commuter series #6

A series of writing inspired by a commute, written or conceived while on a commute, written about commuting (a movement and migration of bodies) whether by car, by bus, by train, by plane, by my own feet.

A husband will slip into the bed beside his sleeping wife hoping not to disturb her already precious sleep.  An hour or two after the sun rises, the wife will get up, change the alarm clock because she won’t be around to wake the husband.  Around 11am, she will call him during her break at work to see if he’s up and ready to go to his job.  It will be 12 hours later when they will be in the same room again, both exhausted from the daily grind.  The wife splitting her day between two part-time jobs.  The husband slaving away as a janitor.  On the rare occasions when the wife has a day off, in spite of her body crying for sleep, the wife will stay awake and wait for the husband to come home.  For an hour to two, wife and husband will chat, eat a little, maybe even drink some tea.  But when they go to bed together, half way through the night the wife will move to the couch-the husband’s snoring shattering her sleep.  Their usual arrangement works so well because she is already deep into her dreams when he just begins his.  But the husband can always feel the sudden emptiness left by an absent weight on the bed, just like an expected, but missed phone call.