Survivors
All of us are survivors,
And it is not important why we are spared
So long as we are aware that we have been
Passed over.
-- Oliver Bernard
The first morning in three that my normal train did not run late, and I managed to board the connecting train the Chinese lady usually takes. She was happy to see me, and she said that she should have walked with me two weeks ago when the train broke down because some minutes after I'd left, they were told the train was not going to be fixed anytime soon. She and her friend decided to go to work on foot but they did not really know the way and it took them a long time.
When the train flew across the bridge some metres above the streets, I looked down, and saw a fleeting flash of a white-haired man in a black suit on a tiny patch of grass scattering food to a gathering of squawking sea-gulls.
The taxi driver was from Wartag, Afghanistan. I wished I'd asked how to spell certain names. I asked him questions and he told me little pieces of history, minute morsels of his life. I had a little too much celebratory beer for my liking, but it seemed I made sense and apparently my directions were unambiguous. When we arrived around the corner across the street from my little box-home and he said, "I wish you a good life", there was little else for me to do but to wish him the same.
Posted by sniffles at May 08, 2002 11:55 PM