I'm on board the "ice train" (as my Australian former fellow apprentice would say) watching the landscape rush by with its factory buildings, scrap yards, snowy forests and groupings of smallholdings in between. I guess they must be there since through the caked with mud double glass window I can hardly see anything. Is this Frankfurt? Must be, since the lady with the strange accentuation in her voice announced it. Couldn't there be a washing lot with giant brushes just outside the dead-end station? Like the ones in a car wash? I would press my nose against the cold glass and watch the foamy water an the blue and yellow bristles brush by and take away the mud that's been splashed against the windows ever since – it seems – the carriage left the factory. The foam of the rotating brushes would be rinsed off with clear water and after that there would be a drying device going back and forth after which there would be a swift wax spray and floppy long black stripes of felty cloth would polish the red and white express train an leave me in gleaming sunlight having a clear shot at all the beauty of Frankfurt City.
Not able to distinguish whether we just pass the Frankfurt outskirts or Offenbach already, I realize that I asked for too much. But if it wasn't for a rotating brush, couldn't there just wait someone on the Fulda platform with a bucket of water and a mop, walk along the train as it waits for the Hanau passengers to board, find the spot where I'm seated on the other side of the pane and wash the half square meter beside me so I can see?
Leaving Hanau without recognising it I reduce my wish again. Couldn't it just rain? Big drops of melted snowflakes taking away the brown layer on that window, each with a big splash? Raindrops chasing each other down the suddenly shimmering crystal-clear surface?
Reaching what might be Fulda I give up. Give up on that company with the muddy windows that has me 80 minutes waiting for a train. That hands me connections knowing one train in line has a delay that will stop me catching the next one. That gives me my money back only if I fill out a passenger request form that's 120 cm long! That has me standing in class two even though I have a ticket and without even bothering to let me sit down in empty class one.
I was going to give up on you already when you helped the CASTOR reach its destination. And when you took all the stuff that's worth something for your private purpose and left what needed the most maintenance for society to own and pay for. I was bound to give up when you started cutting off more and more stations that had only few people travelling per day. I intended giving up on you long ago.
But every time I give in again. With my back trip already booked on your luxury line. Paying you for all you do. For the atomic power you use to keep running. For classing people, for the delays, for everything. Lacking an alternative.
Not able to distinguish whether we just pass the Frankfurt outskirts or Offenbach already, I realize that I asked for too much. But if it wasn't for a rotating brush, couldn't there just wait someone on the Fulda platform with a bucket of water and a mop, walk along the train as it waits for the Hanau passengers to board, find the spot where I'm seated on the other side of the pane and wash the half square meter beside me so I can see?
Leaving Hanau without recognising it I reduce my wish again. Couldn't it just rain? Big drops of melted snowflakes taking away the brown layer on that window, each with a big splash? Raindrops chasing each other down the suddenly shimmering crystal-clear surface?
Reaching what might be Fulda I give up. Give up on that company with the muddy windows that has me 80 minutes waiting for a train. That hands me connections knowing one train in line has a delay that will stop me catching the next one. That gives me my money back only if I fill out a passenger request form that's 120 cm long! That has me standing in class two even though I have a ticket and without even bothering to let me sit down in empty class one.
I was going to give up on you already when you helped the CASTOR reach its destination. And when you took all the stuff that's worth something for your private purpose and left what needed the most maintenance for society to own and pay for. I was bound to give up when you started cutting off more and more stations that had only few people travelling per day. I intended giving up on you long ago.
But every time I give in again. With my back trip already booked on your luxury line. Paying you for all you do. For the atomic power you use to keep running. For classing people, for the delays, for everything. Lacking an alternative.
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