Standing By

I was supposed to take the train home.

I looked at the lite bright timetable.

It said ON TIME, but it was already 2 minutes late.

I needed to get out of the city.

I needed to escape myself home. It’d been a long day at school feeling like the stupidest adult in a sea of brilliant children. They all huddled together and studied. It felt meaningless. If I didn’t know it by now, I never would. I envied their ability to sit and focus. My mind was cluttered with things like rent, eating my next meal, debt, disappointing my mom, recovering from love…

If I didn't get out of here soon, I'd be late. If I was late, I'd be late to work. If I was late again, I could lose my job. They'd said it plainly this time—no smile, no wiggle room. Show up late again, we’ll have to find someone else. We need people we can rely on.

More than anything, I wanted me time.

I wanted time to sit with me. Fix me. Talk to me. Free me from the grind of doing things other people want me to do. Get that degree, get that job, get in shape. Can’t I just sit here and be? I look up.

The platform under the grandiose cathedral was a hell of sorts. Hell isn’t other people. Hell is living with me and my thoughts…and this damned platform.

Today was my final exam of the semester. That dead time is upon us. Time is meaningless and all is well with the world. Somehow after this dead time we all get back to work. And we lament all the peace and quiet.

It was about fifty-fifty I passed that last one. I could've studied harder. I always could've studied harder. If I didn’t pass, I’d lose my scholarship. Or go on academic probation. Or lose tuition reimbursement and have to explain to HR why I’m applying for reimbursement if I’m failing. If that happened, I’d have to decide—look for a full-time job I didn’t want, or prepare for a semester I couldn’t afford. Either way, I’d be stuck. Just in a different terminal.

I stood under the station's vaulted ceiling and told myself—quickly, before panic could interrupt—that my life was actually pretty good.

Objectively, my life was good.

Heat was included in my rent. Food lived in my fridge. I had a couch waiting for me and a friend getting married who loved me enough—or remembered me fondly enough—to ask me to stand beside him. I had a job that wasn't killing me, classes I was finishing—maybe finishing. I had a family waiting to celebrate Christmas with me later, once schedules aligned, once I got home, once everything stopped being delayed.

I was healthy. I was safe. I was, by most metrics, winning quietly.

So why did it feel like the train was never coming?

I look down the tunnel’s void.

The tunnel breathed on me in waves—cool air, then warm, then cool again—like the station couldn't decide whether to comfort me or finish the job. It turned my stomach just enough to keep me alert. If I thought of food, I’d start feeling sick.

Above us, the food vendors released the farts of their labor: burnt coffee, sugar-glazed pastries, old fryer oil, and something sour leaking down from the under-maintained bathroom stalls. The smells slid down the stairs and pooled on the platform. I tasted them whether I wanted to or not. This isn’t food, I tell myself. This will pass.

Tonight, all I wanted was my couch and the soft authority of television telling me what to pay attention to. This semester had sandblasted me.

I missed her.

“Please Stand By for an important announcement regarding Train 895. Local to Lansdale.”

I waited.

The platform sat beneath the bustle of the city. The suburban station sat below the world, buried just deep enough to feel forgotten. Not underground exactly—more like the earth had shrugged and left it there. A place where light arrived secondhand. Hell without the fire. Just waiting.

Around me, the same people hovered. Or maybe they'd always been here.

A man paced the length of the concrete with a rolling suitcase, its wheels clicking unevenly like an injured animal. He checked the board, sighed, turned, repeated. A loop with purpose but no exit.

Near the stairs, a woman guarded the only reliable outlet. Her charger was coiled neatly, reverently. People approached her quietly. She was there first, she controlled the outlet. She’d trade ten minutes of power for a coffee. A muffin. Cash.

A man slept upright, backpack hugged to his chest like a memory he couldn't afford to lose.

They weren't waiting the way I was waiting.

They were here.

I leaned against a column. My legs jittered. I needed to move just to reassure myself I still could.

I checked my phone. No messages. No calls. Just the note I'd opened and closed all afternoon.

The subject: Best Man Speech – Draft 0

Zero was true. Zero felt honest.

Zero words, zero thoughts. A big fat zero of a person writing absolutely nothing. Zero zilch nada.

George had asked me to speak because we'd survived the craziest versions of ourselves. Late nights over cheap beer philosophizing how the world should be. Talking big and doing little. Sometimes I’d let him win a game or two to spike his confidence. Then he moved on. Not dramatically. Just steadily. A new job. A new girl. An engagement. The engagement to end all engagements. A woman who looked at him like he'd arrived somewhere. And all I did was drop out for a decade just to return back - non the better, non the wiser.

He didn't leave me per se. He just kept walking while I paused to reset the game and stumbled getting back up.

I was supposed to stand next to him and say something meaningful about time and friendship and love.

But how?

I missed her. Which felt cruel, given all this nonsense.

Instead of standing tall and proud, I was standing next to a column calculating how many minutes I could afford to lose before everything else tipped.

If I went up the platform to find out what the heck was going on, I might miss the train.

I wasn't procrastinating. I was waiting. Waiting for the train. Waiting for exam results. Waiting for the right tone. Waiting for whatever would move this train along.

“I want a great life” - something I tell myself year after year. But first I needed a good job, but first I needed a good education, but finally I realized, that’s all crap. I could’ve just done the job from the get-go without asking for permission first.

I opened the speech again.

I was supposed to be funny. Warm. Sentimental without being embarrassing. The kind of best man who made people think, Of course he’s standing there.

How can I write this when I have no love in my life anymore?

The announcement crackled overhead.

"Attention passengers: Train 895 is experiencing additional delays."

No way, I roll my eyes for the audience of no one.

Additional implied I'd already contributed enough patience to earn credit.

I checked the board again.

DELAYED.

The word had stopped being information. It was a condition. Delayed was the baseline. Everything else—arrival, resolution—felt aspirational, like happiness or visible abs.

How delayed?

What if I’m stuck here longer? What if the rails are busted upstream? Did someone jump on the tracks again?

I hated how quickly my brain shifted. How easily I’d started planning. Adapting.

What if I’m stuck here forever?

I sat and did math I didn't want to be good at.

If I slept upright and just the right angle, the column would block the draft just right not to irritate my face. I counted my cash. Enough for a few meals. My charger had value. I’d have to find my own outlet. My jacket could work like a sleeping bag or pillow.

The calm that followed scared me.

Because it felt like relief.

Somewhere between delays, it occurred to me that maybe these people weren’t waiting for trains at all.

Maybe this was it.

The thought didn’t scare me at first. It explained too much.

I imagined a society operating beneath the official one. A barter economy. Status determined by outlets and information. Seniority measured in missed connections. The suitcase man was a courier. The charger woman controlled the flow of information in the cell. There were rules I didn't know yet. You cross someone here, you’ll have to sleep with one eye open. Taxes and easements, probably. Territories. Unspoken laws enforced by a silent tribe.

Behind me, someone said, “Delayed again?”

I sighed and shrugged.

“Do you commute from here?” I asked.

He smiled. “Depends what you mean by commute. I go here and there, yes.”

Then the guilt arrived, sharp and corrective. Choosing this—romanticizing it—was obscene. These people didn't have options I was ignoring. They weren't one bad exam or one late shift away from a different life. They were here because choice had run out.

I was here because I kept waiting.

That's when something shifted.

The departure board flickered—the eyes of the basement look up together—but when it stabilized, every destination read the same thing.

STANDING BY.

No times. No tracks. Just waiting. Like we all have been doing this however odd minutes, or hours we’ve been here.

The longest two seconds passed.

My heart slammed. I looked around for reaction.

Nothing.

The suitcase wheels clicked. The charger woman counted change.

Then the board reset.

I waited for someone to laugh. To complain. To react.

This was not normal!

Nothing.

A colder wind tore through the tunnel, sharper than before, like something large had passed nearby and decided against stopping. It carried with it a scent of iron and rust. Somewhere, someone was crying. Not loudly. Casually. Like they'd done it before.

I sang to myself to the melody of Proud Mary.

Sisyphus keep on rollin’

Burnin’, burnin’, burnin’ everlastin’

The more better it got, the more you get a new baseline and discomfort becomes the constant. Rolling the ball up a hill and seeing the same view all the time. The cruelty of progress. Maybe misery was just my default setting. Maybe humans needed the low hum of survival to feel calibrated.

Maybe this—standing in a drafty tunnel between holidays—was heaven. It was quiet, no one was bothering me, no one needed anything. I didn’t want for anything. It’d be hell knowing this place, this moment right now was the pinnacle.

She’d know how to stop my spiral. But she wasn’t here. She never would be here with me ever again.

I looked at the timetable again.

DELAYED.

Again.

The word had stopped being information. It was a condition. Delayed was the baseline. Everything else—on time, arrival—felt aspirational, like happiness or abs.

Or maybe this was hell.

My stomach rolled.

I hated how quickly my brain had gone there. How easily I’d started assigning roles. Planning. Adapting.

I sat and did math I didn’t want to be good at.

If I slept upright, the bench by the column would block the draft. I counted my cash. Enough for a few meals. My charger had value. My jacket would, later.

I hated how calm this felt.

Then the guilt hit.

Choosing this—romanticizing it—was obscene. Most people here didn’t choose it. They weren’t indulging a philosophical spiral between semesters. They were stuck because there was nowhere else to go. The idea that I could decide to stay, could cosplay permanence, made my throat tighten.

A stronger gust tore through the tunnel, colder than before, like something large had passed nearby and decided against stopping. Somewhere, someone was crying. Not loudly. Casually. Like they’d done it before.

I opened my note and typed one line.

I didn’t know if I should be standing next to George today.

Doesn’t he deserve love and happiness? Don’t I?

I pause.

I type: George deserves love. I desever love.

Delete delete delete.

I type: George deserves love.

Laurie deserves love.

Them together is better than them alone.

These are the reasons she is perfect for him—XYZ

I looked at the board.

895 was there. No Status – Not “On Track”, Not “Pending”, there was no arrival time. just the numbers 8,9, and 5.