Train of thought

G'day my fellow readers! This is my first time on reedsy, and I am so soooo excited!!! :) I just want to clarify a few terms that will occur in this story;

Centrelink: Governemnt benefits in Australia that people who earn under a certain threshold are legiible for.

Maccas- Macdonalds

Brekkie-Breakfast

Dusty and Baccha- Australian Football Players (really great players btw XD), Richmond is the team they play for.

Annnd I believe that is all? Please do reach out to me if there is any other Aussie coloquialism that you guys can't fathom.

Happy Reading :)

***

Mariam hated the train. Up until the she heard the distinct rumble (felt it more like) the manner the train made its presence by vibrating the platform she stood, she had been having a pleasant morning. She wasn’t late, the morning wasn’t too sunny, and a bitter cool wind fanned across the station. Though most other patrons drew their jackets tighter around themselves, Mariam shed her own, biting back a smile as she felt the cold embrace her.

She tried, truly, to centre herself in the blissful present. Yet as always, it was soured as she faced actuality. Some way away from her, a homeless man held a carboard sign, summing up his entire existence, feebly enquired for a dollar coin. He seemed somewhat resigned to the fact that the rushing patrons weren’t to pay heed to him.

“For Brekkie.” He justified.

What do I do? Mariam fretted. She recalled her parents stressing over and over never to give money to such people. There were government benefits, Centrelink, yet still such people didn’t manage their funds properly. She wasn’t entirely sure how true this was, government funding would only get so far as groceries, or barely scraping rent. It was always one or the other, bever both.

Yet still, that resignation. And still, one dollar. Her heart dropped to her stomach as she calculated what he would buy with that dollar. A hash brown from Maccas? A can of beans (unlikely as how would he store it later).

It was moments like these that gave her a crisis. The poor nutrition. The mere burden of living, yet who on earth was she to complain. She had everything this man didn’t.

Yet still…

She handed a two-dollar coin to the man with a smile, scurrying off as she saw his face break into a grin so large, the sunshine filtered through.

Then she heard the running, announcing the latecomers making a dash for it, the hurried beeping of the myki passes. Then the swoosh, as without having to take a step forward, Mariam found herself being herded into the train compartment, like Moses leading his companions through the red sea.

Which is where she found herself now, blessed her instincts were, to securing a seat at least.

Coffee rings stickily stained the meal trays of the compartment. Frustrating really, considering Mariam still had 200 words remaining of her law assignment. She sighed, as she often did on such mornings, the eve of assignment submission.

Why do I always do this? The question failed to answer itself, as Mariam knew, like a loyal mutt, her unfailing habit of procrastination wasn’t planning to decline anytime soon.

Despite her mounting anxiety, the reality of the minutes dissolving into submission, Mariam found an inability to continue her essay. She had brought her MacBook onto her lap, where it rested patiently, almost perturbed by its owner’s abstinence. From somewhere to her left she heard a mother chattering away on the phone (“My god Jen, I had no idea you’ve reached Melbourne! Yeah? Hmm so I thought too, you see…” whilst her toddler dressed in a frog onesie babbled to himself, waving a Winnie the pooh rattle with a distracting gurgling noise.

To the middle of the train a parliament of suits adjourned, giving an analytical commentary on the business of Australian Football. “Ah so you’re a Collingwood supporter?” A man wearing a black tie concealed his look of disgust through sipping his latte. “Richmond all the way baybaaayyy.”

Mariam looked at this group with particular interest, barely filtering out their commentary on Dusty’s tackle and the top form of Bachas defence. How do they do it? No, it wasn’t their form nor designer suits, but the fact that the women of the group was applying makeup with unfounded dexterity, perfecting her coral lipstick and eyeliner (without gauging her eyeballs).

And the fact the man was able to maintain his balance, all the while drinking his-.

Mariam lurched forward, and in synchronisation all the patrons swayed to a hard left.

The man continued to sip his coffee, nonplussed. The women continued to apply her foundation.

The baby babbled.

The phones rang.

And Mariam failed to tackle her assignment.

University students huddled together. It seemed the RMIT students were having an exam, and over consulting a mass of papers, a group of students turned to one another, brows creased on what appeared to be a practise exam question. One of the students, a petite girl in a colourful headscarf was hurriedly organising a cram sesh, taking charge of the explanation.

“No, you have to calculate the volume of the dam, and consider the rate in which the leak is losing water. Then the time in which 3300 gallons are remaining. “

She lost track of the conversation momentarily as the train pulled up to a station, where a dozen more people boarded. Through the seats provided some protection from the inevitable squish, (she was the window seat after all), she could see the women next to her, whose right side faced the aisle, was leaning to her side to prevent her shoulder from being pushed from the overflowing mount of people.

The nervous twittering of the engineering students suddenly bubbled with laughter as a girl wearing cat eyeglasses and an oversized blue hoodie smacked her head in embarrassment.

“Mate, you got the numbers mixed up!”

Ugh, maths. Mariam zoned out, glancing at her phone before jerking her head violently. It was almost 9 o’clock, her assignment due at five past. Her heart hammered with mounting trepidation, yet not an ounce of muscle power lifted her from her people watching.

As the landscaped morphed around her in a constant blur of motion, Mariam thought ahead of uni. She thought of her lecturer’s passing remark, that still caused her blood to curdle. She thought of the ignorance that existed in academia, with the silence that often accompanied such statements. How could mere mortals dare to shoot down the statements of academic ‘giants. It was as though having the rank of a professor gave you the free reign to say anything.

“Terrorism is global.” He had informed the class (Contemporary Worlds the subject was), “Often times terrorism is vested in a mechanism of politics and desperation. I mean, how many of you would be mortified if Judaism took over Australia.”

He had taken a head count of the number, and to her dismay, a large majority put their hands up. “It’s evident, that our recollection of the faith is synonymous with the Israel invasion of Palestinian territory.”

Her heart felt burdened, palpitating with bird like lightness. Quick and flitting as she recalled with shame, how in her shock at his statement, she found herself unable to say anything. And now, looking back, she though two overwhelming thoughts. Was it merely the professors mean of speech? He was quite brusque and dismissive in his speech and seemed well up until them. He always stressed the exposure of internal biases. Yet the fact she could only constantly wonder what his intentions were, seeing the headcount, and now, the fact remained that she, a Jewish individual hadn’t stood up.

It was exhausting, having to carry this weight, of having to justify your existence based of the tyranny of someone else. It was even more exhausting however, and hear Mariam leaned her head against the window, her minds banter becoming slightly tiring, that though she went to one of the most prestigious Universities, in terms of ingenuity, intelligence, of mental aptitude, it hadn’t in the slightest reversed the presence of ignoramuses’, nor internal biases.

It just wasn’t the time and space for writing.

She was painfully aware of the middle-aged woman in a knitted cardigan, not so subtly looking over her shoulder, peering at her laptop screen, and the assignment she had pored out as so far. The inkling irritated her, and she ended up closing her laptop with a resounding clack.

The train was getting busier, as more people rushed in to make it for their 9am schedules. A pack of Macrobertson students boarded at Moonee Ponds, discussing a tik tok video, before hurried phone calls were made to find a fallen comrade (a fellow student who had somehow been pushed into the other compartment from the throng of commuters. ) A brief cheer resounded as a plump Asian Australian girl blustered apologetically through the packed compartment, lumbering in relief towards her friends, her face flushed with exertion.

Mariam felt her heartbeat skyrocket as she sensed more and more people thronging about her. She felt them around them, slowly feeling their chatter becoming a discerning, incomprehensible buzzing in the background.

I can’t wait to get off. I must get off.

Though her distaste for crowds had weaned off the major phobia she had in high school, it had only manifested itself in University. Comments from her lecturer made her remarkably conscious that anyone may display such behaviour. In some ways, she knew she was inconspicuous. Unlike her Muslim and Sikh friends, she didn’t wear any head covering. And though she were clad in a simply black coat and jeans, there was always that ‘but what if’ knot. It applied an unpleasant throb to her body, preying on her mind like dementia.

She looked up at the display that monitored the stops the train was set on. And though more people kept coming in, she saw that she only had a few more stations left before her stop.

She continued to stare out the window, and then, in a sudden stupor, she realised the train wasn’t heading on its usual route. She looked up to hear an announcement from the driver. ‘Apologies dear customers. It appears that there has been an accident up ahead. This train well be pulling up to another station, where a connecting service will continue your journey.”

An uproar was heard, and a good few people cussed angrily. The level of noise grew exponentially with a furious fervour, yet somehow, despite being so sensitive to such commotion, Mariam founded her self-tuning out entirely.

She looked outside the window, at the unfamiliar scenery, and suddenly took in a sharp breath.

Out the window, (Latrobe valley she had later come to know) was a scene so dissimilar to Melbourne’s landscape. It wasn’t the reserves, the farms with their hay bales, nor the odd kangaroo peeping though a field of wheat.

It was an entire field of sunflowers. Enormous, at least two metres tall. They affirmed the existence of the train with a vigorous nodding of their fully intact blooms. And like a princess in a fairy tale, Mariam felt within her a desire to run in that field barefoot, feeling the earth undergrowth beneath her, as the heart shaped leaves grasped at her waist, the blooms towering above her like an adoring saviour. She would be wearing a white knee length dress, and a coronet of sunflower buds.

As she found herself lost in her daydream, she suddenly became conscience of the shocked awe that radiated from her compartment. She looked up to see the patrons pointing, looking on awestruck. Many had their own phones out, excitedly claiming that they “had never known Victoria to have such a place.”

Mariam looked out once again, wondering if she too should take a photo. She looked on at the blooms, so perfectly balanced in a rich, yet appealingly neutral pallet. The yellow that exuded a deep-seated joy, of a yellow that was truly felt like sunshine on old bones. The green so green you could taste its crispness, like the cold on a Melbourne morning. Mariam stared at the centre of the flower, and a part of her broke, ever so slightly.

Thinking of climate changes and seeing fields like this, of such unaltered beauty, of a calibre of excellence unbothered by human imperfection, she knew that to clear a field of this size, a good dozen trees were cleared to provide for the ground.

And though her heart stressed, singing its rhythm so familiar to itself it felt as natural as putting on a coat, for a moment she decided against it.

She put down her phone with an air of certainty.

And instead, she drank in the sight before her.

Mariam smiled momentarily. The first real smile she felt that morning. A smile that caused the scenery to reflect her internal state.

A sensation that caused Sunflowers to blossom and sunshine to beam. She looked o, and if anything, the flowers seemed to grow brighter. As if to alter her mood had been a hidden agenda, and now they were signing success. As if to say, “Yes! We did it didn’t we?”.

Something warm filled the crevices of her stomach, making her fill overcome with emotion.

She placed a hand over her chest, as she often did when she was stressed. Yet as of now, she didn’t feel that way. She felt her heart sing, feeling its chorus of simple joys.

She was delighted to find that the station she got out of still had perfect view of the field.

Mariam felt the moment, as tangible as a perfectly sculpted sunflower petal. She felt the gentle kisses of the wind as it tousled her hair playfully.

She shouldered her bag, and before leaving for the platform she inhaled deeply, forcing her lungs to experience the delightful prickle of the morning frost.

Somehow, the apprehension she had felt before of facing the day had receded significantly. Instead she felt the rays of hope overcome her, deep rooted like the blossoms she saw before her.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Mariam knew that she would be ok.

I think I’ve got this. She thought quietly.

And with one last, longing glance at the sunflowers, Mariam turned abruptly, making her way down the platform to the replacement train.