Gus stepped onto the train.

“Train doors are now closing, please remain seated or grasp a handrail while the train is in motion.”

Motion sickness was almost a guarantee for Gus whenever he rode trains.

Trains bump along the tracks, take hard turns, accelerate and stop quickly.

Quickly these motions have Gus’ stomach ready to empty.

Empty seats were hard to come by at this time of day, so Gus had to stand which only made matters worse.

Worse even than the motion sickness, was the fact that he was crammed in this confined space with so many people.

People are inconsiderate, especially in such large groups.

Groups of people pushed their way on and off, with zero concern for others who are there.

There are people who sneeze without covering their mouths.

Mouths that talk to loud on the phone to people who are lucky enough to not be stuck on the train at that time.

Time seemed to crawl by whenever he stepped foot on this God forsaken thing.

Thing is, Gus always hated people.

People always seemed to like him fine, but that was not a favor he frequently paid back.

Back when he was a kid, he always dreamed of moving to a big city and riding the train like this.

This is not how he envisioned it.

It always seemed like such a wonderful experience in the movies.

Movies never showed it packed to the gills, dudes having to ride nuts to butt with other guys.

Guys using this as an excuse to fondle girls.

Girls pretending like it never happened, like a hand rubbing against her ass for 20 minutes is normal.

Normal people don’t do these things, but something about the train makes people act like this.

“This is my stop, excuse me, I’m just gonna squeeze past you.”

You can’t move off the train to let people out, that would be easier, but you’d never make it back on.

On the way home, due to all the people rubbing against him he always felt dirtier than he had through the entire day.

Day after day, it was the same thing for Gus, train work, train, home, sleep; a man of consistency.

Consistency was key, something his father kept us his cliche motivational repertoire of his.

His stop was coming up, he could help but this “thank god, at last.”

“Last stop on the line, please disembark carefully.”

Carefully Gus stepped off the train, the phantom rumbling continued under his feet but slowly faded with each step.

Step by step, he made his way home, ready for this day to be over, just to go it again tomorrow.