Peace

The station, without a doubt, ought to show signs of activity, of life, all the more so for being a frontier station. But, when you arrived there on that February night, it was deserted and dark. There was a light behind some blinds, in a corner of the empty platform, so you made your way towards it.

It was the café. What peace inside. What silence. A woman with a baby in her arms was seated next to a lighted stove. You could hear the muffled and soothing murmur of the flames.

You asked for cold milk and toasted bread, with the distrust of someone who thinks he has asked for the moon. And, upon seeing your order attended to without sarcasm, you were moved to ask for some cigarettes as well.

Seated in the middle of that convalescent peace and silence, to exist for you was like a miracle. Everything seemed possible once again. You shivered, as when a danger we do not recognise is gone.

It was life all over again. You are confident it has to be as peaceful and as profound forever, with the promise of repeating itself every day. In the face of such a promise you do not know how to be surprised.

Behind lay your bloody and ruined homeland. The last station, the station on the other side of the frontier, where you separated from her, was just a skeleton of twisted metal with no glass and no walls. An unearthed skeleton the final light of the day had abandoned.

What can one man do against the insanity of all men? And, without looking back or sensing the future, you went out into a foreign world leaving your already strange homeland, and in secret.