I Am The Commuter

I am The Commuter. I'm a member of The Big Smoke. You probably are too. I have spent five years here. Once, in a bold move contrary to the rules and regulations of this non-stop madness, I lived for six months on the outside. It was a great time for me, but I had to return. Necessity: chocolate money, chilled wine. My present confinement has lasted well over four thousand, four hundred and sixty four hours.

To get to The Big Smoke you must take The Rush. The Rush is a ceiling-less, echoing, tunnel with scratched perspex windows. Identical advert boardings line identical head high dado-rails, overviewed by identical doorways where identical humans defecate identically. A vast sea of silence, synthetically fertilized and produced so methodically that it never changes volume or pace, surrounds The Rush like an inhibited desert. A commuter recently received electric shock therapy for speaking out of turn. He had failed to heed The Rush’s memo: “Conversation should be non existant. The stimulation of non-linear thought patterns through chaotic, autonomous conversation undermines the goals of boredom and monotony which we try so hard to achieve here in The Rush.”

Inmates enter and exit The Rush through many sets of immense double-perspex doors with stainless steel handles. The exits are unmarked. Travel between the thousands and thousands of levels is accomplished on a myriad of elevators or on stairs, if one has the time, but few commuters do. Some levels, it is rumoured, have special machines that require chocolate and child sized mice who do too.

The laughter in The Big Smoke is deep, long and loud, but it always contains some irony, some bite, some absurdity. We laugh at The Officials when they give their speeches or when we have our four year psychological evaluations, but we are insulted too. They treat us like children. They think we’re stupid.

Most of us came to The Big Smoke for necessities: a roof over our heads, a chance to contribute, a desire to be needed . Mostly we came seeking The Grind. Our yearnings are simple: we want to choose where to put our shoes, when to comb our hair, what to eat for lunch. In one Grind, a desk was once unbolted from the floor and moved by a commuter to face a window. No forms. No protocol. No permission. It saved money and time. How innovative! How darink! My Grind would have scheduled that commuter for weekly psychiatric evaluations for doing such a thing.

When the commuters criticise The Grind, and they often do, The Organ Monkeys defer to Mission Statements and Grind Policy: “Commuter suggestions will be accepted on feedback form 12A and must be filled out legibly and given to your immediate Organ Monkey. Failure to use form 12A must be reported by the immediate Organ Monkey on form 42C .” By deferring to manuals, rules and regulations the Organ Monkeys talk the same, look the same, act the same. “That is a great suggestion,” an Organ Monkey will say, “and something we definitely need to look into.” We are treated like chess pieces: attacked or defended; traded or sacrificed for the sake of The Organ Grinder. This is no chess game.

When we’re ready, we’ll leave The Big Smoke for good. For now, we just want to go home for the weekend.

I boarded The Rush hopeful, but I have become a cynic. In the beginning The Grind seemed like a quaint place. It’s not. The plants are plastic, the flowers are fake and the furniture is cheap, strictly utilitarian. Many Organ Monkeys, who appear cordial and concerned, are, behind that facade, otherwise occupied, with promotions, Grind politics, financial gain. It is mostly an illusion here, an invented, purchased image.

New Commuters are told that the atmosphere in The Big Smoke is great and forced to breathe it in so quickly they have no time to evaluate its health benefits. Initially, I admit, it felt decent, it looked good, presentation is extremely important here, but its gritty texture made it irksome to swallow and the large quantities I ingested never fully satisfied me even after a second or third helping. I was constantly sick. It became obvious the atmosphere contained downers. Later I learned the atmosphere was not atmosphere at all, but valium and sleeping pills. I stopped prescribing. I threw the pills away.

Out of necessity I mixed my own atmosphere using recipes left behind by dead commuters. I smuggled in these illegal ingrediants with the help of former commuters who, like me, are also troubled about the state of The Big Smoke.

So now I have a dream: I want to begin distribution to all commuters in The Big Smoke. Some say it is a ridiculous dream, but then, I am a ridiculous person. I am The Commuter.