I discovered on a Wednesday not long ago, that the train goes slow when it rains. A trip that usually takes 25 minutes took 35; one more minute per station, how do I know these calculations? Well, I'm weird and think of these things while they happen (or later after). (hahaha laterafter).
I walk up to the train station (which is on its own a 13-17 minute walk from my house), and as it always happens, I see the train already departing. Fuck. I say. Fuck. I hate it when I see it and I'm just so unable to catch it. I rather wait an eternity than to actually see it leave before getting to the station. I rather be blind before seeing it depart without me. (So dramatic, Joel. Thanks, Joel. You're welcome).
So, as it was a cloudy day, and it was only 2:twenty-ish pm, the train was running in intervals of 11 minutes. And again I cursed. Damn. Fuck. When I got to the platform there was nobody. Nobody. Of course, everyone had already left in the stupid train, leaving me! Bastards. The banner with the moving, red letters said: "The next train to Sagrado Corazón (for some reason there are lots of space between that and this): arrives in 8 minutes". Shit. Oh, well. The life of pedestrians. So, I waited.
In the meantime I started gnawing the nail of my middle finger, as it was too long. I'm also weird like that. I keep one nail long so that I can scratch pleasurably whenever I want. If I had all my nails short (and believe me, after biting them, what's left is only good for caressing, not scratching) I would die of itch. I would. And it's not like I am prone to itches, but sometimes you itch, here, there, somewhere, sometime, and you just have to. I took a bite out of it and spat it over the hand rail, and wondered if the people that were under the platform (its an elevated platform bytheway) noticed a piece of clear nail falling from the sky. What was left on the tip of my finger was an askew uneven design of nail, it poked out on one corner, like the tip of a dagger. "El próximo tren hacia Sagrado Corazón llega en 3 minutos". Three minutes. So, again I went onto my nail, I looked at it at different angles, against the cloudy sky, or in the shadow, I bent it, it hurt, I flicked it with another (shorter) nail, it made a snapping sound. " arrives in 1 minute". And that's when I heard the train bells. Very particular bell too. Very train-like, hopefully you have heard train bells, it's like (oh my god, a revelation just came to me!) it's like a school bell!
I get in the train and there is someone in my seat in the back. More quiet cursing. Asshole. So I sat on the seats of the middle, next to the window. As the train pulls off, a light rain starts to fall. Then the rain presses on harder; it beat the steal ceiling of train hard. And then, the train slowed down. I could see the rails clearly. I could have counted them if I wanted, instead I read a book I brought. Never did I realize that I was going to be attacked by a tree.
The train has a gutter on the side of the ceiling. When it is not raining it drips water, lots of it actually, maybe from some cooling system or maybe its air conditioning residue, I don't know (I should ask). So, when it rains the gutters spills gallons of water, and since the gutter has an opening next to the door, sometimes people get wet.
So it was the smoothest ride ever on the train. I could hear the screech of the metallic wheels as they turned on the rails, it went on forever, of course, the slowness of the train made sure of that, but also, the sound was milder, not as teeth-cracking as it sometimes is.
I arrived to the station. It was a station that I had never stopped before. It was the first station after the train goes underground. It was pretty. But, also, interesting, because of the chute-like tunnel from which the train comes. It looked like a covered slide, like the ones in water parks... But it had the rough surface of concrete, and a cryptic feeling. This is far in the tunnel though, the station is actually quite pretty and comfy, with high, bowely (if that's a word), church-like ceiling.
Anyway. I got out of the train, and went to the University. Needless to say that my shoes, my socks, the bottom of my pants up to my knees, and my backpack got soaked, despite the umbrella. You see, that's why I love huge umbrellas. Not huge, hugeamungous umbrellas, even when they are nuisance to carry. As I'm walking I can see only my feet and some space in front of me, because the umbrella is covering half of my head and face (well, it was raining extremely hard). The rain was so hard that the whole view turned into a gray, unfocused haze. And then it happened. The tree attacked me. It happened like in the movies. A movie of a natural disaster that you see trees overturning and branches fall, and you say, "that doesn't actually happen to people", or "it happens but no one really sees it happening". Well, it happened to me. The branch that fell from the tree was at least 24 inches long, and maybe it had like an inch in diameter... It was gray, and it looked old and empty on the inside. So I guess it was a dead branch hanging to the tree by mere instinct. But when the rain fell on it, it became more brittle and it fell right in front of me!!! I said: "whoa, shit", and jumped backwards. I couldn't help to look up, even in the rain. "The tree's attacking!". The branch snapped in two as soon as it hit the ground.
And then, the day went on. Wet. Gray. Beautiful. I did what I had to do at school, (I left at like 8:30), and the night passed with no more experiences. Except, that I think I saw someone that I knew from high school on the bus from Pizza Hut (oh yeah, I went to Pizza Hut and (me and my friend) and we ordered hamburger meat on it, and they gave us italian sausage, we thought that they thought that we would think that we didn't know the difference between the ingredients, but we knew the difference, but we ate the pizza anyway because we were starving); so, I think I saw a guy I knew in high school. I think he looked at me for some time and recognized me, and I did the same but I wasn't sure. But before I could confirm he was who I thought he was, he stepped out the bus. I said to my friend: "see if he limps", "limp?", he asked, "yes, he limped in school, because of a surgery", "oh". But neither of us could see behind the glass window of the bus in the dark.
Quite an adventure. Slow trains. Wrong pizza. Limping memories. Gray rain. Tomb-like tunnels. Trees attacking. (Treebeard!)...
This was a boring post, wasn't it?
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