Train-ing up for Rush-Hour Tokyo

As I entered the sloping throat of Minowa subway station, the roar of a train belched from below.

I clunked faster down the tiled steps into the artificial light. This was my third stay in north-east Tokyo and I thought I’d experienced the rush-hour subway. I was wrong.

The normally quiet platform was lined with posture-perfect uniformed attendants, waiting for the train to stop. These pushers, as I christened them, are employed to safely compress Tokyo’s dedicated workers during peak hours.

One by one, lines of suited, polished commuters were squeezed on to the train, merging with the compacted mass inside.

My own past mocked my hesitation. I had travelled halfway across the world alone, yet I was daunted by those pulsating trainloads of people, all armed with purpose, with more of a right to be squashed than me.

I looked down at my thick coat, designed to keep out icy English winds, never intended for the Tokyo rush hour. I had to get on a train.

A metallic scream soared, a warm wind hit my face and the shiny cylinder zoomed past. Black and white blurs assumed human-shaped forms and the doors opened to reveal a dense block of commuters.

Some grasped on to the door frame to stop themselves spilling out. There wasn’t a centimetre of space inside.

The brusque buzzer sounded and I lifted my foot towards the crowd of shoes. I felt the faintest of touches on my back.

“Please,” the pusher said gently, gesturing for me to enter the carriage backwards. I turned and took a deep breath before he crammed me into the vertical bed of humans.

I felt strangely comfortable, suspended upright, cradled side-to-side in a vertical sleeping bag, held in place by the energy of others.

Reflections of faces were everywhere, reserved and graceful, steely and nonchalant, despite the lack of privacy.

Waves of fixed, dark brown eyes looked down or ahead, guarding thousands of colourful thoughts, memories, anxieties and joys.

The train stopped and opened on another platform. Now I was gripping the edge of the door, wavering on the carriage’s lip. More people were pushed on and I sank deeper into the layers like a fossil in rock.

My lungs shrank with each new passenger and blood struggled around my body like a marathon runner in the final mile.

Finally, my stop emerged and I burst from the metal womb, gulping vacant air.

Tokyo’s commuters omitted an infectious, kinetic energy and I darted though corridors, running upstairs behind, ahead, alongside them.

Breathless and reeling, I propped myself against a subway wall, watching figures never stopping, hesitating or colliding. I recalled the Japanese proverb - ‘the nail that sticks up must be hammered down’.

Suddenly, I glimpsed a flash of colour. A man hurrying past discreetly jammed his phone - complete with an over-sized cartoon charm - into his suit pocket.

He glanced at me before re-fixing his gaze, joining his fellow commuters and moving forwards into the long day ahead.