All Our Dreams Came True On the F Train This Morning
Save us, Marge Gunderson. Save us from this snowy dreamscape.
Last Saturday night, I had a dream that I was going to Bed-Stuy on the subway, but every time I got on the C train, I would accidentally get off one stop too soon, and then would have to wait for another train, making my trip to Utica Avenue endless. In fact, my dream subway ride was endless. I never made it to Utica Avenue. And the C trains that kept coming into the station looked progressively more and more futuristic, and I didn’t know where I was—well, I did, I was at Nostrand Avenue, but what day was it? what month? what year?—I only knew I would never get to where I was going. And while the final C train that would get me from Kingston-Throop to Utica Avenue never came, I kept hearing the underground growling of passing express trains beneath my feet, tormenting me with their rumbling journey. So I decided to sit down in the station and read. And then I woke up.
I dream about trains a lot, maybe. And they are dreams, not nightmares really. But this morning, commuting on the F/G line felt, in the words of Gothamist, more like a nightmare. Due to signal problems, there were major delays on the F/G from Church Avenue to Jay Street/Metrotech, leading some people (like me!) to spend what felt like hours (and was, in my case, about 30 minutes) waiting for trains that never came, while other people were trapped on subways perched high up on the Culver Aqueduct, that brontosaurus (we’ll never say apatosaurus!) humped stretch of track that arches over the Gowanus Canal. Commenters on Gothamist scoffed at the idea that this was nightmare material (“Let me know when they actually start resorting to cannibalism. Then this’ll be news,” said FU Boy), but I disagree. This is exactly what nightmares are made of…enclosed spaces, a world gone cold and white, unwanted body contact with your fellow New Yorkers. Terrifying. Luckily, the F/G are now running on schedule, and hopefully will stay steady throughout the rest of the storm today.
As for me? I went back home. I wasn’t going to let my reality come any closer to my dreams than it already had. So I walked home in the snow and am now waiting for the night—for when darkness comes—remembering the words of meteorologist poet Tim Morrin, “As you go into darkness, it’s only going to get worse and worse.” Welcome to my nightmare. It’s going to be a long, dark night.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
