Stranded in the middle of nowhere. Abandoned by the train and left high and dry. Without a phone, and only a trash can as company. A hopeless situation. Until Ulli appears. My smoking savior. Coughing at the wheel of a golden bus, whose passengers have an average age higher than every cemetery.
I am standing on a single long platform, which, for reasons unknown to me, calls itself a train station. Nothing about this little speck of earth deserves this title. There are no rushed commuters desperately trying to sprint to the train without running. The bad bakery chains are also missing, which take advantage of my need and sell me overpriced, dry pretzels that make me want to gargle a handful of Sahara sand after eating them.
I cannot see any timetables or display boards. The only thing which keeps me company is a trash can that doesn’t seem to get regularly used or emptied, and a poster asking me to contact the train company if the lighting, which obviously doesn’t even exist here, doesn’t work.
My attention is drawn to a mysterious sign that, many decades ago, probably provided information about where the hell I am. Today I can only decipher a fraction of a letter, which could also just be bird droppings. Far to the left of the dark blue rectangle I can see a small arch that opens up to the same side. I feel like I’m taking my eye test, which I just barely passed, all over again. I’ve never been so close to failing an exam as I was then. Now I’m wearing glasses anyway and still concentrating on nothing other than the possible first letters of this place where I’m stranded. What could the name of this end of the world even be? Maybe something with “O” or “D”? Perhaps also an “R” or even a “B”. My thoughts are circling through the alphabet and trying to remember any possible place names. If only I had paid more attention in geography class. But after my geography teacher yelled at me at the top of her lungs because I had underlined my headings in black and not in color, I had nothing to do with that subject anymore. She didn’t think it was funny that I had bought a dark gray pen in response.
Oh God! I’m already starting to reminisce. On the verge-of-losing-it-scale, this ranks just before talking to myself. I have been stranded here for too long. Just me, the platform, and the trash can, which I fear will become my best friend and companion if I stay in this isolation any longer. Instead of the sea, we are surrounded by trees, but probably just as far away from any civilization. Some of you may be wondering just how the hell I ended up in this nothingness.
My odyssey began with the fact that I couldn’t avoid getting back on the slowest regional train in the northern hemisphere, which even a one-legged monkey on a unicycle riding uphill could easily overtake. So, I stood full of anticipation at the start-station, still not having visual contact with the train, but already delayed. I kept checking the unending and ever-growing red numbers in the DB App and noticed that most of the people who had once waited with me had lost their patience. An unending number of travelers became a small, humble rest, clinging to hope and faith in our little train. As far as I’m concerned, I am usually one of the impatient ones, but I was desperate and once again reliant on the most unreliable of all trains. I bow to just one power: this crappy train schedule!
But then, at last, the train, tiny on the horizon, schlepped further and further in my direction. It fought its way forward. For a brief moment, I thought I recognized the sweaty train driver stood in front of the locomotive, dragging the multi-ton vehicle with all his might. But then, my tears of joy must have deceived me. In fact, it was somehow a motor which moved the train so slowly that you had to look closely to detect any movement at all.
At some point, the moment had come: we (by which I mean a woman who slept through the wait on a bench, her fully-packed e‑bike, and I) were able to get on. I had already googled how long it would have taken to walk, and I can already say: I wish I had done that. But I wasn’t wearing quite the right shoes for that. At least I could freely choose my seat, which makes the electric chair look rather cozy, and make it as comfortable as it would allow.
I even managed to fall asleep before I could feel any of the obligatory back pain. But then I was woken up. Not by an incomprehensible announcement offering an excuse for the delay. Nope. By the train driver personally. I blinked and was still half-asleep. I realized I was the last remaining passenger. Which here felt more like the last survivor.
The train driver asked me where I was going. “No! To the final station?!” said the gentleman with his eyes wide with horror. He told me he normally doesn’t do that for people. This here is his final station. He asked me to get off, and he would take care of a replacement for me. He said I really couldn’t be in a hurry while travelling with him. Completely perplexed, I found myself right here in the middle of nowhere, watching the train honk its farewell horn and, now that I was no longer on it, suddenly regain its speed.
My inner introvert was so overwhelmed by the situation that she didn’t ask any questions. The only thing I now know is that a not very motivated train driver may or may not have wanted to look into any kind of replacement service. I now try to find out more by looking at the DB app, but when I check my connection, the words “rail replacement service” start flashing wildly until the app closes and my phone lights up brightly one last time. The battery is empty. Of course, that’s what happens when I constantly have to check whether walking might really be worth it.
So here I am, somewhere between Halle and the Bavarian village that I call both my destination and my home. Alone without a cell phone, and we all know just what my generation is like without their smartphones. So, I have no choice but to hope that, at some point, something with the big sign “replacement transport” will pull up and pick me up. Wherever I then go doesn’t really matter to me anymore. Things can only get better, right? (famous last words)
I play with the idea of saying goodbye to the “station” and following the narrow dirt road that leads here—and therefore also back out— on my own. But that’s not a good idea even in films I haven’t seen. So I stay for now. The sun has to go down soon. I have no idea how long I’ve been here. My thoughts are getting crazier and crazier and I’m really close to starting a deep conversation with my trash can about not being loved, the unfairness of life, and its opinion on the pfand system. But what’s that?! In the silence that I’ve slowly gotten used to, I hear a humming noise. It gets louder. It sounds like an engine. I dare to look at the tracks. Nothing is happening. But a long shadow appears on the small path behind me. Something big is coming towards me and one thing becomes clear: I’m getting in! I have to get out of here! Even if it takes me into the arms of a brutal murderer, then at least the miserable wait will be over.
While I gather my things together and say a surprisingly emotional goodbye to the trash can, I watch the dirt road and the shadows. Finally, a huge golden bus pushes its way through the narrow space. I had already given up on it, but on the display above the windshield, “Replacement” lights up in large letters.
So I run towards my rescue in its gleaming paintwork and Ulli, the bus driver, is already casually leaning against his vehicle and smoking. How do I know his name and profession? Ulli makes it easy for me. In addition to baggy trousers and a polo shirt with stains that I hope are just coffee, he is wearing a cap embroidered with a bus (probably his favorite model) and his name in large letters. Presumably to avoid any confusion when he is not behind the wheel.
After he calls me Miss and Ma’am three times in two sentences, I manage to climb up the steep stairs. When I get to the top, I’m met with a sea of wrinkled faces and grey hair, split into two camps. On the left, everyone is wearing green T‑shirts with the words: “Small Animal Breeders.” Those on the right are all dressed in pink and, judging by their tops, call themselves “Garden Friends.” Both groups belong to the same village, which is so insignificant that I immediately forget its name.
Standing at the front of the narrow aisle, I look for a free seat. The moment I let my gaze wander over the rows of seats, the first retirees start pulling out caramel or eucalyptus candies and trying to lure me with them like a dog. Naturally, they also make the accompanying noises. I quickly notice that a fight is breaking out over whose side I should take. There are still two free seats. One on the left, one on the right. Apparently both sides want to enjoy my company. They throw dirty looks at each other as I fight my way through the aisle. I haven’t even reached one of the two possible seats yet to make a choice and the top ten insults from the past four centuries are being thrown over the old heads. From the classic ‘dimwit’ to the more creative ‘thunder goat’ to the Bavarian ‘Kohlrabi apostle’ (a humorous term for someone who is overly preachy, especially about trivial matters like food choices) or ‘dog of a cripple.’
Insults are thrown across the aisle like grenades. Most of my fellow passengers must now be vividly remembering one of the two world wars they witnessed. For many of them, the Franco-Prussian war would also be a possibility. I, for one, am caught in the crossfire and am finally pulled out of the melee, which is about to break out into a fight, and onto a seat by a saving hand.
At that moment, the most disgusting, mucusy cough that an ear has ever heard comes from the loudspeakers. Ulli puts his foot down. He uses his cough, which is crying out for a new lung, as a signal tone before the announcement, like some trains use a short, friendly melody to create a good atmosphere when the train driver calmly lists all the missed connections seconds later.
I don’t understand everything, but it seems that there has been a dispute between the two clubs for some time. As far as I can tell, it’s about the bigger and better room in the community center. That’s all. At least, all that I can understand before calm returns and the insults slowly become less harmful before stopping completely. To reconcile, flasks and small bottles of fruit brandy are pulled out of jacket and trouser pockets and all sorts of tote bags with pharmacy advertising, the smell of which brings tears to my eyes. The disputing parties have apparently realized that their problem can be solved in other ways than through brutal verbal battles on the way back from some garden show.
Alcohol is happily shared and passed around the rows. I politely decline and make do with my handful of Werther’s Original, which was discreetly passed to me. Within minutes, the mood shifts from a schoolyard brawl to a Ballermann party. I honestly don’t know which is better. But now my neighbor Waltraud pulls a harmonica out of her bag; she always seems to have it with her for emergencies. You never know when the next serenade will call. This must be what hell sounds like.
Waltraud starts singing all the classic German pop hits that she knows, and the whole bus immediately bursts into excitement. If my grandma weren’t already dead, this hit parade would have given her a heart attack from sheer joy. Everything that the senior citizen’s heart could desire is there: from “Greek Wine” to “Santa Maria” to “Over Seven Bridges You Must Go.” I, on the other hand, would rather throw myself off seven bridges.
While I am longing for death, I notice that the landscape passing by outside looks very familiar. Ulli drives us along the narrowest country roads with the steepest curves and I realize that I had a dramatic fall here as a child on my little pink bike. I can hardly believe it. We should be passing my puny little town in a few minutes. Excitedly, I fight my way through the party-loving crowd to the front of the bus and Ulli, surprisingly, does as I request and wants to let me out at the entrance to the town. I can hardly believe it! I am already waiting at the door, but then the bus driver asks me to describe the way to my house. He wants to drop me off at the front door! The driver says his passengers wouldn’t even notice whether they arrived on time or not anymore.
So, under my direction, the huge bus snakes all the way through the mini-village just to let me off at the very end of a dead-end street in front of my parents’ house. Ulli even waits until I’ve disappeared inside, as I’m used to from my friends who would always play it safe to say that I’ve made it all the way home. As slimy as his cough was, I give him credit for that. He has a very special place in my heart. Right next to the conductor who made sure that I made it to my destination with Deutsche-Bahn punctuality (about ten minutes late). An angel, dressed in dark blue and red.
Text und Illustrations: Michelle Ehrhardt
Translation: Brandon Bishop