Winter

I've had to start taking the train to work because it's too cold and dangerous to be riding my bike anymore. I'm vaguely pissed about it, since there are only downsides to the experience. It's also this time of year that the trains start breaking down, often leaving me stuck for twenty minutes at a time in a car packed full of similarly depressed travelers, each of us quietly eyeing each other either out of boredom, or a desire to find the most hideous person on the train and enjoy the brief feeling of regular everyday superiority.

Growing up is a pain not so much for the responsibility, but for the fact that for the first time in your life you have to acknowledge that you aren't as unique as you had imagined. I grew up expecting fame and fortune to be waiting for me once I struck out on my own, only to come to terms much too quickly with my lack of motivation or talent. I grew up honestly believing I was the only living breathing human being, the only person who understood truly the tragedy of our brief short lives and the only person to ever be tormented by the false faces we're forced to wear each day to remain sane. Thankfully this middle-school level of philosophy fades from most of us (the unfortunate self-proclaimed poetic suicidals too busy cutting themselves to realize just how pathetic they truly are). It's an odd mix of thankfulness/disapointment to seee your own illusions about your self-important grandeur be shattered in an instant when you realize everyone is terrified of death - it's just that nobody talks about it. The faceless silent people you see on the train aren't blank slates, rather brains are rapt at attention behind those blank eyes, the whole lot of us waging a silent war within ourselves to not scream misfortune as we wait twenty or so minutes for the trains to start up again.

It's in these odd moments of clarity that I sometimes discover the odd inconsequential nature of my existance, realizing that my perception of time is an awful illusion, and that the whole lot of us will live forever despite already being dead. This is why, staring at my fellow disgruntled train passagers sighing relief as the train doors close finally, I consider holding my cell phone aloft and announcing "Attention ladies and gentlemen. The cell phone in my hand is actually a detonator linked to the highly-sophisticated bomb strapped to my chest, set to explode in ten seconds time. Find peace with your god while you can!"

In my mind the few men closest to me have tackled me to the ground long before I finish my rant, while everyone else is screaming, trampling each other as they try in vain to run to the other end of the crammed train.

Back in the real world I chuckle like a madman, while all the hidden people wonder what's wrong with me.