I go until the train runs out of track. It\u2019s comforting. I know the route well enough to find it so. You have all the exhilaration of escape alongside the knowledge that the train turns around again, looping back home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I do this when I\u2019m anxious\u2014it\u2019s like cross-hatching on a page over and over, whittling wood, scratching your arms raw.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tonight, I need to be out of a house where when the shouting starts I\u2019m no longer too young to be stepped around nor too old to take my own car and drive into the nearest state. Mom and her latest are playing polecats with the furniture\u2014their warm-up to liquor-soaked make-up sex.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I go circling when I can\u2019t face home. Circling is what I like to call it. It seems like an authentic pursuit and not just the placeholder for a better sort of life. I like to stay stuck for a while in a way I\u2019ve fashioned for myself. I know the schedule\u2014I know the length of time between stations. The cityscape is still alien, slum-hostile, but it\u2019s at a safe distance, locked behind glass. Some might call the whole escapade moon-eyed\u2014night-dreaming over black fields you can hardly see, suburb lights as loose markers between distances. Suburban lights flower and flower, breaking the dark over and over, with infinite variations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You can really lose yourself looking out into that black, despite the fact your reflection stares right back at you, accusing your absorption. For as long as I can make it last I like to float for a while. I sup out of a furtive bottle of Jack I keep down low so nobody can see.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Though there\u2019s hardly anyone to see. From time to time party-bound revellers burst in alongside humdrum office workers, each group the flipside of the others\u2019 lives. I count them in and out as a game\u2014my mind switching on and off in time with the doors\u2019 slide and huff. The real late night time passengers are slower customers and less likely to notice a kid skulking near the back. They arrive all glamorous, haloed by alcohol and speed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When they go they leave a scent of mindlessness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cameras stare our night shift ride. \u00a0I pretend not to notice them. They\u2019re not worth the anxiety. I reckon any driver working this job has gone cross-eyed from staring at the tracks a long time ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sometimes, I rein myself in from suburb-gazing. You can almost grow sober on fluorescence if you allow yourself to look into it for long enough. Those sorts of places are designed to promote wakefulness, I reckon. They prevent people from floating out their windows into the dark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I swerve away from the view outside when I can manage it, letting the black marker graffiti on the backs of seats distract me. You\u2019ve got to sober up for the big curve. It\u2019s the best part\u2014the one transition that means something. The one thing that turns this straight line into a circle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I feel the pressure of it as we heave towards where the tracks switch position. It\u2019s like that pressure you feel on the platform when you know a train is coming\u2014you get an electric presentiment of its coming all up the line.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now, as it turns I brace myself against the teeth-numbing shiver of static by squeezing my legs against the seats in front, inventing pressure as mechanics jolt, resetting the opposite path.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Righted on its new course, the train settles back into airlessness, even and straight for the duration, as long as that lasts. But this part\u2014the start of a new circuit\u2014always deservers a toast.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So, I flick open my knife to carve my name on the back of the seat in front. There\u2019s a whole record of my life etched here dating from years back. Like a long-time felon marking time in jail I\u2019ve notched down a fair few night time circuits.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I gouge down the latest, scoring the plastic hard so it keeps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I go until the train runs out of track. It\u2019s comforting. I know the route well enough to find it so. You have all the exhilaration of escape alongside the knowledge that the train turns around again, looping back home. I do this when I\u2019m anxious\u2014it\u2019s like cross-hatching on a page over and over, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-david-mohan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13884,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions\/13884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}