Ziplocked

Tonight as I waited to catch the subway from Seoul back to my residence in Byeongjeom, I noticed that the approaching train's destination was Seodongtan, Byeongjeom's sister stop. "My train!" I thought enthusiastically, until I watched it pull up to the Guro station: Its windows revealed a teeming sea of commuters shoved into railway cars like so much cattle into trailers. It looked full to bursting before it stopped--and there were still masses waiting to board! Afterwards, I saw more people getting on than exiting, which further compounded the issue. I was quickly beginning to question the wisdom of boarding such a train.

I stood at the open door of the subway car in front of me for several seconds, considering the meager room allowance the woman on the train had left me. I warily eyed the cramped corner, unsure if there were room enough for me to fit. Indecisively I shuffled mere inches from the edge of the platform, almost scooting inside. "I don't think I can do this," I finally said aloud, slowly backing away from the entrance. Moments later, I watched an older Korean man step awkwardly into the inches-wide triangle of space I had just left vacant. His foot rested just over the tiny metal railing that the car's door would soon slide over; the bill of his white cap reached into the open air of the platform, pleading like a baby's outstretched palm. There was so little room for the man that I thought the doors would scrape his folded knuckles as they closed.

Mere seconds after the arrival of the older man, a younger, much more agile businessman knifed his way between the woman and older man like the fin of a shark. A wave of agony rippled through the woman's countenance as he passed, as if the fin had slashed through her. He slipped into the remaining space like spilled liquid seeping into every surface crack. The old man's extremities still protruded from the cabin; I envisioned them being caught by the door like the hem of a dress. The businessman himself looked like a woman tightening her corset; I was sure he couldn't breathe with the crush of humanity around him. I could only watch helplessly as the the mechanical doors slid in place and sealed them all in like an overstuffed Ziplock baggie.