Extract "Frankfurt am Main – Milano Centrale" (English)

 

Sándor sits at a window seat in the dining car. On the table is a printed manuscript with handwritten notes in the margins. Next to it is an old dark-coloured notebook. It is daytime and the train is travelling through a mountainous landscape. Sándor looks through the window, the weather is wet and cloudy. Everything gives the impression of a forgotten part of the world with no way out. He turns away and mechanically reaches for his notebook to leaf through it. He gets stuck on an entry and reads.

#criticism #repetitions #revolutions #stagnation
Many seem to feel they are too good for criticism, criticism of capitalism, of the system and so on. From people who lived through the 60s and 70s, who may even have been involved back then, I hear statements like "we've been through all this before". Very strange. Also in my immediate environment: once still involved in Latin America, fierce rejection of orchestrated coups and capitalist dominance - today a shrug of the shoulders (which incidentally emphasises the sewn-in epaulettes of the jacket). The mental block seems to have something to do with the fact that the critical voices do not reveal any new added value. Who is interested in something that has long since been registered in a museum? This gives the impression that the criticism is outdated. But the opposite is true: it cannot be outdated because its object has not become obsolete. Or: if the object of criticism stagnates, criticism has no choice but to repeat itself. Many people still hope that everything will improve once they stop being so negative: "No bans, just incentives!" Or "All these appeals and all this Complaining - it only brings annoyance!" On the other hand, what does it mean, „criticism has no choice but to repeat itself"? There are also those who automatically pull their Marx out of their inside pocket and say that they already said it back then and would like to repeat it again today. Ultimately, it seems that a core of the criticism can only repeat what has long been known, but that the loudest critics cannot do without ideology. And because these ideological views have always appropriated criticism, most people can no longer distinguish one from the other. So to them, everything together seems like a museum. In reality, however, the oldest and largest dinosaur is nothing other than the existing, current system of the so-called West. In this environment, revolutionary energy is shifted: the revolutions are just the revolutions of the wheels of a vehicle. And the track on which they push our vehicle is also circular (or perhaps a rollercoaster, so that everyone thinks „we’re moving on!" ).

Sándor looks up and looks for the waitress, but she is nowhere to be seen. He leans back and thinks. A while passes, then a young man comes and asks him if he can join him at the table. Sándor offers him a seat.
PASSANGER: Where are you going?
SÁNDOR: Still open.
PASSANGER (nods in agreement): A good way to travel.
SÁNDOR: And you?
PASSANGER: I'm accompanying Mia.
SÁNDOR: Mia?
PASSANGER: The waitress.
SÁNDOR: I see.
PASSANGER: Are you often just out and about?
SÁNDOR: Not necessarily. But I don't want to go back home right now.
PASSANGER: Stress?
SÁNDOR: No, not that. I carry a kind of cloud over my head. It's like when I’m going for a walk. Sometimes when I return home, I can't quite fit through the door. I then have to go round the block again, round the park, under the subway. Only when the cloud has lifted am I ready to return home.
PASSANGER: How come?
SÁNDOR: Thoughts, nothing more. They're best processed by walking. Or on a ride.
JEAN: And what are these thoughts that are driving you around?
SÁNDOR (looks to the side): Disturbing ones. Sometimes pleasant ones too.
The train enters a tunnel. The window pane, behind which a forbidding terrain was just visible, suddenly turns into a mirror, revealing Sándor's face and the interior of the dining car. Then Mia arrives with a beer in her hand and sits down next to the unknown passenger. They finally introduce themselves as Mia and Jean and also ask Sándor for his name.