The Idiotic Absurdity of Sadness

A few moments from 1991, remembered as if it was yesterday, in Deva, Romania, two years after the dictator Ceaucescu had been shot by firing squad on Christmas day

I was at the train station. I’d just witnessed miners being beaten up in town, and the telephone exchange woman had shrugged and informed me she used to work for the Securitate, the dreaded secret police. She told me because I had asked her why she had joined in my phone call to a disgruntled colleague, albeit, and somewhat quaintly in this soot-filled city, on my side.

A couple and their barefoot daughter in a ripped, tattered dress slept on the concrete station platform. I bought stale biscuits, some orange soda, and chocolates and placed them by her side. Then from my departing train window I saw someone had stolen the food items.

There is always room for more despair
More tears
More trains leaving
In the loneliness of the night