journal features

crowded train

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2010.04.23

It finally happened. After four years in this city I've finally been on a train that was so packed it needed pushers.

It happened on the Yamanote line at Ebisu. It was so bad that because I'm taller than the door frame I was bent backwards painfully as countless short Asians packed hemselves in behind me like so many sardines in black woollen suits.

I blame the rain. Transit always gets nutty when there's even the slightest rain.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov