1907-2007

'One day the Earth will be
just a blind space turning...'

There was a final journey, with grey skies above and the timetable neatly folded in his top pocket. The deathly grey look on the other passengers' faces did not trouble him. He noted the number of the carriage and looked out to the slightly curved window one final time, only to see his own insubstantial reflection gazing darkly back at him. It was as if the whole of human history had flashed before his very eyes, down there in the vacant underground spaces. Morpheus completed his crossword and then turned to share a joke with Mises van der Rohe.

Some people tumbled out not realizing it was the final destination, the last day. Businesses and restaurants would continue to flourish up above in the world of men and women, and yet down there a forest would grow one day and one bird would sing in it. The sounds from this sociable little world of theirs gradually lose their amplitude and peter out into a set of muffled half-truths, as if they'd been born beneath the sea, next to the curled seaweed.

A man in a dark grey suit makes his way to the lost and found only to realize it is closed for the day. Nothing can be retrieved he is informed in a matter-of-fact way. There is no good reason to unnecessarily upset the poor man. A woman will look nervously around her and suddenly feel that she shouldn't be here at all and that there's been some terrible mistake. An old man, full of doubts, wonders if his grandchild is waiting for him now that it is teatime. "What must they all be doing?" he asks himself, scratching his head.

When no more exiting passengers can be seen and the shutters of the lift tightly sealed, a woman from eastern Europe suddenly jumps into the last carriage as the train enters the cave's mouth and disrupts the whole solemn passing of time. 

"What do you think you're doing?" asks the stationmaster with what authority he has left.

"I'm only here for a short time,"she responds. "Am I going in the right direction?"

A hundred years later she gets out of what she calls "the green room," calmly steps out of the station into the bright sunlight, her face darkened, her mind stunned by the light's brilliance. She asks me, "is it November now, the time for forgiveness? and proceeds to tell me her story? Despite all this time passing I recognized her immediately by the way she said "Pffft!"

"What took you so long?" I ask.

"Don't you know," she reminded me, "royalty always teaches ordinary people the virtue of waiting?"