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The commuter train

The people on the 7 a.m. express

My heels click across the pavement of Golden’s Bridge train station. I throw my car keys in my briefcase just in time to hear the horn of the 7 a.m. express, which is thundering down track one.

I am a cog in the corporate machine.

The other cogs and I, dressed in our corporate best, pointedly avoid making eye contact as we mass towards the nearest car and climb aboard the train. The morning still has a bite of cold left, and we cross our arms while longingly thinking of soft beds and plush comforters.

Though there are still open seats, I stop next to someone asleep against the window and place my bag in the remaining seat next to him. Early on, I learned the futility of hoping for a row to myself on the packed morning express. Sleepers make ideal seatmates because they rarely look up when I rustle through my bag for headphones or a granola bar.

At first, the long and silent commute intimidated me. I felt like an obvious child, uneasy and lost among the corporate regulars. I was the equivalent of a first-year who had to ask feebly for directions to the Corner while moving in.

Slowly, though, I started to understand their ranks and the unspoken rules of the commuter train. I began to recognize the distinct types of people who travel into Manhattan with me each morning.

Sleepers, for example, represent one category of people sighted on the morning commute. These lucky souls somehow manage to drift back to sleep in their suits, arriving in the city after an hour of peaceful oblivion.

My seatmate enjoyed this luxury. He didn’t so much as stir as I leaned against the small chair cushions beside him.

Along with the Sleepers, there are the News Enthusiasts. They arrive armed with the New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post or any other source of information they can lay hands on. Brain buzzing with coffee, the News Enthusiast aims to become a guru of all relevant worldly happenings before our 8:05 a.m. arrival.

Adjacent are the Book Clubbers, who self-educate less ferociously. This is where I fit in, as I open up my Kindle e-reader.

Like the News Enthusiasts, we Book Clubbers appear to be productive during our hour of travel. However, we are simply not awake enough to process stock market fluctuations or the latest government scandal. Instead, we fill the minutes with simpler topics and guilty pleasures from Amazon’s “Book Club Must Read” list.

Joining the Book Club ranks provides me with a small pleasure in my routine. After escaping the fog of drowsiness, I actually enjoy reading for fun — a hobby I struggle to find time for.

One step after the Book Clubbers lay the Gamers. These people are too tired to even read leisurely — instead, they distract themselves from exhaustion with long bouts of online solitaire or Buzzfeed quizzes. Once, I even watched a grown man play Pokémon on a Gameboy DS for 45 minutes.

And, finally, there’s the I-Wish-I-Were-A-Sleeper crowd. While they try their best to fall asleep in their uncomfortable train seats, these people simply can’t pass back into the void. Instead, they put their headphones in and stare straight ahead with uncomprehending eyes — not fully awake, but not fully resting. I can’t help but wonder what they think about, barely blinking as the minutes tick by.

Not everyone falls into one of these categories, but with a few exceptions, most people participate in one of these activities at some point in their commutes. There is only one species I left out.

This would be the People-Watchers. I exclude them because everyone — with the Sleepers as the exception — is a People-Watcher on the commuter train.

If you are awake, you are observing. It can’t be helped, with so many people crammed into a car and so little else to do.

The News Enthusiast does not know his paper is silently being scanned by at least five other riders. My adjacents, I imagine, judge my taste in novels, And I can’t be the only one who was slightly impressed that the Gamer had Pokémon at level 100.

Though we are all cogs, the longer I ride, the more I realize each cog has individual ways of coping with life in the machine. From my morning commute, I have begun to feel an unspoken camaraderie with my sleepy New-York-bound express.

Alyssa’s column runs biweekly. She can be reached at a.passarelli@cavalierdaily.com

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