Train musings

I’d never really though of it this way, but riding a train is kind of like riding a giant metal worm. [As an aside, note to self: do NOT, under any circumstances, do a google image search containing the word 'worm' in order to illustrate a post]. It’s like you’ve been swallowed by the thing from Tremors, and it gulps you whole, luggage and all, before descending beneath the earth to arise somewhere else. Perhaps the bastard lovechild of Tremors and a tin can. And of course, Sunday nights is when the entire male youth population of Switzerland, decked out in their little pressed uniforms and their little machine guns, seem to be on the road from somewhere to somewhere else. Thankfully, the ones in uniform with guns are generally not the ones in uniform with beer. Still, where I have my crutches clasped between my knees, the youngling across from me has some kind of weapon pressed between his, and despite our beloved second amendment, I have to say I find it unnerving that someone who wouldn’t be allowed in a bar in the US (but would be granted a driver’s license) is allowed a weapon in Switzerland.

You have to hand it to them Swiss. Their country sure is a be-yoo-tiful place, gosh darnit. They have mountains and rivers and lakes and villages, and occasional castles, and things are actually green most of the time. Even well into the winter. The train rides are picturesque, taking you through rustic hamlets and old mining towns, interspersed with modern or antique cities of mini- to moderate size, and everything is clean. Squeeeeeeky, freakishly clean. I feel like if you sent the Smurfs, (otherwise known as the blue-suited street-sweeper corps of Geneva) to some random African country, with an equal amount of effort they would build an entire interstate highway system inside of a week. They could at least stop off in Cairo for a week or so; I’m sure they’d have the place looking spiffy in no time.



Cruising in from Germany towards the Swiss border, I was kidnapped by a corpulent woman with an incomprehensible accent and a small man and suitcase in tow. She had offered me the option of riding along on their group ticket, and while I saved €1,70 (actually, €3,70 if you count the money we forgot to pay for the tram) on the trip, I and the slightly confused looking youngish guy the lady also managed to snag paid for more than half the ticket. In any case, she swept me, the other guy, and my crutches up and deposited us in a corner of the train, where we proceeded to make small talk most of the way to Switzerland. I think her first question to me was if I could read. Or if I did read. She asked me things like, “do you read burks?” which turned out to mean “do you read books?” I ended up faking the title and author of a historical novel I pretended recently to have read (because I felt that edifying her on the subject of refugee security in Africa might be more than she had bargained for). We made small talk. It was difficult.

Many people assume I am German. These people were no exception. And like many Germans, I dare to say, who speak (only) standard, normal German, I hold a vague resentment towards speakers of dialect, as if they are deliberately trying to frustrate me by reducing my comprehension to approximately 30% of what they say. I, of course, am always the wronged party, and I draw my indignation by resorting to the usual argument of “I am a foreigner,” which is true but irrelevant in this situation, as I feel my comprehension is not much behind that of your average not-from-a-small-town-in-southern-Germany-German, and the latter group can’t draw their indignation from a sense of people making it hard because you’re not from around here. My traveling companions, the hefty lady From A Small Town in Southern Germany (which evokes mild terror among speakers of High German) spoke with a nearly unintelligible accent. It was like trying to speak Cockney with an American. She repeated a lot of her questions, and eventually we resorted to talking about the weather. Her husband / shadow was a slight man with a broad smile, tobacco-stained teeth and a worse accent, which was explained by the fact that he was actually Sicilian, so he spoke Small Town German With A Foreign Accent. Despite the fact that I understood nothing of what he said he seemed quite nice. Our last companion, the fellow snagged at the last minute, was a businessman of some kind who spoke normal German but was also From and Lived In A Small Town In Southern Germany. As soon as he fell into conversation with the lady I could see my comprehension sinking faster than a concrete-laden mafia victim (no inspiration from the Sicilian, for sure) as he delved into a detailed explanation of why he dislikes his father-in-law and therefore refuses to name his impending child after him. We made an unlikely collection of lost souls, for sure. I feigned sleep and hoped for the best.

Because of a recent operation I’ve been traveling with crutches. I have an awesome, slightly bloodstained and slightly grody bandage on my left foot, now held together with some kind of red hockey tape and a lot of good will, and I feel I require this visual sign of my grave disability to justify my crutches, my unique style of locomotion, and the fact that my foot and I take up two to three chairs at every opportunity. Now I can get around without the sticks, using them mostly just for stability’s sake and to chastise errant friends, but in the beginning it was a tiring mixture of limp-walking, hobbling, and full-on ground-eating crutching, which left me exhausted after about 20 meters and made me look absolutely ridiculous. Still, people make way for me on the tram, give me seats on the train and generally go about being nice to me or giving me pitying looks. Being “handicapped” has led to me being tenderly cared for all weekend and exempted from dish duty, which has been quite a bonus, and has led me to adopt a style of eating commensurate to the fact that one of my legs sticks out to the side of the table and is propped on the chair, meaning I can’t get closer than about a foot (30 cm) to my food in many cases. Besides the dish-duty-free-ness and the vaguely satisfying visible display of a long-standing problem (why does no one believe I have torn ligaments? It’s not like I run or wear ridiculous high-heeled shoes all the time or anything), the experience has given me a greater respect for people who can’t simply pop downstairs (four flights) to grab the washing because of a dependency on crutches or a wheelchair or simply funny legs or joints. The experience has also given me a surprisingly peaceful and even freeing sense of resignation I recognize from countries where nothing works or runs on time: you get there when you get there, and not before, and that’s okay. The world doesn’t wait for you to crutch your way there, but it’s actually not that bad if it turns a little bit without you.