One train trip in Ukraine
The air raid alert stopped me from entering the Kyiv station
Every early morning trip begins with me going to bed at 9 pm and still getting barely a few hours of sleep due to the state of great pre-travel agitation. I spin and turn and tell myself we’re so tired, we need to sleep as if my mind and I are two separate beings with opposite interests. I, of course, want to sleep and rest to endure the next day’s long ride. My mind, of course, wants to think about all the things that might go wrong tomorrow and for the rest of my life, in general. I fall in and out of sleep in a horribly hot and stuffy room. The window is wide open and an odd blow of the wind makes the curtain move like a lazy ghost. My boyfriend — the anxious ghostbuster — wakes up to put the curtain away. A full, yellow moon drops its feverish gaze into the room. I can’t sleep and I can’t lie anymore, neither in bed nor to myself. It’s 4:20 am and I stand up. Tripping, but not yet on a trip.
My train to Lviv is at 6:19. I have time. It’s time to take a bath of lukewarm water. I do this thing where I put a shower head — which is like a grey, metallic snake — face down on the bathtub and leave it to fill the bathtub with water. Sometimes the snake goes wild, turns around and splashes the bath walls with water. Not this morning, though. The snake is docile. I lay in the…
