In my imagination, it happened like a movie. A sunny, summer day near some golden wheatfields in the middle of the Czech Republic. Grasshoppers making that characteristic, dry, whittling sound, like someone was holding a knife at a 45 degree angle over a moving sharpening stone and then started strumming it like a guitar at light speed. Birds chirp as the camera pans down from on high coming over what looks like a train station.
Just like this…
The view meanders over construction equipment; something is being built. Your eyes undulate over tractors and piles of rebar, until finally settling on what looks like the beginning of an overpass, a bridge possibly. The movement stops, and the camera slowly zooms in on what appears to be a massive bolt. With the bolt filling the frame, you wonder why the view is lingering over this seemingly inconsequential object, the yellow sparkle in the corner teasing at the golden sunlight to be enjoyed if the camera would just look up. The bolt slips suddenly with a sharp creak. The screen instantly goes black…
I chuckle to myself in a window as I watch a man in a suit leap awkwardly through those same wheatfields, skipping occasionally over what must have been large dirt clods, and running at a speed that seemed like he had challenged a light particle to a race. I found the whole situation quite humorous: at the first sign of our moving train car unexpectedly not moving anymore, this man had grabbed his luggage instantaneously, wrenching the door at the rear of the car open and tearing off through the tall stalks as I watched. I found this peculiar as the halting motion of the train felt like an overzealous brake, and nothing to be scared for your live over. But I guess you never know how you will act in a particularly advanced state of panic until you actually experience one.
I was amused by his unwarranted fear, just as I was amused that my friend, Steph’s, face had smashed into the seat in front of her with the unforeseen stop. She rubbed her face vigorously, trying to alleviate the pain, as I looked around and saw felled wires next to the train. Something had happened, but at the moment I didn’t know what. I was sure it was something dumb, and certainly something to laugh at.
Slowly, people came to their senses and loaded off the train, through the very door the man had wrested open. As the passengers descended and looked around, I started to understand that maybe the situation was more dire than I thought. Every single person that disembarked off the train looked forward, and stopped dead in their tracks, bursting instantly into tears, their faces twisting with the anguish of pure horror.
All I could think about earlier that day was how much I hated people, especially people who followed the rules. We had set up camp in a nice compartment, only to have some German assholes kick us out. Deep down, I knew I should have understood. They had reserved the compartment after all. But no, I just decided to be salty, clinging to every frustrating detail about them, observed and perceived. Fuck them and their rich-ass tickets, fuck their stupid vacation. Oh, and they all had Iron Maiden shirts on, heading to a huge concert in Prague. Fuck Iron Maiden, too, that old ass shit.
As we set off walking towards the front of the train to look for another comfy compartment, the Czech conductor stopped us and checked our tickets. As he looked at our seat numbers, his face ratcheted up like mine when I’m listening to a lame-ass Iron Maiden song, and he wagged his finger, pointing to the back and grabbing me by the wrist. Nowhere else in Eastern Europe do conductors care about seat numbers, but this little 5 foot tall Eichmann was going to march us to the camps himself. Still salty.
Our spot was the only train car that had row seating, and it felt very un-European. Irritation badgered my senses as I attempted to regain my composure. I decided a distraction was the best way to feel better, so I pulled my camera out to show Steph pictures of my recent trip to Germany. We sailed through the Czech countryside, laughing and telling stories as the lush greenness outside of the window stretched into spinach noodles, the trees pulling out into long shapes like the surrounding stars as a spaceship jumps to hyperdrive. And then just as abruptly as the Starship Enterprise coming out of Warp 7, a strong deceleration sent Steph’s face careening into unyielding plastic.
The carnage.
That creaking bolt had foreshadowed a disaster. In actuality, a span of bridge being built had collapsed onto the tracks. This freak occurrence happened just as the train was nearing that very location. The engineer had noticed the collapse, and pulled the emergency brake, causing the sudden decrease in speed. But it was too late. Several train cars went over the fallen bridge, killing several and injuring many more. Thanks to the laws of physics, the force steadily diminished with each car after the other, and once it hit us, the only casualty was Kelly’s poor nose. Besides that, me and my friends were fine.
Some time later, a massive crowd started to gather at the train station. Some cried, but most were glassy-eyed with shock. Some were stoic, but had managed to get their hands on any available alcohol.
This badass was not trippin’ at all
Though the most injured of all our group, Steph was not about to sit around and despair, and she would be damned if this was going to ruin her trip. She took charge, rounding up our friend group and convincing us to walk to the town center.
Along the way, we dawdled in the numbing elation of having survived a catastrophe, the zen-like stillness of the air cut elegantly by birdsong, as the newly-recognized sound of each individual breath caused the reminder and pondering of our existential being. With time, each of us were roughly torn from the blissful bedsheets of that keen contemplation of self as loud, obnoxious ambulance sirens sliced through our trance like an alarm clock with no snooze button. A pit in all of our stomachs grew exponentially knowing that every passing ambulance could mean another spiritless body, robbed of its faculties to share in our meditations forever. And that line of emergency vehicles seemed to stretch till the End Times.
Through the kindness of random individuals (and a semi-pervy bus driver who played a flirty game with the boundaries of creepiness, allowing for the first laughs after the accident) we caught a series of buses and trains to Prague.
“I love American girls!”
Those few individuals that I had cursed through my teeth earlier that day actually ended up saving our lives with their hard-assedness. If the Germans hadn’t kicked us out to eventually end up in row seating, hundreds of pounds of heavy luggage could have crushed our necks, and the poor bastards, having last seen us walking forward, probably feared we were dead. As for the fascistic Czech; I think it’s clear that we all owe him a favor for not ending up battered and jellified under a pile of jagged steel. In short, I got put in my place regarding what is important in this world, and what is just pointless rancor. After that long and taxing day, we were all famished, and headed to a local restaurant where we almost blew our life savings enjoying life with food and drink.
Finally safe and freaking exhausted.
Putting back gulps of fiery liquor and sucking in puffs of a water pipe, I came to the conclusion that killing yourself slowly over a long century of indulging in life’s pleasures is far superior than it happening all at once.
Lesson learned: Cliche much? Never forget to listen to your breaths and value life. Oh, and ALWAYS sit at the back of a train.
–Dana (19), Baltimore, MD, with my girls still waiting to exhale in the Czech Republic