People create air pockets on buses and trains all the time. My stop will be coming up, and I’ll make my way to the exit doors and will be blocked by someone. It’s usually a man with a large backpack still on his back standing in the way. He’s blocking the exit path, and there’s a considerable space in front of him where all of us could congregate before the bus stops. Instead, people build up like a dam of water behind him. This happens a lot, and it’s intriguing to see what the other blocked passengers do. Some surrender to the blocker and his backpack and wait, others contort their bodies and miraculously squeeze past him without making bodily contact. Others politely ask the person to move aside. As soon as he steps aside, a rebalance happens, and everyone flows past him and into the pocket he created. Now that the system is back in equilibrium, people can exit quickly, the bus stays on time, and the ongoing passengers are happy. Most of the time, he’s oblivious to what he’s doing and quite happily and absent mindlessly moves aside and then goes back to looking at his phone.

Photo by diGital Sennin on Unsplash