The Untraveller's Experience

My untraveller friend returned to her home, having travelled through Tronna. A bit. A bit because our options were limited. I have no car but even so, she travels best when driven by her beloved. Here, in the city, she travelled best on a street car because it moved comfortably fast. Which is to say, hardly. Not enough to make her sick. Not much. That was a relief because it was starting to look like we would be scooting around in cabs because... ...because she was terrified of the train, the subway train. It was the first time of her life and four minutes in and she came out petrified. She was probably wondering how other people did it. One million a day or more depending on your city. But she couldnt. She was oppressed by it all, whatever it all meant, the rattling WHIZZ as it tore through darkness, slamming to a quick stop. She was more articulate about the buses. The buses rocked and shambled to and fro and they were full of people with bus rat faces. Faces condemned to stony indifference to each other, relinquishing individuality. 

What a flip in perception for me who certainly cannot imagine small towns as fostering individuality, only a semblance of freedom through space. On buses people just collapse all individuality, its true, into themselves because there is not enough room to express themselves. Of course, this was maybe only a twist on the fear of absorption into the mass which she expressed, as below. Thus, I offer what the Untraveller told me about her transit sensations: among all these people she is only one of them. She is part of the crowd, insignificant. Her specialness is erased. 

I think of Poe's "Man of the Crowd," a tale, which told to her at bedtime, would be the stuff of Goyan nightmares. I think of the illusions which sustain us and individuality being one of them. But would you look at all the graves around us, too, we laughed the last day, as we took a cab to see Gay Pride. For all the untravelling, she was an excellent sport though, for to walk among the masses as much as we did that Sunday--that is major travelling, and in flip flops, no less. For coming here all the way here to see me, despite crowds, transit and city, is truly an Act of Friendship.