The One with the Thoughts of Frans

This is some stuff I wrote in the train weeks ago. I never got around to typing it, but now I did. It can be traced back to 29 October.

It is interesting what a small thing can lead to. Two days ago, this small thing was to forget to bring a number of CDs along to listen to on the trip to my parents. The only thing I had with me to listen to that day was Absolution by Muse, which may be a very good album, but over the past few weeks I listened to it a lot and I felt it was time for something different.

This had two rather interesting consequences. The most logical, being that I re-evaluated my by now a year old decision not to buy some sort of mp3 player. In the meantime, a lot has changed in the market of portable music players based on either flash or hard disk memory. My biggest “pet peeve”, lack of gapless playback, has been solved in all of the newer models, or if not, is expected to be solved soon with a firmware update. The combined experiences of listening to various players owned by my friends and in stores led me towards a 4GB flash based Samsung player.

The other consequence, which effects me while I’m writing this, is that in order to have some more variation on the trip back, I grabbed from a random pile of old CDs which I still kept at my parents’ place. Right now I’m listening to Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park. I still like the general sound of it a lot, but I realise now a lot better than six years ago what the lyrics are all about. Of course, over the times I have amused myself at Crawling and In The End, but now I noticed that all of the songs were like that, not just one or two. What can I say about it? They amuse me.

It goes on with the more popular side of slightly popular only slightly less mainstream music. Good Charlotte, Xzibit. I haven’t listened to any of those in years.

The electricity lines of the railways are out of order on the first part of them I plan to travel past. Buses instead. It drives over roads I recognise from the few driving lessons I took in the summer of 2004, which I didn’t continue then because I started studying in a completely different part of the country. Note to self: check the internet for driving schools and get started on getting a license.

The bus arrives at the tiny train station of Anna Paulowna. I’m listening to Xzibit now. Remarkably, some kind of Xzibit lookalike enters the train just before me. He holds the door to the compartment open for me. I end up on the right of him, on the other side of the train, he’s on the left. Xzibit is rapping about ice cold Heineken through my earphones. Weird.

A mother with two children enters the train. Occupies the other four seats with her kids, a boy and a girl. The girl, probably about six years old, starts colouring some kind of image of a happy train. Apperently they give those along with the children’s ticket. She has a cilinder shaped pencil holder with a number of different colours in it and a pencil sharpener integrated in the lid. After sharpening a pencil using this sharpener, she puts it down on its side. It’s rolling around on the small table, following the movement of the train. It has to drop soon, it’s inevitable.

I’m sitting there, reading, taking a look now and then. I think somewhat like Aragorn, in that tavern, even including the unshaved look. The pencil sharpener stayed on the table longer than I expected, but then it finally falls. I react quickly and catch it. Put it back on the table; flat side down. Is that what being an adult is ultimately about? To help children in some way and getting a smile in return? To prepare them, to do the same to new children themselves some day.

She finished colouring and demands a seat on her mother’s lap. Her mother looks like Kate in Platinum Grit. That’s right, she’s truly a MILF. The two children start an adorable little sibling fight amongst each other. The Xzibit lookalike sitting right next to them looks away to the window in an attempt to hide it, but I can clearly see the gigantic smile on his face.