Platform

FF #2

The same platform, the tracks, the local train, the accident. Were the protruding handlebars of the train the culprit this time round as well? It might even be the same day today, just a year later. Everything feels so surreal. Is the guy different this time, or is that actually me too, and is that actually my body, or would we say, ex-body? I can see the body being pulled up onto the platform. The curious crowd; everyone on the platform talking about it. Someone near me says that the person is dead.

“He jumped in front of the train,” says someone else.

“No, no, he hadn’t jumped, he was trying to cross the tracks,” counters another.

“Arre na baba, that wasn’t an accident”.

My exams had been in my mind a year ago; did the ex-owner of that body also have to do something with his exams? Or some other problem? Was he new to the city like I had been, unaware of the local trains, the life here, and most importantly unaware of its pressures? The failed expectations? Was mine an accident? I do tell people about the handlebars that I hadn’t seen coming. I do tell people how the shortcut route involving crossing the tracks had been suggested to me. But I’m also aware that I should watch out for trains properly when I cross, if I cross tracks—I am aware that crossing tracks is a stupid thing to do, even for a shortcut. I am aware that I shouldn’t be on the tracks when a train is approaching, no matter how far it is. I am aware that I shouldn’t be standing close to a speeding train—yes, yes, I do know the laws of physics and the implications on pressure and all that. So what was I doing there, what was on my mind—ok, I know that my exams were… I know how disappointed I was with them. I hadn’t known then that I’d do well, so was I trying to take a shortcut to the café, or from the disappointments? There had been a blackout and when I’d woken up in the hospital room, I think someone suggested the handlebars to me—may be it had been the handlebars—what else could it have been. So now, have I been trying to take a shortcut again, or is that actually someone else? And if that is indeed someone else, what kind of shortcut was he trying to take?

15 Jun 2013