the woman, the beggar, and the fool

The Woman Our train made a longer pause at this stop than necessary, and the reason presented itself with the woman who stumbled into the cart. She had a TTC uniform on, wild curly gray hair, and lethargic dark circles under her eyes. Exasperated, she threw open that one window and checked both sides of the train, as per her job. She intrigued me. How she carried herself, her sighs, and her rough treatment of the bag she threw into her little compartment-- Nothing screamed exasperation more than her image. And it frightened me. Will this be what I'll become, in another setting, another year, another person; but same lethargy, exasperation, mundane and routine life? The beggar There is a homeless man who resides in the lowest level of Bloor-Yonge station. He has always been there, and consistently will be there; as I'll always walk past all the same. Sometimes I do feel heartless. I wonder, why is he here? where is his family? is he perhaps ill? what goes on in his mind? how does he trudge on through the hours, minutes of his life? My mind flashes to another day, same place. An elderly woman unloaded two handfuls of pills on to the escalator handrail platform, attempting to sell them. Why would she do that? Where do the pills come from, is she ill; what could be so terrible that she has to sacrifice health for money? What happened to her? I remind myself that like all the others who walked by, not even acknowledge his or her existence, this is not my fault. Not directly, no. But it is. I am the society that coincides with these tragedies. And given the right amount of events in our lives, we forget about these happenings. It's not bad, nor is it good. It just is. The fool I am the fool. I finally sit myself on the train to suddenly notice a man mumbling to himself. New York, Montreal, Toronto; Montreal, New York, Toronto; Toronto, Montreal, New York; yeah, yeah. It's one of those conversations you hear but don't hear and notice, but don't until it strikes you as strange. The man is alone. We were above ground, so that thought dissipated promptly. Headphones. Technology. Phone. Eventually, I notice it again. There are no earphones, no earbud, no person no recording device, nothing. He is talking to himself, and pausing as if someone else is talking to him. I couldn't help but stare. I am the fool, because I stopped and did so. When everyone else just went on with their lives unnoticing, because this is normal. It's abnormal, but normal all the same. You shouldn't stare. It's rude. And once again, third time on this trip, I wondered. Who is he talking to? How does it feel? Why is here, where is he going? And is this one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, is this a hallucination? I can't know, and I never will, but it makes me wonder now, I've never met anyone with one of the rare mental illnesses, yet I aim to be a psychologist; does that frighten me, and should that frighten me? We always think of hallucinations in the context of something terrible, like Vince Li and his voices that told him to kill. Could my perception of this strange man be what it could look like to have a very normal abnormal conversation with one's hallucinations? --- 8:30pm at night on the city's troubled trains, you see a lot of things, should you not be occupied by technology. And sometimes, you can't help but wonder.

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First written 1 MAR 2013