I was sitting by the window on the train when the door suddenly slid open. A woman came in and took the window seat across from me, pressing her wheeled suitcase against my knees.
“Hope that’s not in your way,” she said.
I glanced around the completely empty compartment.
“Not at all,” I said. “But if you want, I can stick it up on the luggage rack for you.”
“Oh no, no. There’s fruit in there from my friend’s garden. It has to travel upright.”
I mean… upright how, exactly? For a second there I was actually picturing which end of an apple was supposed to be up and which was down. Sure look, I didn’t ask.
So there we were, facing each other in an otherwise empty compartment, somehow still cramped, her suitcase wedged against my knees. I flipped through a few pages of a Japanese author’s debut novel, but gave up pretty quickly.
The conductor could be heard outside. Then the door slid open with a bit of a bang.
“Good morning, folks.”
I showed him my ticket. He scanned it.
“And could I see your ID?”
Turned out my ID was in my backpack, stowed up above my head. So I had to climb up, pull the bag down, then sweat my way through the whole thing looking for the bloody ID.
He barely looked at it.
Apparently, all that mattered was that I’d shown him something.
“Thank you. Have a nice trip,” he said, nodding, and slid the door shut.
I turned to the woman.
“I could’ve shown him Lech Wałęsa’s ID and ridden through without a problem.”
“Sure,” she laughed. “With that moustache, they’d probably even give you a discount.”
“And with a papal ID, I’d probably ride for free.”
We fell quiet again, and I went back to my book.
Not five minutes later:
“Does the AC bother you?”
“No,” I said. “But I can try adjusting it if you want.”
“Oh, no, no. It’s fine.”
A moment passed:
“It’s more the light outside that’s bothering me.”
“Well, there’s not much I can do about that one,” I muttered, going back to my book.
Then:
“It’s not just the light, though. Looking at you now, you’ve got these strange colours…”
“Strange, like what?”
“You’re vibrating like crazy.”
“I could move seats, if that helps?”
“Oh no, no need.”
She raised a hand and put on a pair of sunglasses.
“You know, I just had cataract surgery, and everything’s throbbing.”
I looked up from my book.
“Is that normal after cataract surgery?”
“No, it shouldn’t be like this. The problem is, they gave me a cheaper lens. The one covered by the national health fund.”
“Let me guess. Secondhand?” I scratched my head.
“I’ve got 1.8 diopters of astigmatism,” she said. “Reimbursement only kicks in at 2. So I was just 0.2 short. And that was that. I no longer qualified.”
“Funny how the threshold always seems to end up exactly where it saves them the most money.”
“I could’ve paid another 10,000 zloty for a better lens… but I chose to go on holiday instead.”
“Well. That was a choice.”
Meanwhile, I had a suitcase full of fruit wedged against my knees in an otherwise empty compartment. And now I was Munch’s The Scream.
“So because you were just 0.2 diopters short of the reimbursement threshold, you’re stuck with this distorted, wild vision?”
“Not just stuck with it. I can’t even read a book anymore!” she sighed.
I put my book down.
Bloody National Health Fund!
Now I couldn’t even read.