Morning Musings

The morning air feels stale as I walk through the rushing crowd on the way to school. Not only is it the air, but there are also less people in this crowd. The streets usually bustling with cars are more vacant than usual.

‘I wonder what happened.’ I think as I look towards wherever.

The pavement is wet from the recent rain and the sky looks kind of gloomy with colors darker than usual, making me believe that the rain just gave us a time to prepare for another.

It’s kind of depressing to go to school in this weather but such is the life of a student.

With earphones on, I walk steady and focused on the travel ahead of mine. As usual, I do my best not to make eye contact with anybody in the crowd as I find it impolite and rude. My reasoning on this one, my self-consciousness. My explanation, it doesn’t matter. That said, I stealthily take glances of certain people in the crowd as I get on the train.

A student like myself, only he is in uniform, looking bored and uninterested as he skims through his notes of whatever subject that is. With the way he is intently skimming through his notes, He probably has exams for first period today and just made the notes last night as it looks pretty neat and clean, hoping to be able to study on the way to school. I always wondered if this even works, studying last minute, but who am I to judge? I never try too hard to get a good grade at school, just barely enough to pass.

My gaze suddenly shifts to a corporate slave in his late 30s wearing the usual business attire of tie, white long sleeved shirt and black pants. His face is the epitome of exhaustion with how tired and worn-out it looks; weary eyes with bags under, flat cheeks and a frown to complement it all. He’s probably beat from working everyday just to make ends meet. I wonder how they do it. Even when tired and all from the previous day, they are still able to wake up for the same work every day. From past reflections, I’ve always thought that their reason for doing so is to put food on the family table. I want to believe that that’s the reason and I find that respectable. With that said, I salute you corporate slave.

I suddenly was drawn by laughter coming slightly away from the corporate slave. A group of people, students perhaps, huddling together and blocking an entrance/exit to the train. Ignorant of their volume, they continue on talking about the usual crap one would hear just about anywhere and anytime, gossip. As I hate these kinds of people, I tried my best to block their incessant chatter by maxing the volume of my device.

It works and a smile creeps up to my face as I realize what song is playing.

A song about a teenage girl who committed suicide for the sake of her family’s happiness.

Pitiful and pathetic I believe this girl is but I can’t help but think that, for some unknown reason, sacrificing yourself for the happiness of other people is brave albeit a little stupid. You won’t get to see their smiling faces yourself, why do this? How sure was she that they’d be happy once she has done this? Stupid. Idiotic. Pathetic. Presumptuous.

My station is then up and I exit the train, leaving me to just try and rationalize what I was doing.

Why do I do this?

I just feel like it. There’s nothing better to do but look here and there and hope they don’t notice you looking. It gets rid of the boredom.

What merit do I get from this?

Nothing. Just insights. Hypothesis to some stranger’s life. I don’t really care what they are doing, laughing about. What kind of life they have or have had. It all doesn’t matter to me. I’m merely just observing them, thinking I’d get something from them.

It all feels like mere excuses to me whenever I try and explain it to myself.

As I justify my reasons for doing this, I’m surprised, not really, to be in front of our school. I don’t question how I got here as this have happened a lot of times already. I probably just let auto-pilot mode on and it walked me here. What matters is that my boredom have been minimized, I obtained some unnecessary insights, I saved my self-consciousness from whatever it is that’s out to get it and that I avoided my depressive tendencies.

With that, I enter the campus and proceed to continue on with my insignificant life, hoping after all this, I’d land somewhere I hope is filled with happiness or, at least, some peace.

Author's Note

Any comments would be appreciated!

if you're interested in the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcGD1-OvVHs
It's Japanese though...(I didn't make the video)

Reviews

[Gerald Cox]

I do enjoy a bit of character introspection. There are clear signs of identification beginning, and I can't help but wonder if the student does realise the similarities there are between him/herself and the people on the train on whom s/he seems to look down, ie the 'Corporate Slave' and the gossips.