What Stands Between

The somber commuters think nothing more of the cabins of glass and steel or the hidden machinery encased within. The jarring metal. The electric momentum. The hot, steamy, hiss. All and more hardly distract the huddled many while they teeter at the edge of the worn platform, knuckles clenched, tickets within.

Their thoughts are elsewhere, further down the shadowed train tracks. It is as if the very gears of their lives take pause as they shuffle into the station, and just as abruptly resume at the next stop.

There is no life to be made in waiting, after-all.

Today marks the first month of waiting at the new job. Neophyte enthusiasm has given way to bridled anticipation, and these reigns, like my patience, grows ever thinner.

It's a force of gravity that intrudes upon me. The rest of my life, in all its weight and self-importance, reaches out from the distance, from across the fence, and takes hold of my very being, pulling it forward.

Like a mighty star, the tendrils of its influence creeps through the void, across ages, crawls into our skins, into the very marrow of our bones, pulls the willing and unwilling alike into its heart to combust, to burn, to become energy, to radiate outward and into the cosmos.

My very core is compelled, and yet my body lingers. For the paperwork must be complete, and due process accomplished. I stand stoic on the platform, glance at my watch, and wait once more.

My eyes linger on the grey coats as they step into the gaping maw of the train doors. An implicit trust is imparted by those who dare to travel beyond. My eyes begin to wander along the length of the tracks ahead, further and forward, until finally my vision is smothered by the distant impermeable darkness.

In the distance lies the destination, and who's to say what lurks, what haunts, what waits, what stands between the promise of arrival and the courage of departure.