The Village Indian

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‘The Intercity-Express 1511 from Berlin to Munich, calling at Leipzig, Bamberg, Nuremberg and Ingolstadt, will depart from Platform 3 at 12.57.’ The voice over the speaker: unpleasantly tinny. A brief glance at the large clock on the platform: 12.30. Just under half an hour to go. I put my paper and coffee down on the bench. Zoo Station. I cast my eye over it again.

Empty. Totally empty. The feeling, for a moment, that I’m all alone on the platform. That the people have vanished or that perhaps were never there at all. Empty. And all bright and clean. No trains, no passengers, no announcements. Nothing — only me and an empty Zoo Station, the vast nothingness round me. Where am I? What am I doing here? Where’s everyone else? Questions like these boom in my head — like drums at an African festival. Empty, like a never-ending desert, bare mountains or clear water. Eerie too, like a forest after a violent storm. And my questions, loud, yet quiet; echoing, though unvoiced.

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