Swedish Bacon

Group Story Writing Exercise March 14 2010

“5:14 leaving for Hastings in 3 minutes, all aboard!” That announcement blasted over the loudspeakers in the waiting room of the old train station jolted me out of my sleep. “5:14?” I said to myself, “That can’t be! I only wanted to take a cat nap. I’m sure I closed my eyes no more than 10 minutes ago… at about 2:10 A.M.

Did I sleep for almost three hours?” I glanced up at the large clock that hung from the wall in the middle of the station. It confirmed the conductor’s announcement. I missed my train!

Maybe it was because the time had changed form winter time to summer time. I am always confused when that happens. But, wait a minute! This is not the same station I fell asleep in. Where am I?

I wonder, is this a dream? I want to pinch myself once, to make sure I'm not dreaming. Suddenly I saw a very strange person with an elephant walk by me.

I think , I'm lost. I'm in a nice place. But I don’t know this place. It's a nice park with a great garden.

I hate when I miss my train. In fact, I missed the train two times. The first time that I missed the train was last week. I was going to my officer in Manhattan, and I fell asleep. And the second time was today.


Missing the train concerns me, of course, but I'm more concerned now because I'm having such weird dreams! -an elephant, a garden, and a totally different train station all in the same place? What's going on? I pinched myself again, but I still can't tell if I'm awake or asleep!

Maybe all I need is a good breakfast. So I went to the cafeteria to get some food. No one was there. I sat at a table and a robot arrived at my table to take my order. I couldn't yet tell if I was awake or not. I ordered eggs and bacon.

It was really good to eat. I forgot what happened today because I enjoy staying here. Perhaps I should take a vacation.

Now, I feel better. I left the café and I met an interesting girl on the way out. She was from Denmark. I asked her for her telephone number. She gave it to me. I got my train and went back home.

Actually what I need to do is change my diet. Eggs and bacon in the morning are not a good idea, they have given me a lot of sleep-problems and nightmares during the night. Maybe what I need is a Danish cook.

When I got home I remembered the phone number of the girl from Denmark. I decided to call her and to my surprise, she greeted me with a beautiful "hello." After we talked at length, I discovered that she is not Danish but Swedish.

I asked her if she could cook and she said that she could. She told me that she was a vegetarian. I wanted to stop eating bacon but I was not about to give up eating meat, so I decided to look elsewhere for a cook.

I found an Italian cook. He was very good. He made great meals for me, with many different ingredients. I was eating good things every day and at the same time I was staying slim. But I kept thinking about the Danish/Swedish/vegetarian girl. She told me to meet her at the station, at 9 o'clock that night.

I got a haircut and a good suit. I went to the station very early. So I went into the waiting room to wait for her.

I was waiting, waiting... I think I fell asleep for maybe a minute. When I woke up, I felt I was back in those moment": the "Ï-missed-the-train times.” I tried to recall everything that happened.

The girl was so sad about me. I missed her. What could I do now? I missed the last train. I went into a bar and asked for coffee. I saw another one. I saw another girl. She was a Chinese girl.

But back to talking about the Swedish girl…Wow, I could not sleep last night thinking about that woman: that soft voice on the phone... I really wished I could be at her side, to be able to look into her beautiful blue eyes....

But...it was only a dream....I woke up and my train arrived. This time I didn’t miss it!

Participants
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Dionisio Storaro
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
Marcello Vollmar
oo Broono