Vltavská

The last time I was here, it was late and the air was spent of its evening energy. The people's faces were sunken and drained. Now, the air has the static charge and heaviness of a coming storm, but everyone is too much of a hurry to be allowed a moments languor.

The station leads out to an cement island of občerstenvenís. All around people are sitting on the low walls, smoking and drinking. Their ages and states of inebriation vary. They are about the only humanity among the circling access roads. Everyone else clears out as soon as they arrive. It doesn't feel that I'm close to the city centre. All cities have places like this, at once near but forgotten. There's the former East Perth or Alexandria in Sydney.

Up from here there is a knoll where people take their dogs. A gutted fridge lies on its side. A few people glance at me as I wander back and forth. All my notes are mental ones at the moment.

From here, I can see the top of cathedral. The buildings are a mix of communist era tiled offices and turn of the century apartments. Unfortunately, there's no way of having a closer look without crossing a road. I return to the platform to meet G. We're seeing a film tonight at a cinema called Bio Oko - so the station was selected for that reason.

While I'm waiting I run into a colleague from the university. In his inimitable style he rattles off some details about a training session we're attending together and then says good-bye before I can respond. I wonder if I can survive a weekend with this guy.

G. arrives a little late and she's had a bad day at work. She fills me in as we cross the cement island to the tram stop. I glance back to make sure I haven't missed anything but in this moment I've gone back to being an ordinary commuter.

Invalidovna

There are some worn and peeling benches just outside. The perfect place to have my lunch. And having lunch is a good cover to do some people watching. On the bench just over from me is an old guy with pants secured far above his waste and a bright red trolley. Two metal-heads stand at my right with jackets draped imperially over one shoulder. It's a fairly humble duchy they lord over. Crooked cement slabs, a bistro, the old man and a mother trying to coax an ice-cream into her child's mouth but succeeding only in smearing on the child's face.

I wonder where the word bistro comes from. It looks Italian, but it could be a French word that has been rendered 'phonetic'. There's a hairdresser's beside this bistro, which makes it less appealing. Food and coiffure don't mix.

I get half way through the cous-cous I brought then put it away and go and do my thing. Perhaps, it's the recent illness but I don't feel inspired and Invalidovna is not a place to lack inspiration. I weave through the panelaks. They remind me of Mladá Boleslav, especially why I was happy to leave. A boy dodges the explosions which arise from his mind and exit through his mouth. And then it's quiet.

All that intrigues me here is the seemingly empty panelak in the centre of the block. Someone was living in the very bottom corner. There's a bed, a portable electric hotplate, magazines, centre-folds on the walls, table and chairs. This abandoned life is on show like any shop display in the wall length windows. I try the main door but it's locked. I don't think I have the courage to go further even if it had been open.

Slackness

Sorry about recent slackness. I've had deadlines, general fatigue and now the flu.

Dejvická

The station is familiar but not commonplace. The walls, the stall , the bookshop are just fleeting images as I rush to take get to the airport bus. It was the first airport I saw when I arrived, the one I see when I see people off and so it will be the last one I see if I ever leave the city for good. Today, though, Dejvická is tulips.

They are searing a scarlet and yellow ring in the centre of the traffic island. Beside me, they are imperial purple licks of paint without a royal portrait. It is the simplicity of form which attracts me to these flowers. I am not ordinarily a flower person. I don't know species, not particular breeds. The tulip has a special place. The simple cup perched on a the single slender stem is nature's most perfect moment. Though, I know, tulips have been selectively bred to look this way.

It's quiet, but not the suburban quiet of Nové Butovice. It's the quiet of city abandoned by the warm spring weather or people stifled by the heat. A girl is meditating in the park. Some guys are sharing a beer at the benches. I wander to the end. There are a row of alders and the leaves of one them are covered in crimson nodules. I wonder if this a disease or mutation. If it is, it's funny that nature would be so complementary, the crimson of the nodules is the perfect opposite of the leaves deep green. [I later find out they are in fact the larvae of some insect.]

The station is also has good examples of Czech styrofoam art. There is a perfectly sculpted TV with a tractor set inside. The piece is in almost perfect condition though it has been here for years. It must be the only TV to go unnoticed in the world. Some of the other pieces are damaged since I was here last.

I return to the platform where a new line of tourists has formed to replace the old. I'm the only person waiting on the other side. G. is expected soon. Then we're off to meet another friend and go for a walk in Divoká Šarka.

Střížkov

Too clean, too new to be real...I feel reduced in size, like I'm pulling into a display model...outside and I'm back to reality...panelaks, pebbles and pigeons...the occasional blackbird...trees and shrubs decked out in spring...branches heavy with bright green buds...bushes sprayed yellow or purple...bumblebees make haphazard paths to each...groups of children well and then burst with laughter, screams, chatter...cracks arc through the side walk, traces of a dinosaur that didn't realise it was extinct...but really from countless lighter steps - and the weeds, weeds which remind me of home and weeds which I always confuse with strawberries, though they're not...a long boulevard, good in theory but the uniformity of the buildings is oppressive...a blackbird slaps a worm against the sand...it's two-thirty in the afternoon...this bird obviously never heard the old adage...it's like a suburban kingdom in here, walled in by the flats...the kids hold court...a bumblebee hovers around a motorbike...can insects be boors too?...at the edge of the block I can see Prosek, where I was in autumn, watching the trees turn the colour of the sunset...now I'm here among the green...I've been walking along a giant jigsaw puzzle piece, which I've been looking for for some time.

Depo Hostivař

A month has gone missing. Last week was grey and sodden. Today the sun has burned its way through the last remnants of winter. It feels like we're in the last weeks of spring. The air is warm and dusty. You feel it on the roof of your mouth. I think I've forgotten what warmth was.

Just outside the station are a group of well dressed attractive young women. Before any of them approach me, I catch a whiff of their perfume and automatically deduce what they are: perfume sales reps. One approaches me as I stuff a newspaper and magazine in my bag. I tell her I'm not interested and after a pause add "in anything". I know she's only doing her job, but I can't abide these pushy sales people. I especially can't abide how they wait at the exit of the station like brightly coloured fragrant herons ready to stab some frog just trying to make his way home - or write about Prague Metro Stations.

I follow the path around the bus depot. It passes outside a building with OZM. I try to guess what it could mean. The best I can come up with is obecné zemědělské ministrsvto, which would mean general agricultural ministry, except the Czechs probably wouldn't call it that. (It actually stands for Opravárenská základna metra - Metro Repair Workshop. ED.) (Wait. I don't have an editor. Ed is that you? RYAN) Apart from a canteen there doesn't seem to be much else of interest and it looks like I'll have to go back past the ladies with their perfume.

Except that I was too rash. On the other side of the bus depot is another footpath and it leads on down a road. I stop to survey the train tracks - the "Driver 8" video clip and boxcar fantasies playing in my mind. Those who know me well would say I would never have done that. I would have been too scared. And it's perhaps time to accept they're right.

From here it's just the disappointment of a long straight road. Not far away, I see a building where I used to teach. That must mean the Skalka metro stop is not faraway. Up ahead is road, so I'm sure I will not reach it. I will just follow this block around. Except the road does lead in the direction of Skalka. Two stations again? It seems a bit much. In the distance I see another cross road. I follow it to the end. If it's a cul de sac, I can continue and mazbe zig-zag my way to the station. It ends in a car park, so though I decide to continue on to Skalka, what I see there will have to wait for some other time.

However, I find this remarkable building there tucked away behind renovated factories and warehouses. I just wonder if the slanted floor ever becomes tiresome.

Sorry about the mullets.

Nové Butovice --> Hůrka

I always get a kick out of seeing the restricted sections of the train stations. They make me think of what is behind the scenes on film set. It fits nicely into a fear I had as a kid that life was just a TV program. The fear lasted until I was about five and school brought a new batch of worries – I also realized this was one of those things you didn't admit to. Colored perforated metal fins run along the station's ceiling, which is made from metal tiles. It accentuates the imaginary nature of the place . It's as though it will all be pulled apart and packed away in a box at any moment.

People are queuing outside the station. I don't think I can stay too long before I attract attention. I circle round once. In the distance a barren fields walls in the area. I grab a pear from the fruit stand and head to the other side of the station. I assume there will not be much to see today.

The path leads to a square from which ventilation pipes poke. On them are graffitied the names 'killer', 'bloods' and 'many'. I assume the guy meant 'money'. (It's a common spelling mistake, which I know from teaching.) Unless the person responsible thinks of himself as some type of collective. There is a crown above the name, so perhaps he refers to himself in the royal we.

The quiet is unsettling. It gives you an impression of a ghost town. A few families pass by, but there are moments when the only sounds I hear are my footsteps and the murmuring of my trouser legs as they rub against each other. It doesn't seem possible. I can see cars and people in the distance. Behind the square is a construction site. But, the noise remains distant, as though muffled by the silence. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It is 2:30pm in the afternoon.

I continue along the path. It leads to the next train station. Around me are The buildings are different styles of buildings, some old and cake shop beiges, browns and creams, some tall and licorice all-sort pastels, thers modern highest quality German steel grey. Across from here is a panelak, which looks like a faded and dirty work by Mondrian. I pass some high glass arches and through them see the train station Hůrka. Nové Butovice is still visible in the distance.

The name Hůrka, reminds me of a police officer, Sergent Hůrka. He would be overweight with floury white skin, and folds under his large long-suffering eyes. His rank doesn't mean much. He's happy not to have the responsibility or the compromise.

From Hůrka, the train tunnel appears out from the ground. A great metallic worm making a dash from one side to the other, but caught and pinned on the cement pylons. If I follow the worm I will be able get to the next station Lužiny.

The worm passes over a park with small lake. It's noisier here. Mostly kids' and dogs' names and the occasional siren. A Great Dane passes me. Its shoulder come up to my up waist. It ambles passed with the clumsy gait of all large dogs. Its head seems too large for it to control. The other dogs keep away.

The park becomes an open field on the other side of the worm. A dirt track has been worn through the grass. An old man and his grand daughter don't stick to it. This is the first time I've seen this here. People are usually careful not to walk on the grass. I can still hear sirens and a child releasing a gurgling cry. I kestrel screeches and I see it alight with tentative claws on a winter stripped branch. It expertly sheaths its wings while it surveys its hunting grounds from the perch.

Sgt. Hůrka wonders how the girl went missing. Not that there is anything to work out. He knows what happened. It's just he likes to punish himself by going over it.

The girl was bundled into a car. The people had grown used to ignoring screams – that was other people's business. Or it scattered them like pigeons. Someone claims they saw two Roma guys nearby. They could've been Roma the witness said after the second questioning. Everyone at the station knows they didn't do it. The description given were too generic. As soon as Hůrka heard them he imagined a sketch on the front of a newspaper. Plus the times didn't match. The witness said he saw them speaking to the girl at two when she was still at school. Funny the little details people don't think to check when making something up. A younger cop said that they should pin it on them any way. The station chief rubbed his lined head and said that they didn't even have the funds to scapegoat people. So, they would keep asking people questions, while the girl was already over two borders and somewhere where cops came even cheaper, along with guns and cameras and whatever else you needed.

After the first few days, when despite the training and experiences, cases like this still found the soft places under the armour, Hůrka after his second beer, and too tired to deny the truth, said that what they should do is get a list of every film studio, every film distributor and basically shut them down until they got some names. Hůrka was moved to another case the next day. He had only said this to one of the younger officers.

It didn't even happen in this park. But it was similar. Coming here won't bring him any closer to the answers. It just reminds Hůrka that he is no stronger than any other person. He looks up when the sirens whines past and like everyone else he wonders what could've happened.

I return to the worm and follow it up the embankment. The ground is soft and almost sucks the shoes from my feet. There's a cement path at the top which leads to the courtyard of a grey panelak. All around are old faded signs. I find it comforting, somehow more comforting because it's real. Up from the panelak I see the entrance to Lužiny. Unfortunately a road blocks my path. The entrance is only 150m away.

I return along the worm. When I reach the lake again I realise that I'm going around the lake clock-wise. I went around the lake clockwise earlier too. Two kids run past. One stops suddenly and calls out to the other that she's feeling sick. I assume she's got a stitch because she starts to wretch. Stitches are something I associate with childhood too.

Lt. Hůrka goes around in an anticlockwise direction. He's right-handed and he's never thought about which direction he heads. Right now he's thinking about his own daughter, and as soon as he thinks of her he thinks of all the things he disapproves of, her boyfriend, her studies, her music.

I cross the square down from Hůrka train station to another square. It is connected to the first square by a bridge and there is a small doorway at the entrance. I assume that the square had once been a church and this was from the original structure – or they wanted to suggest the original structure. It's like walking through an unfinished sketch. In the centre is a gazebo which resembles a basilica. Inside are painted ceramic reliefs. The images are all non-religious. A fox, a lamb, a crown, a tulip.

I cross the bridge back to the original square, where there is sea blue building which suitably resembles a submarine tower. There's a bell and intersecting pipes at the top. Only when I read the sign that I realise it's a church, Kostel sv. Prokopa. The intersecting pipes are a cross. Perhaps, the resemblance to a submarine was intentional as though they felt religion was a resurfacing.

Before heading up to Hůrka train station, I scan the are one last time. Lt. Hůrka is heading home to one of those perfect identical squares. He's opening a beer and waiting for his wife to come home so they can watch Star Dance.