Zličín (Prague Metro)

Because this head won’t leave you alone. Because the past lets loose its bombs, crude as that. Because the inners turn noisome, if not nauseous. Because the noise itself is an unrelent. Because you cannot do anything for them now. Because you must not do anything for them. Because who is to blame but you and they and another. Because the city withholds its care. Because of because. You will want to go away for a while. You know you should stay, or someone tells you that, but the only way out is out. It is more than a hint. Is it just the internet overload does it? The indifference, even of humans, that clicks a switch? Rather than speeches, it’s small words take out the energy? Time to take time out. You go to Zličín, at the end of the line. Zličín, yes Zličín indeed. Of all places, Zličín. Logically and instinctively, Zličín. You go in a daze more than an expectation. You step onto the floor of the carriage as if in a trance, a dream almost not felt since schooldays. Or earlier. The seat beneath you is restful. The carriage and its three strangers is a balm. They look at one another in silence, as if waiting were the norm. It is like going out beyond the end of the alphabet, where there are no more words. There should be more places in your life like Zličín. If only they could be accessed at will. Every day there are troubles. Every day some quirk to flip composure. Sure as the sun rises in all its glory, there will be some business you have to sort out. It can override. It can become every thought. It can take over. It takes over. Places like Zličín, you wish you could remind yourself they are there. And when you arrive you keep going. Out past the Zličín of Ikea and Metropole and Globus and Tesco. Out past the buses and mad motorists of Zličín. You walk into the countryside, by the side of the road, or through a park. The roads are clear and bright. A few strangers are out working for their living in the sun. Three, four, five… They must have their troubles too. You walk out into the green countryside, along old laneways, through woodlands where birds work on their nests. Not that you have ever been to Zličín, or ever will, it is simply there at the end of the Zličín line. It is there to travel to. Writing can make it seem that you have been to Zličín, knowing it is there, which doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Zličín is solid enough, terminus of not pretending. It means too you can dream of Zličíns of the soul, terminus of Line B (Yellow), knowing it is there. Go to places where you are accepted for who you are. To places where you are accepted for who you were and will be. To places where they see and hear and understand. To places where you are newly understood. Not Zličín but more than Zličín. Places you knew of already but could only reach via Zličín. Even places you could never have imagined that only exist out beyond Zličín.