Attack of the Notorious ‘Cacophonous Accordion-Man’ and the ‘Fetid Money Ladies’

Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best of moods, well, not that I am ever in a good mood, but this day was just a particularly dreary one.

It was a Monday, if I remember correctly it was raining, it was cold and I had a lot of German to catch up on (I had not done any of my german homework over the winter break, and I had to start writing up my German articles for my orals, but let’s just keep that between you and me ), and as most of you know, German is of course my favourite subject…

NOT!

I despise it with every single fiber of my being (and yes I do use italics to emphasize things), well to tell you the truth, I don’t mind the teachers I just dislike the subject for I suck at German. Furthermore, I am just fed up with it, because if I learn or study for German I get a 4 or a 5, and if I don’t, I get a 4 or a 5, so all in all it doesn’t matter what I do, but, anyway, I still had to do it.

So as I stood in the U-bahn, near to the U-bahn door, I did what I usually do on days such as these: I choose to listen to Snow Patrol and Coldplay, I turn the volume on my iPod to full power,  I contemplate my sad situation and begin to ruminate on my own finitude, the futility of existence and the injustice of life, when, all of a sudden, the train stopped at Vorgartenstrasse.

When I say this I don’t mean: Oh my word, the train actually stopped! How strange!

I mean that I had not noticed that I was already so close to Nestroyplatz, and it felt as if I had just got on the train.

There was also one other reason I had noticed the sudden change in the inertial state of the train, and this reason was the strange man who had just entered the carriage. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but in the end they weren’t. The man, who was short, bald, and Italian looking had something strange hidden under his tattered jacket. He stood there for a few moments, sweat visually dripping from his face. His head swiveled about as he looked up and down the carriage, but what he was looking for was a mystery.

It was then that I noticed that this odd man was being flanked by two hideous, hygienically challenged women. They too stood staring suspiciously, there beady eyes also searching for the ‘unknown factor’.

I was frightened as I had no idea what to expect. Questions sprang to life in my brain: What was hidden under that man’s jacket? Is it a bomb? A gun? What were they looking for? What is happening? Our carriage is cut off from the others, what will I do? What will happen? I began to feel slightly claustrophobic. I suddenly noticed that I was not the only one who was eyeing these strange and smelly ‘weirdos’ (for lack of a better word), for nearly everyone else in the carriage (I estimated there to be at least 12 of us) was doing so as well.

These last few paragraphs however happened within seconds and soon the doors shut, and the terror commenced.

My heart thumped in my chest, everything happened as if in slow motion, and I watched  the man pull out…………………(I use the full-stops to build suspense)………… an accordion?

What?

Surprise and relief flooded through me, but these soon dissipated as the music began. Sorry, did I say music? I meant cacophony!

Wow! That made me angry, quite angry.

Furthermore, the fact that these women pulled out small paper cups and then ran up to people to disturb them for money made me even more angry.

I was very pissed off.

It was as if they thought we wanted them to play loud and terrible ‘noises’ (I will refrain from calling it ‘music’ as that would be blasphemy) on a public train. Why can’t they just go away and get a job like normal people?

As one of these ladies approached me (I could smell her horrible, gingivitis-drenched/beer-soaked/fungal-lined flatulence from a mile away) I fixed her with a very deadly stare.

She backed off immediately.

Good. I was in no mood to be approached or engaged by fools (and anyway I had no money).

And the siege was over as suddenly  as it had begun.

The man and the two ‘ladies’ got off at Praterstern and were gone, having only scraped about 4 euros out of those who were kind enough to provide them with the money they so desperately needed (to fix their teeth).

For a few moments I felt better as I compared my situation to theirs. So, in the end, the attack of the smelly accordion-man turned out to be quite a positive experience.

However, as I am unable to hold onto these happy feelings and optimistic thoughts (optimistic ideas continue to and always will allude me), they disappeared completely as I stepped onto the Nestroyplatz platform and I returned to my original gloomy state.

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~ by emc7 on January 21, 2010.