The Upfield Line
Standing on my balcony at midnight, waiting for my puppy to pee, I can hear a train whistle lilting across the rooftops. The sound bounces across shingles, tin, and tarmac from the Upfield Line two kilometres away.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard it.
I’ve never ridden that train or any train in Melbourne. In a city that was once crowned the world’s most liveable, getting around is a ‘choose your own adventure’. It was in this city that I discovered Uber, trams, and came to love my bicycle. But now, it’s the train that stays, an echo from a time six months ago when the city still felt right.
The whistle used to be drowned out by the sounds of life—the grumble of engines and the squawk of horns, the bark of dogs and the cries of babies, the laughter of friends, and the shouts of people on the streets. It used to be that the air was full of all that sound, thick with it, with the heat and energy of the inner city. It was the all-encompassing buzz—it drowned everything out.
Now, the air is clearer, quieter, but we still wear masks. We’re afraid to inhale what we can’t see, something so much worse than exhaust fumes and the smells of the inner city.
My partner and I moved from a quieter place to come here, seeking culture and opportunity. It was a chance to soak up all the city had to offer, the arts, music, sports, education, politics, all of it. It was a chance to learn, and grow, and make our mark. For me, it was a chance to come to one of the great literary cities and chase my dreams of being a writer. For her, it was a chance to make a difference for the people and the environment. And we did, for four years. We got degrees, made friends and launched our careers. I published my first novel, and we even planned a wedding.
Now, as we creep further and further into the fifth, all of that is gone. We connect with moving thumbnails and watch as friends’ faces lag. We work from our kitchen table and wait for Uber Eats. We think of family across borders with passports that won’t help us cross. We spend our days in front of screens and listen for the train.
The world seems to be moving faster, and slower all at once. The workday stretches, and meetings Zoom by, because jeans have been replaced by gym shorts and pyjama pants. We stay locked in our apartment with no yard, and a view of a dormant city. We wait to go outside, as the rest of the country watches on, holding their breath. We cross off another date on the calendar, the one where we should have said ‘I do’, and wonder how long we can postpone for? When it does happen, who will be able to come?
When the vaccine comes and lockdowns end, the world will be different. At least, that’s what everyone says.
Borders will reopen, and we’ll breathe that thickened air freely. We’ll go to gigs, see our families and when the planes start taking off, we’ll scramble to fill our empty passport pages. But what will those trips be? Will they be holidays? A tasting menu of the world’s delights? Or will we scatter across the globe, seeking those quieter places where the air is always so fresh and empty that we never need masks? Will the opportunities of the cities follow us, uprooted from their urban hubs?
I love this city, but the way I think about it has changed. The way we live in this world has changed. I’ve always had the inkling that a more nomadic way of living might become more in reach: Will we spread across the map to the mountains, beaches and deserts, bringing the buzz of the cities with us on our laptops? Or will we stay and resuscitate the concrete bodies that have drawn us in for the last hundred years? These places offered a chance to be someone, to ‘be a part of it’, like an old song says.
There’s potential in all of these changes, pros that come with immediate cons. Right now we’re seeing the challenges, but the way it was before was far from perfect. Changing the way we work might offer opportunities to those who couldn’t reach the hubs before. For those of us who want it, there’s a chance to escape the stresses of the city, to reconnect with nature, when the radius allows, and as for nature itself, the science has already spoken. Millions of people who are no longer on the move every day might offer our planet a little more breathing space as well.
These are hard questions to answer, but they’re the questions that will shape the world of this weird new decade, and beyond. At a personal level, I question, “Where do we want to live? Do we roll the dice and buy a house? Where would we want to raise a family? They’re the same questions that people in their late twenties have considered for generations, but now, the answers seem suddenly blurry. They’ve become questions for tomorrow, in every sense.
There’s an end in sight, in Melbourne anyway. With every day we see a lower number of new cases, the sense of hope is a little greater. Both are creeping in the right direction, but nothing is certain. We’ve learned that the hard way already.
For now, I can walk five kilometres from my door. I can leave my house for an hour each day, but only for a good reason. We stay apart to stay together, and we listen for the train on the Upfield line.
- Edited by Radhika Sharma