“THAT’S IT! Final stop – everybody out!” The disembodied voice of the Tram Driver blares statically through the speaker.
“Final stop?”
“Already?”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere! It’s only 2.30 in the afternoon!”
“I still have six more stops to go!” the passengers complain.
But it was too late. As if in protest, the Tram Driver strips himself of his blue uniform jacket, throws it aside, and, grabbing the reflexive yellow safety vest from the cockpit – he leaves the tram and its passengers behind.
It truly was the middle of nowhere. He’d called the final stop half-way up the hill, in a clearing in the forest – and he made a lonely sight indeed, irritably trudging up the gravel pathway. I’ve had enough, he thought. I need a break. And so, for the next ten minutes he continues along his solitary path with nothing but the songs of the birds and the whispers of the trees for company. Finally, he feels he can breathe.
He arrives at a small stream that is making its way down the hill, and he decides to sit for a while. We are quite alike, he thinks to the stream as it trickles by, making its own lonesome way under the earth and over the rocks. It may have disagreed, for really, they appeared to be nothing at all alike, aside from the fact that they both moved through the days seemingly infinitesimally – and perhaps this is what the Tram Driver meant; but it did not matter for at that moment he pricks his ears and listens intently. Aside from the songs of the birds and the whispers of the trees and the trickle of the stream, he can hear the sound of a bass droning from the hill’s summit. Smiling, he stands to continue his journey.
When he reaches the top, the rave is already in full swing. The people are merry and brimming with love and life. Electronic music blasts happily through the speakers, and he can feel his mood lift almost immediately at the sight of dance, joy, and colors.
He pays the entry-fee and, donning the reflexive safety jacket, he joins the crowds. He walks by a young elf-boy who is dancing, mesmerized, with a bubbling fountain. He meets the Man with the Lobster Hand, who, tightly clutched within his claw holds a cigarette that never burns to the end. The water nymphs laugh cheerfully at the sight of his yellow vest – “Look, another mortal!” they say playfully, batting their eyes; and the wizards offer for him to take part in their circle, handing him a pipe from which he blows heavy billows of purple smoke. A sense of elation takes over.
And so, he stays and dances the night away, the party-lights sparkling and flying off him, the passengers and the tram in the clearing long forgotten.
THE END
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