Monday, March 17, 2008

A picture worth remembering

I stand on a train station, and the train arrives. I am amazed - it is much cleaner and nicer than any other trains that I've seen today or before even. The passengers are unusually friendly and smiling. The attendant is calmly talking to them and making them the tea. More amazingly - this is the train to my destination, and I see a familiar face in there - and I give my shoes and other stuff through the window, because I already want to be served this wonderful tea - and this tiny station I am standing in, is tremendously short - and start to run to another carriage - because in this carriage the attendant is busy serving the tea.. But all the doors are hopelessly closed, and I keep running. My friend who was with me, is already far ahead - near the first carriage, whose doors are always open, and is already paying the fee to get on. The train slowly starts to move, and I realise I am going to stay on this platform, unless I do something. I see the nearest carriage door and start to force it open. It opens up a little bit, but since the train is already moving it is hard. I walk, without shoes, together with the train, while trying to force the door open, and the train gains more speed - but the door is still way too far from being open enough for me to squeeze myself in. I realize that I indeed will be probably left behind here - without the shoes and papers, or anyone I know. This gives a rise to the panic fear, and I scramble more - but still there's no realistic chance of getting on. Suddenly I notice there is someone on the other side of the door - there's an attendant from this carriage, who by some virtue have seen me trying to get in, and, against all rules and the regulations of safety, also forces the door open - and it starts to submiss to our joined efforts... She puts her foot in the way of the door so it does not close, and frees up her hand to give it to me. I almost hang on it, throw myself into the whatever little space the door has for me. I miss, and fall on my knee and my point of balance is still outside the carriage - now I have a prospect of staying at this station forever, in the form of molecules on the rails - if I fall, it's going to be the end... We are both granted with the understanding of the immediate possibility of this. She seems to be almost angry for this stupid mistake I made - and I do not know what my face looks like as I do not see it, and don't have the cycles to think about it - everything is concentrated on the one and only goal of getting into the train.. The few seconds seem to be eternity - and eventually, somehow, I get in. I stand in the exit compartment, stupidly shoeless, and now see her supervisor, who is shouting at her. She's speechless. Our hands still holding each other, I can feel hers tightening the grip, with her nails starting to bite my skin. This lasts. And suddenly I can hear the people bursting in applauds. I stand there, and do not know what to say - the stress of the situation made everything of feeling go away - I'm like a big pile of meat, or, pixels, for that matter, and I am just mentally not fully here yet. But we've made it - I'm on the train which moves faster and faster. And soon there will be the warm tea in the company of the people I know. But the painful sensation of these nails in my skin will still stay there in the corner of the mind - there's all too much in it for me to forget...

2 comments:

Gryc Ueusp said...

I think I get the message behind this post, but I'd just like to note that your blogposts have been gradually getting darker and darker. Are you feeling all right?

Dalien said...

Hi Gryc, thanks a lot for asking :-) Actually this post did not intend to convey much of the specific message - I just used it to capture an odd dream the human had today right at the time of the alarm clock rang :-) - since this is probably the surest place to have the things stored and not lost. (And I suspect that indeed all the darker watching/reading this weekend had to do with it).

Nonetheless I'll drop you an email - will be interesting to know the view from outside my own head - maybe I turned into a total bananas and never noticed :-)

p.s. on an unrelated note - I've got the C/ruby serverside hack (not using libsecondlife, with heavily autogenerated code) to a state where I can see a lot of blue space and 10 avatars (although i can not move them). Quite entertaining, although not much more than that for the moment...