Thursday, March 10, 2005

Tedium

Tedium is the daily commute to my place of employment. A train ride in to Melbourne from Berwick takes about 45 minutes. Those 45 minutes can feel like a lifetime.
Everything is grey inside a train carriage. It can be the sunniest day outside but if you look around all the colors seem muted. Everything takes on the monochrome tones of the morning newspaper that the ochre fat, coughing and spluttering, man with no name is reading in front of me.
The steady rattle and thump of train against track slowly hammers away at my consciousness until I feel as if I can take it no more. At times like this I wonder to myself - why did I move back home? Why didn't I stay in the city, with work a friendly neighbor nearby? I miss the back streets of Melbourne with its surplus of hidden bars and unexpected happenings around every turn.
Berwick is no place for a young person to live - not really suburban, not really country. If I woke up to the whisper of ocean waves or the ozone aroma of the forest I might find myself more accepting of a slower paced life for awhile.
Even the cows look bored in this shitty town.
I know I brought this on myself. 20 thousand spent on drugs, alcohol and other entertainment over the last 3 years has forced me back here. This is my penance. In some ways this is worse than hell as there is no fire, no brimstone, only the constant cycle of train, work; save money to live, live to work, work to catch the train and so on and so forth.
Overly dramatic? Probably. No, definitely. Some people don't have the luxury of gainful employment, some people wake up unsure if they will be breathing at the end of the day and some people don't wake up at all. I guess I just woke up in a funk today...

1 comment:

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