The pain in my head splits itself into a branching line along my left eye and trickles down my cheek. I shut my eyes against the bright LED lights in the train, and my eyelids feel like veils made of weighted blankets. I’m suffering from a tiredness that just doesn’t seem to stop, and this headache is killing me. Being alive and well rested feels like a part of me that is stepping further and further away, refusing to come along. Being an adult is like having a never-ending list of things I need to do, while all I want to do is stay in bed and listen to the rain making a soft symphony against my window.
The smell of incense and elderly people in wheelchairs bathed in stale sweat fills my nostrils, and my mind drifts off again. Saints look down on me and shake their heads in disapproval. I think of all the things that I have done in the dark and will probably do again with pleasure. I didn’t quite realize I had to make a choice here. You’re supposed to taste and try everything in life, aren’t you? Then why am I being punished now after all these years? Maybe those radical preachers were right, and I am making my slow descent into hell. This stabbing headache is the beginning of my downfall, I bet. I have always fancied a dramatic fall from grace.
I reach for the water bottle in my backpack, and it makes a metal clang as I pull it out, but it seems I have already had my two liters of water for the day. I close my eyes in disappointment and immediately open them again. It’s not like I can sleep in this state, and there is also the fear that my backpack might get stolen. There is nothing of great value inside of it, though. My house keys, smelly work clothes that I have worn all day, the queer horror book that I’m currently reading, and my planner. I think the backpack is worth more than everything inside it combined, but I would still probably cry if my planner covered in stickers were to get stolen. The sentimental value of having collected those stickers, you know. I let out a deep sigh as the train suddenly comes to a stop a few meters from the station. Now what?
I hold my hands above my eyes and against the window of the train. Towering empty offices next to the station have some windows lit in an ominous way. A team of ghosts works away inside, stamping papers and archiving presentations. I can’t tell where these office buildings begin or eventually end in a veil of darkness. The night cloaks the city in a glittering ball gown with towering heels. As the city adjusts her tiara she turns around in cinematic slow motion. With her comically long eyelashes, she winks at me and leaves behind a cloud of Britney Spears perfume. Enamored, I sink back into my chair.
I am a person who must work and live by day but was secretly born for the night. As soon as I saw the light, I made everything dark again. And so the story was already over before it even began. So now I write my escapades on pitch-black paper, unreadable for Miss Morning Glory. A whispered secret for the night, just for her to read. I blow her a kiss and step out of the train. I click my heels and arrive home.
Martijn Winkel 