“Come, sit here” he said, “little girl, look” pointing to the dark window, “this is the journey that you have once taken, that have lead you to where you are now. So sit patently and watch closely!” The man with kind eyes showed the smiley and unsuspecting girl to her seat on the empty train. She had embarked without knowing where the train would go or who she would encounter whilst on it. The magnificent engine just pulled out of nowhere, in her room, golden and red, inviting her with a curious murmur to take a look inside. The girl was standing on the steps, with her nightgown touching the floor, when the man reached for her hand from the top. Now she sat comfortably and was ready for what would be unveiled before her eyes.
They whizzed by hills and rivers, buildings of all sizes, houses empty and filled with love. There were bridges and pastures, chapels and cathedrals, slanted chimneys and solar panels. The brave moon was shining, lending light to the magnificent display of places once seen, free, and places would be in the future. The girl chuckled as the train hit a curve, the man sat beside her and pointed to each significant sight, adding his own commentary to the journey. Slowly each building became familiar to her. She pressed her nose against the window, breathing heavily, covering the view with steam along with every breath exhaled. The outside seemed cold, icy, but radiant from the early rays of the spring young sun.
Then she recognised the Vltava hurling towards the south right below their train. “This is how you can see the truth” said he who was still sitting beside her, towering over her like the most fail proof protection. The bridge that bore the name of Charles then took them from one familiar site to the other. The tracks of the trams were used to fly their train around and around the city. Inside the old town, outside the new town. Suddenly she saw what had once been. She saw her endless journeys from one end of the city to the other. She saw seasons change the scenery and her in them. She saw herself struggling with teenage idealism. Korunovacni. Parzizska. Vysocanska. Sokolovska. Suchdol. V Udoli. The people paraded onwards and the tears were streaming down her innocent cheeks. She saw her past and she saw the future and all at once she was in the past and in the present. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone” he then placed his arm around the little girl. But there was nobody else on the streets with her. Nobody to sit beside her on a lonely, rainy day somewhere on Wenceslas square. But somehow the past had seemed joyful. She saw days filled with hope, places filled with dreams, herself as a lover filled with love. The all too familiar routes she took from places unimportant to home. Quietening warmth ran through her body as she watched the weightless snow fall to the road, free of asphalt, just outside the forest, her forest. Every memory then soon followed and she stared out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of every scene enacted in the past, in real time, in the future. She felt herself free, happy. She also felt her heart ache from the void of love. She felt her stomach tighten into a knot when she could feel the end near, when she could see that once she would forget what it all felt like. Dread came over her as she faced feeling like a stranger in her own town. “Have to learn to love the flawed” said the man. She knew that what he had meant was that life was flawed and nothing in the present could change the past. The past remains as flawless as we dream it to be. The present stays as flawed as we can bear it to be. The future is too close to place distance between things done and consequences not yet mature.
The lights of the city grew ever smaller. She was ready to get off, to change the past, to live the once had, but he was firm in holding her hand. “Here comes the next one soon, just sit tight and you’ll see it will all be all right”.
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