I’m at an empty railway station and there is nothing. No coffee counter, no service desk, no vending machine, no shops in the neighbourhood. I’m later than planned, my appointment took longer. And now I am hungry. And I want chocolate.
The train will come in about 14 minutes and that is too much, because I want to eat now, and I want to go home, and I have so many things to do, and I need… something.
I go back, down the stairs, to see if there really is no vending machine. No. No chocolate.
I climb the stairs again. It’s windy.
The clock has moved 1 minute.
I take out my phone. Nah. Don’t feel like that now.
I walk over to the railway map of the Dutch Railway Company and while I walk, I think: seriously, Doris? You can’t even handle 12 minutes of emptiness? Is your head so busy that you cannot bear to do nothing for 12 minutes, are you so desperate that you are now reading the railway map?
Like one reads the milk carton in the morning.
Because just eating is soooo boring.
Just in time, before I start biting my nails in misery, I remember that I can soften my eyes for a moment and stand still while the world moves around me.
Become still.
And suddenly, the emptiness doesn’t seem so bad. Actually it’s quite nice, after a meeting with lots of enthusiastic talking and inspiration.
In fact, this is just what I needed.
*relieved sigh*
Too bad the train is already here.
photo: Jan Huber
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