The Train That Never Waits

By Dr. Elinor Garely


InMyPersonalOpinion.Life

The Platform of Dreams

I arrive early.


I sit on the bench.


I chat with others waiting for their train.


I hear it approach.


I stand at the platform’s edge.


I am ready.


I am not allowed to board.

The doors open and close quickly — not with haste, but with precision.


They do not malfunction. They do not hesitate.


They close just as I step forward.

In my recurring dream, I miss five trains in a row.


Not because I’m late.


Not because I’m lost.


But because the doors close deliberately, decisively… just as I reach them.

I consider my options:


Should I try another way to reach my destination?


I was invited. I RSVP’d. I prepared.


Now I am stranded — not by chance, but by design.

Should I rent a car?

Grab a taxi?
Just as I begin to act, another train door slams shut.

Fortunately, I wake up.


But the dream lingers.

From Dream to Reality: The Bench Is Not Neutral

The platform is no longer metaphor. It is the place where we wait, and where we are watched.
 The bench is not a resting place. It is a trap. We are told to be patient. To wait for the next train. To trust that access will come. But history tells us otherwise.

• The Great Depression taught us that delay deepens collapse.
• The 2008 financial crisis showed us that deregulation and silence breed systemic rot.
• The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how waiting for aid, for truth, for leadership…costs lives.

And now, in 2025, the economy is not recovering. It is unraveling.

• Inflation is no longer a spike — it is a spiral.
• Housing is no longer unaffordable — it is unattainable.
• Aid is no longer delayed — it is denied.

If we sit and wait, it will be too late. The train is not coming back. The doors are not opening. The platform is not safe!

The Station Is America. The Train Is Access. The Doors Are Policy.

• Executive orders that silence dissent.
• Gag clauses that punish truth-tellers.
• Bureaucratic chokeholds that deny aid, justice, and speech.

These are not glitches.
They are governance by exclusion.

Doors Slamming Under This Administration

Executive Order 14149 — Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship, signed January 20, 2025, is framed as a defense of free speech. But legal analysts warn it enables retaliatory action against dissenters through funding revocations and gag clauses.

📎 Federal Register, 2025-01902
Oxfam America warns that the reinstated Global Gag Rule “will deepen inequality and endanger lives,” forcing clinics to close and silencing providers.
📎 Oxfam Press Release, Jan 24, 2025
Human Rights Watch and Advancing Justice–Atlanta document visa revocations and surveillance targeting international students and aid workers who criticize policy.
📎 Advancing Justice–Atlanta, April 17, 2025

Expert Voices: When Dreams Echo Reality

“Censorship can’t erase facts: The climate crisis is real, human-made, and deadly.”
Dr. Ali Khan, former CDC Director


📎 Mother Jones, Oct 2025
“Climate injustice is not just a political failure. It is a legal wrong.”
Lotte Leicht, Climate Rights International


📎 Heinrich Böll Foundation, Aug 2025
“Your right to say something depends on what the administration thinks of it — which is not free speech at all.”
Will Creeley, Legal Director, FIRE


📎 FIRE Gala Transcript, April 18, 2023
“What we’re seeing is — in effect — the censorship that is the mark of an authoritarian regime.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)


📎 Fox News Interview, Sept 2025

The Platform Must Become the Reform

• We must get off the bench.
• We must stop waiting.
• We must use the platform, not as a place of delay, but as a launchpad for reform.

This means:

• Refusing passive citizenship
Civic engagement is not a hobby. It is a necessity.
• Demanding economic transparency
Budgets are moral documents. Show us the receipts.
• Protecting dissenters and truth-tellers
Journalists, aid workers, whistleblowers, and cultural critics must be shielded — not silenced.
• Rebuilding civic infrastructure
From housing to healthcare to education, we must reconstruct access from the ground up.

The Train Will Never Wait. We Will Not Be Silent.

The dream was a warning.


The platform is a stage.


The bench is a decision.
We rise.


We speak.


We build.

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Author Bio
Dr. Elinor Garely is the founder of InMyPersonalOpinion.Life, where she leads civic storytelling, editorial critique, and advocacy for free expression. As a longtime writer, commentator and educator, her work bridges personal narrative and public policy, focusing on how institutional structures shape the possibilities for dissent, equity, and societal accountability.