Coming to think of it a train is nothing but a messenger.
And is in itself the longest message
available on shore.
A message in a can
comparing to a longest message ever delivered
which is a message
in a bottle.
Train brings you to your destination point
uncut, as a trout in a good restaurant
baked in a stove.
Modern trains travel faster and preserve you in a better shape and form
so that you still can pretend to be a living thing
stepping out of that iron can
you’ve been preserved in
for the time-being.
Leaving it you rarely smell
you barely walk
But yes you still
can
tell a story.
But what kind of a story do you tell?
Hopping off the train
or rather sneaking out of it
you feel odd as if for a few hours you’ve been asked to answer the same, long, tiresome question
asked by someone who doesn’t care to listen to your response.
And then upon arrival they say to a traveler:
“How was the trip?”
Well
it was long and boring as a letter I once wrote to someone who didn’t knew my language.
And if you were to read that letter now
you would say:
“Please, state it briefly: was it a “yes” or a “no?”
And (as the train that brought the post I was sending back home)
it stated the simple stance:
Told you
I told you.
Told you.
I told you.
And that odd feeling you sensed that day will remain, until your last day
it claimed:
you told me
yes, you told me
you told me
yes, you told me
And the train taking me through these odd hours was like a ticking clock
staring at the wall
never looking back at me
as if I simply was not there
any more
and the conversation I was having
was no longer delivering a message
but simply an iron can
rattling at the tail
of a cat
running away from it’s own
Self.

28.06.2018

text: Aleksei Bobrovnikov

drawing: Laura Fortin