Community of myself

 You pass other people on the steps on the way out of the train station. As you do, you self-indulgently revel in both the slightly quicker pace of your steps compared to those of others, and of the skirt around your shins that your step-mother gave to you. 

“I’ll never fit into it” she’d said, after you’d found it folded on the edge of your bed. “I just liked the material”. 

And there hadn’t been a hint of resentment or begrudgement in her voice. You’d always marvelled at that aspect of her, and wondered if it was something that might too come to you with age, or if that was just something which suited her so well. 

You stride purposefully towards the ticket barriers, realising only once you reach them that you’d been so caught up in yourself—and wrapped up in the swish of your skirt—that you haven’t even gotten your phone with your ticket on it out of your pocket yet, so you can’t even get through the barriers. That’s embarrassing. 

“Embarriersing” you think to yourself. Shut up. 

As you step to the side to find your phone, young couples in matching Adidas tracksuits pass you and on through the exit, as do families with small children and other solo commuters. One mother in particular looks as if she’s dragging her two young sons from the platform to the barrier, each little body seemingly intent on directing their footsteps in opposite directions. 

All the people you’d stepped past in your tardy haste to make it out of the station and into the crisp Leeds sunshine are now on the other side, before you’ve even found your ticket. 

Once past the barriers, it’s as if time has shifted and slowed again, as people are no longer rushing but waiting, for an exchange of “hellos” and “how was the journeys?” and “I’ve missed you so muches”. 

The mother who was being infantally divided is now up ahead, continuing the valiant battle, each of her hands clasping one smaller than her own as she traipses on with purpose until, eventually, you lose sight of her.