Saturday
has passed by in the following fashion: I woke up at 7, ate my oatmeal, crossed
two borders and one time belt, and at 10 pm was seating in the Italian regional
train with my feet on the opposite seat. The train was supposed to get me from
Milan to the small town nearby, but was already late for 20 minutes at the very
least. The window was showing the pitch-dark night so overwhelming and tenacious
that it seemed to brake the train, pull it back – we were stopping every couple
of minutes. The train was staying, passengers were keeping quiet, and I was
looking into the window although there was nothing but the darkness outside.
At some
point of that hopeless wait I came over the thought that the system of regional
train connections in the region of Lombardy might be the perfect metaphor for
life. Of course we would like to know for sure, but in fact we all are rushing
through the life being blinded by the darkness outside the train – it’s not only
that you can’t see anything through the windows, but the windows themselves can
be sealed with awkward graffiti so densely that it wouldn’t let inside even roentgen
rays, let alone the lights of rare and lonely lamps along the railway. There
are lights in the carriages, some bright and reassuring, some pale or the ones
which don’t work at all; on your seat thousands were sitting, lying and putting
their shoes before. Trains may stop, passengers may change, but all of this –
in the total darkness of warm, velvety Italian nights, without timetables and
even station names assigned. But after all, the train that stopped is nothing –
as long as it will move again into the night. What is scary is to stand on the
platform so completely alone and wait for the next train to come while having
no guarantees it’s ever coming at all. Isn’t it frightening – to spend a life staying
on the platform in the dark, watching the trains which never stop rushing past?
And
everybody is ever afraid – that their train is way too fast or too slow, that
they missed the stop, or chose the wrong carriage, or that they are those who
stand outside on the platform and look on the trains flashing past. Everybody
is afraid, and there are few things in the world which would be as promising
and full of hope as being in the train which moves to some distant and
uncertain aim, but there might be something wrong with humans, with the trains
or with both as we keep being afraid, trying to get out and changing trains
over and over again.
It was
almost a relief when the train finally moved. There were lights of a distant
city in front of us, so I kind of hoped it was mine and started packing. It might
be personal, but somehow I get all itchy from all these promises and hopes of a
moving train. So, when it has stopped, I got out standing for a while on a
train station, waiting for people to leave until it was empty, warm and
calming.
Just
waiting for yet another train, you know.
