The stone eagles keep the entrance, they’ve been here longer than I was. For now I’m good to go but they’re there, waiting for their call. This theme follows with each step I take descending onto the platform. A three-meters-under memorial (a grave?) to the Empire’s old glory days. Themed as a romance castle with lights equally as dark as one would imagine an early medieval Kurdland outpost. An arrival board brings me to the modern age, be it the 80s , nonetheless closer.  

8 minutes, an eternity. With each passing year I’m becoming a time consumer; I save the time ordering my food in, to save it for staring at a wall. But when it is the wall that tells me how much time I should spend looking at it, then we have a problem. I think about pulling Tolstoi out of my backpack, but there isn't anybody who would look at me. Everyone is at work, even the resident homeless guy is out, shouting political ideas previously removed from the mainstream. I wonder when the world goes even more insane, will today’s delusionals re-integrate, or come up with crazier shit to reclaim on the fringes. Will the insane call for single-mandate constituencies, and bike path expansions in between the ministries? I lose track of time, the rails begin vibrating. Somehow its quieter than my shaking windows at night. The door opens to a mostly empty cart. My favourite seat is free.

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I have exactly two stations before the busy one, a train station-mall-tourist-hotspot monstrosity. I think of Sofia, wondering what she’s doing. She probably still hates me for appearing in her life every half a year to be her weekend love only to disappear into the dark. She’ll be back the moment the sun returns, or maybe I will. Maybe this time it will be my loneliness that will surrender first. A white flag of admitting that for a moment I need someone to help me carry the weight of nothingness. And again our skin will touch, and we'll tell ourselves that this time it will go on longer than the sunrise, but we both lie, or maybe I think so to make myself feel better about lying. And, the whiteness of her complexion will again overwhelm me. Even though we both are pale, we come from places where the sun visits for quickly but intensely.  Her skin has this light in it, as if flashes of all the pictures taken of her cover her arms, and make each beauty mark glow. My skin grays in comparison,it was  lived throughout. Not like it came from manual labor, it was never my thing; maybe my blood turned gray from all the fucking complaining I’ve been doing. No idea how people still catch onto that.  I left a few women, and some men, waiting for an image of what they hoped to be their home. Never agreed to build it for them, but they never listened. So now I stopped, I stopped promising, but something went wrong and now there’s only two people who reply. And sometimes even they don't, not with malice but with compassion. The lamp above is too bright, reminds me of the dentist. We arrive at the next stop.

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A guy with a guitar enters. Although he looks  young, maybe mid-twenties he has that feel of a someone who’s been around. The old kind of a hippie, in a young man's body. Parachute pants, and a haircut that would have him banned from at least a quarter of zine-making workshops. As if the 90s never left. I can feel that he’s not from here, but then again no one is.

I came here 5 years ago hoping that my old self would not fit into the carry-on. He did. At least I had a 1 year break between the thought catching up to me. A fun time. Alcohol never stopped being cool. That's the good thing about my hobby - no matter where there will always be someone willing to join you for it. Even the muslims sneak in shots under the table. At least here they do, I see it on my way to my ex-work, and now my main drinking spot. Where the manager likes me more now that I’m on the other side of the counter. I tell my mother I still work there in case she calls me on a Wednesday, and you can hear the music in the back.

The guy starts playing a rhythm of a song I recognize, but the song is also not from here. I know it from back home. Purest blues I ever heard. As sharp as the syringe full of inspiration. My dad used to play it during our long, silent night car rides. We wandered around. The route back from the grocery shop took hours. His eyes used to be so full of nostalgia for things I only begin to understand now.

After finishing one of their greatest hits the guy extends his Marley cap. Our co-travellers do not appreciate this uniquely Slavic depth of melancholy. My fiver descends deep in the crocheted hat.

“I did not expect to hear The Porridge here.” All that poetry to choose such a stupid name.

“Best that this country has to offer.”
I ask “isn't it a bit pointless to play music that no one can understand?.”

“You understood it.” It’s true, sometimes it feels there's more of us than them here. But we’re silent, and the loud ones have a tint of inferiority. It’s beyond my understanding how someone can look around this cart, and think it's better than home.

“I’m from Bielskie, originally. Though I’ve been here since 2014, out of that seven years on the street. It’s a nice life, not that many responsibilities. I like it here.” He’s a bit older than I thought, but his face, like his style, froze in time. Before I get a chance to reply he says “I see you’re getting there. Give it two more years, you should start learning guitar. At some point you break, the emails get to you. You will see that the desire to have a balcony will bring you to your knees. All of the things you believe in will turn out to be insignificant. You got the face of one of us.” What did I hear. “What the fuck are you on? Rebel with a stolen, and a dead either way cause. Midwest Black Panther.  Lenon without his self appointed divinity. At least I earn to enjoy my addictions, I still contribute. I’m worth something.” He walks away silently. What a cunt. Nowadays everyone feels the need to convince you of their philosophy. They can't sleep at night if they don't tell you the newest way to combat their angst, or the system.

Next stop. Guy moves to another cart, we look at each other through the window. He slowly mouths some words. I can’t deduce what, but his last words reach in a place lost more than the pile of unopened government, and insurance letters kept on my desk. My insurer gave up on me recently; I haven’t been responding for over half a year now. Cancellation of the family coverage, you are done at 26 Years of age. And, regardless, my father stopped caring enough to fight them. Although it was my decision to leave the nest, or its remnants. At 19 I was so fucking courageous. High on optimism fueled by the still present feeling of superiority. I felt so damn better coming back home for Christmas to the shitty little town where Pride gets terrorised by pots of rotten nails, throwing my money earned slaving away in twelve-hour shifts. But that’s gone now, some passed on, some just passed, and I’m still here. No one to show that I’m so cool to. So I have to get my antidepressants from a strange man somewhere in the Czech highlands. Because my pride allows me only to reply “it’s going” whenever the mothership calls. I feel like an alien sent to Earth to test the humans, but I used all the tranquilizer. So, everyday I go to ground zero, and wait for them to answer the call to pick me back up. but I haven't called, and i never will  

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