The wayward imagination of the half-awake morning commuter
On the 8.09am to Flinders Street, a mobile rings and a voice rises above the rhubarb of train wheels clacking, doors banging shut, station announcements and the world streaming past. It's a voice fuelled by that familiar melange of authority and anxiety, the kind associated with medical professionals, school principals, your last angry boss; important people with urgent things to say.
"Miss Peters," the voice says, "listen closely. It's imperative that you follow my instructions. This is a matter of utmost importance."
For those commuters not wired into headphones or enveloped in the peculiar cone of concentration known as text messaging, a gentle hush falls. Collectively we search the carriage for the source of the voice, arriving at a bespectacled, balding, middle-aged man, in a nondescript suit with a suitcase wedged between his knees.
The speaker continues in the same pointed tone, his pace quickening as the sentences pile up. "Without a moment to waste, Miss Peters, go to room 405 and retrieve Henry Samuels. Escort him briskly to room 705, where he's expected immediately. There's not a moment to waste. Each minute we speak, you understand, is a moment lost."
The wayward imagination of the half-awake morning commuter, namely my own, begins to run wild. The deadlines of my own day melt into insignificance.
Is young Henry in trouble, does bad news await on the seventh floor? Is he in line for an important medical procedure, with each idle moment equating to time shaved from his fragile existence?
The train pulls out of South Yarra and makes its way across the river, its thick brown girth dotted with rowing boats and rolling oars. The girl next me to applies lip gloss, the woman next to her scrolls through an Instagram feed, pausing on red carpet shots and a video of a Malaysian chef cooking mee goreng.
The speaker scratches his left eyebrow and rocks gently in his sunken orange seat. Minutes pass, momentum gathers, I take shallow breaths. The woman sitting opposite catches my eye, shrugs and resumes reading her Kindle.
I have visions of young Henry on a stretcher, his face pale and anxious.
Finally the silence breaks: "Yes, Miss Peters, and when you collect him make sure he remembers his cello. His music lesson began five minutes ago." I find myself laughing, first quietly, then uncontrollably. For the rest of the day, I think of Henry.