I arrived in Paris early last New Year's Eve with my brother, Finnegan, and we went straight to the apartment at which we'd be staying. I changed quickly and we headed for the metro station, where we waited for a train that didn't arrive.
At first it didn't trouble me that a train didn't come. I didn't question the route that Finnegan, a seasoned traveller, had chosen. We wanted the C, he'd said after checking the map, and we'd bounded up the stairs labelled "C" and later we reassured one another about our choice; we were waiting for Train C on Platform C and the route map beside which we'd positioned ourselves, as though it offered shelter, showed our destination a few stops down the line.
That there were other people on our platform – as the evening went on, I came to think of it as "our platform" – was at first also reassuring. Would-be travellers arrived on our platform – most in small, familial groups; and, after some time, they appeared, like us, to notice that there was far more life on other platforms.
On other platforms populations swelled, then trains swept in and whisked people away while depositing more people, just as newcomers – sometimes whole, high-heeled kick lines of Paris girls – emerged from the stairwells and quickly vanished, and then the cycle of subway life continued on in a way it very much did not on stagnant Platform C.
Platform C had more of an absurdist-theatre feel to it. When, in what felt like late in the second act, a train finally came into our station and left without slowing down, I imagined a high-school class was observing us. Somewhere, I felt, a bright student was watching my evening in Paris and thinking, "This is so obvious, but at least it'll be easy to write the essay."
I noticed, with a sinking feeling, that the only residents of our platform who showed signs of speaking or comprehending any French at all were completely hammered.
For a long time, the other groups on our platform stuck to their own encampments but eventually a representative from each group made the trek – each carrying his own small map – to the large map to study it.
We began to reassure one another.
"C?" someone would ask.
"C," someone would reply.
"Si," someone else said.
"See?" The rest of us said smugly.
We had language.
It struck me that, envious as we were of other platforms – with their fast trains moving their populations – only our platform offered the kind of stability and sedentary lifestyle that leads to the development of a complex society. We didn't plant crops, but we did eventually harvest the vending machines – still no transit arrived.
I was proud when, after some time, my brother was chosen as our chief – based primarily on the power of his oratory: He said "C" with more conviction than anyone else.
Also, word spread among the people that he'd once made the journey downstairs to consult the Oracle of Billets, a woman who'd said, "Oui, C," and this sealed his position.
I feared that the burden of leadership would take its toll on him, but he rose to the occasion. Indeed, it was his responsibility to the community that made him abandon his concern that we'd miss the train if we left the platform again and make that journey to the information kiosk.
I went with him, and this time he figured out that "Train C" and "Platform C" were entirely unconnected concepts. Train C could be found at Platforms A and B, but what were we fools on C thinking?
"Platform B for train C!" he cried, and I turned to rush that way; after all, we had a party to get to, a party with a deadline. New Year's Eve parties have those. But Finnegan stopped and said: "No, I cannot leave them," and he charged back up the stairs to the Platform C, the Land that Transit Forgot, back to his people.
How he communicated the new plan to them so quickly, convinced them of its merit, I'll never know. There were so many languages spoken on Platform C, so many lines traced so determinedly on so many maps, I'd begun to think that New Year's Eve might culminate in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, but somehow Finnegan managed it.
He returned minutes later, followed by a great throng. People poured down the stairs after him.
"Canadian," I said proudly to a man who smiled at me and nodded approvingly at my brother. "We also liberated Holland," and en masse our petite civilization raced up the stairs to Platform B.
There we stood, together, desperately beckoning to the holdouts on Platform C, the diehards, the poor souls who'd lost faith in directions, until one by one they joined us on B – the very last traveller arriving seconds before the train, like a countdown to a new start that was somehow earned and that mattered.
I wish you all this much luck with the people you meet and the people you know, and the very best in this New Year.