can’t you wait for the next one?”
“What’s in your fucking bag?”
And then he stopped right in front of me. I tried to avoid eye contact, maybe if I didn’t look at him, he would disappear.
He opened his mouth to say something. “Don’t you sumimasen me. Don’t you dare…”
“Su… sumimaseeeeeeen…” with the little head bow on top. It’s crazy how you can suddenly hate someone you don’t even know. I started cursing him and his whole family in my head, thinking terrible things that, even now, I’m still ashamed of.
Then he did the classic “salaryman gets inside” move: the fucker spins 180 degrees to turn his back on you, then proceeds to walk backwards, pushing all of us stupid monkeys with it. And once he feels he’s sufficiently inside, he grabs the upper frame of the door to give a last courtesy push,.. just in case we weren’t miserable enough already.
I was completely merged into the stinky obese guy behind me, we were ONE. I could feel all his organs pressing against me, two strangers spooning on the Oedo line like there’s no tomorrow. Disgusting.
And just when you think things are already bad enough, the idiot decided to look at his smartphone. He had to reach inside his bag to grab it (adding some more pressure) and then hold it right against his face, barely able to scroll with his thumb. You always want to get stuck behind a dude in his 40s: with presbyopia, he won’t even fucking try that stunt.
You know the rest: the never-ending stops where you switch from anger to resignation, then back to anger again, until you almost develop Stockholm syndrome, convincing yourself he’s not that bad, that it’s not his fault, he’s just another victim of the system.
The doors finally opened at Daimon, where the train vomited all of us corporate idiots, ready to sacrifice one more laborious day to the gods of capitalism, just so we can afford more shit to wear in those same packed trains. Pathetic.
And I just learned that Ed Sheeran is teaming up with the Oedo line, fml.
No comments:
Post a Comment