Episode Two: Train Station - Platform

It smells like progress.

It smells like exhaust, yes. And human odor. And ink.

But progress, beyond all.

You've ascribed it a certain ... romantic quality. You know it.

At any second a great industrialist - suit jacket rolled to forearms, great iron wrench in one fist - schematics in the other - is going to storm the platform. A bronze steam locomotive will roll to a halt.

"Efficiency!" he will cry - "Performance!" he will shout - "Purpose!"

And the socialists will cry into their beards.

But the pensioners are massing for an optimum seat, and the single-parents are nudging you with their prams.

Public transport.

[Look]

You are standing on your local train platform. It is relatively clean - a hot breeze sweeps the platform at regular intervals.

A crowd of senior citizens stands at the centre of the platform.

Parents and children are locked in domestic warfare at sporadic locations.

For a place that commuters are obliged to linger in for extended periods of time, there is a limited amount to look at. The advertisements are uninspired and dull.

To the north, are the gates.
To the south, a train awaits passengers. Anxiously. Jittering.

[Look at advertisements]

Aftershave, insurance, legal advice, distance education.

The market segment research is in:

Unhappy with direction in life, paranoid, victimised, source of foul odors.

That could be anybody! Talk about your cold reading scams.

[Look at seniors]


You can't assume they are ignorant of social decorum. You can only assume they no longer care.

There's still a smoldering desperation there - but you assume that most of them are spiritually D.N.R


[Look at parents]

What a choice. What - a - choice.


Still... make a poor choice today - a poor, life-creating, life-altering choice today - and expect society to shoulder the results tomorrow.

After all... it's only fair.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking of building a bomb....

[Look at children]

That - is the future.

What is the average life expectancy again?

Not too long.

You scoff. Doesn't look like THAT future is YOUR problem.


[Look at train]

Some creative individual has written something illegible along the breadth of the nearest carriage.

If you have a message to convey to society, that's just fine.
And if you feel the need to damage other people's property in order to convey it... well... it must be urgent...
But given that urgency - one would assume the resulting message would be legible.

Unless it's a weird piece of reverse-viral-socio-advertisement...

"Neuter everything to the left of the bell-curve..."

[South]