I trudge the slow trudge home, joining an ever-swelling throng of defeated Sunday soldiers, boarding troop carriers and heading off to the next billing. The intimidating, too bright sunlight lends a deceptively warmish yellow tint to this cold winter morning, and the train rumbles on through leafy suburbs, their fields and woodlands a life-affirmingly vibrant green against the tired, milky-eyed sky.
Occasional vapour trails appear as bloodshot veins shown in negative, and even the great orb itself is an obscure, amorphous blob, unfathomable light years away.
The doors slide open.
I step out into the cold, bleak day, surrounded by my fellow revelers, each huddled and shivering against the fierce breeze and their internal demons.
The odd family group stand nearby, clearly appalled at the state of these weekend rockstars, some of the warmer-hearted dads allowing a pang of nostalgia to take them back to a simpler time, a care-free age where such gross excess and indecency was their routine.
The ferocious wind pierces thick overcoats and seeps through chunky pullovers with the malice and sting of a hundred steel blades in soft skin. I glance to my left and spare a brief moment's though for the few scantily-clad slappers tottering their way along the platform, a hazy memory of recent intimacy their only shield against shame and weather.
Refuge is sought and briefly discovered on the connecting service, and my ice bloc hands are flooded with painful warmth as my journey enters its final phase. This steamy hub of humanity features those reasonable, sensible (,boring) beings venturing out for the day, or travelling home from afar. I feel at last like an imposter, as though I am falling through the bottom of my high, regaining normality and failing to disguise my inner turmoil. I really need a drink. I feel like an impostor, an unwelcome, chaotic presence gatecrashing this world of order and structure.
This transition portends my return to the realities of the edge of this day. Monday is soon upon us, and the sweeping view of the CBD as the train races by only serves to solidify the dread. It sits like concrete in my guts, weighing me down.
"We are approaching our final stop".
This day burnt briefly bright, the green flash before the week's impenetrable darkness.
