In Slo Motion

It happened on 30th of June. It was a Wednesday.

Seated in the train with his eyes closed, he was waiting for the train to depart. The scheduled departure was at 2:30 pm. He opened his eyes and looked through the black rubber framed glass pane. He could recognize the blurry images of the city flashing past the window curtains. He looked at his watch. It was 2:45 pm. He realized that the train was moving and had already left the premises of the city. He felt the uneasiness growing within him. Not because he was leaving the place which had been so close to him all these years. "It has been a few hours since I last pissed", he thought. He realized that somehow the responsible citizen in him had been sub consciously following one of the requests printed in red paint on the toilet doors of Indian Railways, "Please avoid using toilet when the train is standing at the station". He wore his black slippers, and took off to attend to the natures call.

The train was shaking more than usual. He entered the loo and closed the door. The bathroom floor was wet with pools of water moving to the tune of the train. He thought that just because this is a loo entitled to the passengers sitting in 2^nd AC, generally assumed to be mannered, civilized and often so high headed, doesn’t guarantee that they have neat bathroom etiquettes too. “God I hate these toilets”, he said to himself. 

Anyways, no credits for guessing what he did next. He took the piss. When he finished, he turned to open the door. But somewhere below his feet, the friction went all the way down to zero. He slipped. In this game of friction and balance, the extraordinary instinctual ability of the human mind to tame the two is unparalleled. In an attempt to find his equilibrium, he turned around reaching for the door handle. The things slowed down for him. It happened so fast, but to him it was as if the time was crawling, everything around him slowed down. It was like, his very own spider man moment. 

And then it happened. His left slipper escaped the grip of his feet. It swung across the small space, hitting the wall, bouncing to the floor, keeping up with the laws of physics, only to find its way to the drain. And there it was. He saw it go, down, spiralling, teasing him, as if saying to him that, “you can’t get me now can you”. And there he was, standing, with a blank, expressionless, helpless face.

The picture of his black slipper, as it was going down, got ingrained in his mind. All he could think was, “WHAT THE FUCK!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!”.  But after a silence of 15 seconds, he started laughing. It had been a really long time since he last had an honest laugh. 

He somehow limped his way out of the loo with one slipper still on his foot, and opened one of the doors of the train. He stood there without realizing that he was smiling and laughing. The train was moving fast. He looked at the vast green fields. The wind rushing through the door found its way into his clothes and filled him with the feeling of freedom. He felt free. “This is great. This is hilarious. God ! I feel good”, he said in his mind. And so in that fleeting moment, he swayed his right leg back, and swung it in a kicking action through the door to throw the other slipper into the air. His eyes followed the complete trajectory of the slippers watching it rise in the air and then fall down in his yet another spider man slow motion moment. He stood there for some more time and then closed the door. But the feeling remained with him. He was smiling. He was happy. In Slo Motion.