I was reading on the train as it went through the City Loop.

“The next station is Parliament,” chirped the loudspeaker. The train started slowing down. I thought it was odd; it seemed too early for it to be slowing down. Wasn’t it further between Melbourne Central and Parliament?

The train stopped. I looked out the window and saw the grey of concrete walls, the walls of a dimly lit tunnel. We had indeed stopped well before Parliament station.

The train lights flickered briefly and then went off. Only the emergency lights remained.

The carriage of late night travellers was quiet. Some people leaned into the little light there was so that they could continue reading. The woman next to me was reading Wuthering Heights. I was re-reading Getting to Yes.

We sat in silence and semi-darkness for ten minutes. There was a low grinding sound as the train strained foward. Then it stopped. It seemed to have given up. Then it grinded forward again. And stopped. Again, it tried and failed.

Suddenly, the emergency lights were extinguished.

We were now sitting in complete darkness. Everyone had put down their books and newspapers, pulled off their headphones and turned off their laptops. We looked at each other.

Another five minutes passed.

Finally, the emergency lights flickered back on again. There was a new sound. It swelled into a loud whirring. It sounded like the train was starting again. It was! It was moving!

I opened my book again.

The train trundled slowly to Parliament, where it was greeted by a large crowd of waiting commuters. The train was twenty minutes late.

The doors whooshed open and the first of the crowd stepped in but everyone was stopped by the loudspeaker.

“All passengers on Platform 4. Due to a defective train between Melbourne Central and Parliament… the train on Platform 4… will not be taking passengers. There will be no trains leaving from Platform 4…”

A murmur of confusion began. The loudspeaker voice also paused, seemingly uncertain.

“Passengers for Belgrave, Lilydale, Alamein and Glen Waverley, please board the next train on Platform 2 and change at Richmond.”

I let the crowd pour me out of the train and nudge me up to Platform 2. Platform 2 was jam packed with people positioning themselves to get onto the first train. I felt sorry for the normal Platform 2 travellers who were being displaced by the refugees from Platform 4.

Some passengers started joking with each other.

We had waited only five minutes when there was another announcement.

“All passengers, the train on Platform 4…” There was a long hesitation. “…The defective train on Platform 4 has now been rectified. And will be departing shortly.”

I joined the collective sigh of disbelief and once again, the crowd of dozens, maybe a hundred, piled onto the escalators. Like a mass of human treacle, the refugees from Platform 4 flowed down to home base.

With a sense of mutual suffering, we folded ourselves into the carriage, making use of the space like bricks in a Tetris game. The doors beeped, closed, and the train resumed its journey.