My Legs Carry Me Forward

“Like I told you last month, we’re not hiring!”. The door slams. *SMACK!* My eyes snap wide awake with the sound, unsure of whether I had heard it or only dreamt it.

I take a moment to gather my bearings, the rest of my senses slowly catching up to my now conscious state. Another sound begins to pierce my awareness as the reverie recedes. A dull beeping sound. It’s getting slower and quieter. What is that? My eyes now focusing, take in my surroundings and I immediately become aware I’ve been drooling. I feel the moisture at the corner of my mouth and spy the wet patch on my uniform. The saliva has bled across to its next victim, my name badge, the ‘r’ in ‘rail technician’ now melding into an ‘n’. Night shift – 1. Me – Zero. My eyes roll.

I shift my weight, sitting up. My neck feels stiff and I can feel a pinch between my shoulder blades. A cramp from sleeping wrong. My eyes are heavy with sleep, the lulling sound of the train’s engine inviting me to return to slumber, but the cramp in my shoulders insists I attend to it so I sit up straight, forcing my eyes to wake up. My surroundings come into focus, I make out an empty carriage, grateful there were no witnesses to my drooling situation. How long was I out? What time is it? Slowly turning my stiff neck to the left, careful to avoid allowing night shift to acquire another victim, I try to peer through the glass window into the darkness outside. Looking beyond the tired reflection staring back at me I can make out specs of brick, between blackness and the occasional tunnel light passing by, giving no indication of where the train is in its journey. Only that we are underground.

Another dull beep hovers into the air, my brain now registering the sound – my technicians’ tablet. A clunky awkward device that never seemed to have been designed in contemplation of that fact that its natural habitat most of the time would be a narrow pocket. I commence the ordeal of wrestling it free from the confines of my trousers, the corner of the device catching one of my buttons on its journey, sending the button shooting across the carriage floor. Another casualty. The token eye roll occurring at the most inopportune time, I don’t catch a glimpse of the time at the top right corner of the screen before it promptly turns black. A final long beep marks the death of the battery. Traitor. How many times had I told myself I need to charge the thing more regularly? I curse under my breath, annoyed at myself, knowing it was my own fault for not being more responsible.

Okay. It is… ‘it’s anyone’s guess’ o-clock, and I am… somewhere… in a tunnel that spans a couple of hundred kilometres. And the next job on my list was… I leer at the deceased device, not remembering a single task on the list. A new thought saunters into my brain, how much longer do I have left of this godforsaken graveyard shift?

I resolve to make my way to the driver’s compartment at the front of the train in search of power. I stand up, feeling my legs bend against the stretch, and embark on my mission, passing the lone crusader, my defeated button, as I move towards the dividing doors to the next carriage.

Yawning, my outstretched hand casually reaches for the handle.

*SMACK!*

My eyelids shoot open wide. That same noise. Had I just started to doze off back into my dream? I stop a second to get my bearings, blinking slowly and deliberately, forcing my eyes to wake up. I curl my fingers over the cold steel handle and open the carriage doo, stifling another yawn as I move forward.

Stepping into the next carriage and now slightly more alert, I see two people sitting in the seat towards the back. A young couple, looking very much in love. I can just make out the young woman’s lipstick, the crimson shade providing an enchanting contrast to her porcelain features and soft blonde hair. Her partner whispering sweet nothings into her ear as she covers her mouth appearing to be pretending not to giggle while he strokes her hair. In their own little world.

My legs carry me forward, muscle memory navigating me towards the next set of divider doors. As I approach the lovers, the courtesy smile dutifully migrates to my face, at first naturally but then without warning the corners of my mouth begin to grimace. My eyes catch the young woman’s as I stride past her. Black pools of terror stare back at me. I forget to breathe, my lungs suddenly gripped in a vice, the warmth I felt a moment ago gone, replaced with shock and a jarring sensation. Her lips are red. That’s not lipstick. My pupils capture every element of the scene within a split second. To the left of those horrified eyes, there’s lipstick on the glass window. Smack. Her hair, lovely and soft, elegantly entangled in the fist of her companion. Strands of the trapped golden locks also brushed with red.

My legs continue to carry me forward, past them, unconsciously driven by inertia. The smiling grimace still stapled to my face. I’m in the next carriage now, my brain still processing what I’ve just observed.

There’s a pounding sound, my heart inside my chest. That was not lipstick. A feeling descends upon me, but I can’t quite make it out at first. My body is electric. Charged with fear. Fear, that’s what it is. For her. No. For me. Another storm of emotions cascade over me, a twisted sensation leaving the faint taste of shame and despair. That was not lipstick. My next thought a resounding judgement. I did nothing.

My body is poised to attention, unsure how to proceed, cortisol drowning my veins like lightning in my bloodstream. Think. My eyes focus – the driver’s compartment door is a few strides ahead of me. There will be a radio. My legs carry me forward.

Reaching the door, my hands shaking with false confidence, I grip the handle, pulling down. Locked. My fist begins to knock, hard, the force and rhythm matching my racing heart, while I try to see inside. The control panel casts a dim glow around the cabin. My eyes search from side to side trying to make out the figure of the driver. Finding nothing, my gaze shifts downwards. There’s a stationary figure on the floor, a hand in the shape of a claw clutching at shirt buttons. Or clutching at the defective heart beneath. My nerve endings suddenly come back online. I feel a sharp sensation in my hand. There’s lipstick on my right knuckle. I stare at it, momentarily confused. It’s on the door too. That’s not lipstick. My knuckles are bleeding, my fist still knocking incessantly against the glass. My chest tightens and my knees buckle. My body descends to the floor, my mind spiraling with it.

Cold logic hits me. The door is locked. The train is in perpetual motion. I know the end destination on this route - when the tunnel ends, it’s the end of the line. Period.

I’m going to die.

I can’t distinguish my internal state from the external world. Moments pass. I don’t know how many and slowly become aware that I don’t know how many moments I have left.

A perplexing notion creeps into my periphery, slowly coming into focus. A kind of superposition, almost. I am about to lose my life, to lose everything. There is nothing I can do to change that. I am both alive and dead. My fate is sealed. Somehow, fear no longer seems important. It seems meaningless. I am going to die and there is nothing I can do. But is there a difference between there being nothing I can do and doing nothing?

Thoughts swirl around my skull. That’s not lipstick. Snippets. I did nothing.

*SMACK!*

The sickening sound permeates my senses, but something has changed inside of me. The feeling is just as visceral as before, but the fear is now gone. My bloodied hands move beneath me, propping my body into an upright position. There is nothing I can do to protect myself or save my life. A certainty. The soles of me feet find the surface of the carriage floor. But maybe I can save someone else. Her. In a way. Her fate is sealed, same as mine, same as his. But the final sentence in her story hasn’t been written yet. My arms begin to lever my body upwards, still leaning against the door for support. Maybe the final sentence in her story doesn’t need to be one of pain, of terror and torment. Maybe I can change that. I can do something. In her final moment she could know kindness. Safety. Maybe even hope. If only for a moment.

I take a deep breath and I make a decision. As bold as red lipstick. It will be my last one.

My legs carry me forward.

A challenge to the reader: Have you ever heard of the bystander effect? Something horrific is taking place in front of a crowd of people and yet no one intervenes. It could be an assault. Rape. Murder. Each individual observer doing nothing, expecting someone else to take responsibility and do something. Why is that? And what would you do? Honestly. The hypothetical response seems to lose its virility when faced with the practical reality.

This story is designed to be subjective. Reading it in first person, each individual experience will likely be different. Perhaps an existential fist fight between what’s the right thing to do, the innate human instinct for self-preservation and your perception of your own capabilities. Or shortcomings. The story is designed to challenge the reader, to put you in the narrator’s place and force you to engage with the situation, to contend with yourself. In that moment, would you actually intervene? Would your position be any different if that moment was your last? Why is that?