Travelling away from meaning

Any train station, one man, waiting for the train.

14.25 The train will arrive soon. He is on the platform, ready to cut loose. His decision was sudden, he couldn’t stand living in the city anymore. Two weeks ago, coming back from work, he stopped in the train station, looked at all the destinations and chose to book a ticket for the North. Like that. His urban time was over, he could feel it. It was time for him to return to his roots and to find himself again. The city had made him crazy, he wasn’t himself anymore. He was feeling lost and sad. A hopeless job, and some love disappointments helped him to make his decision, he wanted to start from scratch.

14.30 The train is delayed but he doesn’t show any stress. He is still on the platform, he hasn’t moved. He is focused, thinking of his future, thinking of the new ideas he wants to develop, how he could articulate them. He is self-confident, something will come. He will burn the midnight oil to succeed, he knows that he can make his project happen. He learned from the past and knows what he has to do now, leaving was just the first step. Before leaving, when he was packing his stuffs, he found his old notebooks, full of drawings, collages, thoughts. This discovery brought him back ten years ago, at the time he just arrived in town, full of hopes. Where has all this disappeared? He spent ten years of his life travelling away from meaning. Too much.

14.35 The train has arrived, he is sitting in the carriage, looking through the window. The journey will start in a second. For one minute, he just remembered his ten past years in this bleak city. Of course, he went through thick and thin but the city has stolen his soul and it is time for him to have it back. He doesn’t want to look back anymore, his future is far more interesting. He can finally put everything behind him. He breathes. Whistling. The train is leaving. The landscape starts to move around him. He feels alive. Peaceful. And falls asleep.