It was the last train from Vienna to Budapest and

it felt like it was running away out of control.

In the small cabin where my friend and I sat,

a beautiful blond came and sat next to me,

her slender body, her innocent stuck-in-puberty face,

her catwalk moves, and she did not smile at all.



My buddy was dead asleep and oblivious to it all.

The rhythmic stroke of the running train, the clattering

of the wheels, and the clanking noise from the tracts

were hypnotizing me, making me feel uneasy and

loosing my senses. I struggled to stay awake and

grabbed on to my senses and sanity. The noises

from the chatter boxes three cabins down were just

unbearable. I kept staring out the window to the pitch

black outside trying to make sense of the darkness.

Anxiously, I felt as if we were suspended in space,

floating, aimlessly, and ready to come crashing down.



Perhaps, I was poisoned by the beauty of Austria that

made me felt that way, inebriated by the old churches,

drowned in the paintings of Klimt or intoxicated by

the beautiful music of Mozart and the Viennese Waltz.

Maybe it was just the feeling of arriving late at night in

Budapest that made me felt so uneasy.

There was something in the air in Budapest that night

and the beautiful blond next to me just did not smile.