They used to sell tickets at the station, thick cardboard stubs the size of half-sticks of gum. One for the fare and one for the transfer.
Talk to me about letting go and I will tell you about a steam line between two medieval villages that will roll over your cares. For the loose change in your pocket you can ride through fields of ox pulled plows. At the stations in between you can step into the air, tumble the ticket stubs in your palm like worry stones, one for the transfer and one for the fare.
Buy a tiny bottle of vodka from a kiosk with Ceausescu’s youthful image on its face. Back into your cabin as the whistle blows. Write one last letter that will make no more sense in these new times than engines run on steam between farmland strung taught and together by oxen. No more sense than cardboard ticket stubs, punched neat and clean and returned with tightness of smile; stiffness of step. Paid.
At Medias, you finish your letter in the park. Throw it on the street. You can’t send it to her anymore, that past passed into a time when fire moved steel along iron lines before curious oxen. Stumble now, by now the vodka bottle light in your pocket, back to the station. Buy your tickets home. One for the transfer, one for the fare.