Kolbenova

Sometimes this place gets to me - the unfriendly commuters crammed around me, the faux-American teens squawking and chirping, the indifference, the insularity, the parochialism, the fact that this is just like anywhere else. Perhaps it's the cold I've had since Opatov. All week I've waited for this moment to climb into my looking glass which protects as much as it reveals. But Kolbenova was, perhaps, not the best place to take it.

The platform is decked out in blue acrylic panels favoured by a second rate installation artist. The upper concourse would be his/her aluminium period. The front completes the conceptual art motif. The name KOLBENOVA is stencilled on the glass like a text based art piece where some word has outgrown its referent and means only itself. KOLBENOVA - I imagine some solitary misunderstood woman. A woman who struggled and the more she struggled the more she resented until she just turned away from the world and denied it her gifts.

But the station doesn't offer as much as the name. Across the road is a factory rimmed by a covered walkway which connects to an overpass leading to the factory's extension behind the station. But I can't go inside. The only place I can go is a supermarket.

I feel in need of some spontaneity. A concert maybe, or an exhibition so something. But the most daring act I'm capable of today is to splurge on some anchovies, duck-liver pate and sun-dried tomatoes to go with the wine I plan to drink while listening to Mingus.

Sometimes Prague can surprise me. Sometimes it can have me in awe. Then there are days like today when it just crowds around me.