Matthew Henry John Bartlett

This afternoon i found that riding up front in the train is five to seven times better than riding down the back. When you’re riding in one of the normal carriages you look out sideways and the world slides by like a cartoon strip. The train speeds up and slows down and stops and speeds up again and you don’t really know why. You are incubated and secure. Riding up the front, looking forward, the world is coming at you. It feels like you’re on a slot car set. The tracks are foolishly narrow. It doesn’t seem a sure thing that you’ll arive safely. The points could be off by an inch and we’d be over on our side. Sometimes you can see your goal, and the driver speeds the train up when there’s a big straight ahead. Another commuter train zips by on the track next to ours going the opposite direction, and it looks like a smooth yellow slug with big black eyes.

It took most of today for me to realise it’s September 11.