Aagje felt a shock and looked through the window. The train had moved earlier than she expected. Then suddenly come to a standstill again. Tfff, prrr, plok. Aagje looked around. She was on the train all alone. It was her train. Her life train. She would go past all the stations she'd pass in her life. Take a ride on the road she would walk in the future.
Excited, she sat on the edge of her chair by the window. The table in front of her was unfolded. There was her notebook, with the prettiest pen she had. Ready to take notes. To be able to read everything back when she got back from this train trip. Then she finally knew what was going to happen. Because that was Aagje. Cheerful, modest, stubborn, but most of all... curious.
She read newspapers from A to Z. Dozens of hobbies she had already tried. She devoured piles of books in the library. She hung by the lips of her master in eighth grade, and oh so curious she was about her future. What school would she go to? What profession was she going to practice? Where would she live, who would she live with? What places in the world would she go to and what was she going through? She couldn't wait to know all this.
She found being curious sometimes quite tricky. Actually, she never had peace. She hoped it would be less after this trip. That she would happily read her notebook again and see how her life journey would go.
Clock, prrrt, tfff. The train started moving again. Aagje looked over her shoulder through the window. She saw a few trees go by very slowly. The school and the kids she was with in the classroom came by. And, hey, that was the school musical they were going to perform! And the enrolment forms for high school. Were those the kids she was going to join in class? Yes! So she went to the school in the city near the village where she now lives.
Aagje began to look away from the window unnoticed. She felt more and more awkward. Staring at her still empty notebook. She dropped her head a little. Slowly she closed the curtain. She started wobbling on her chair. Until she stopped holding it. She got up, ran forward and cried to the driver to stop. This one looked up terribly, choked on his coffee and stepped on the brake with full force. Piiieeeee, konkeldekonk, poffff. Abrupt, the train stopped. “I don't want it! I don't want it!”, called Aagje in a panic. The engineer looked at Aagje confused. His glasses half on his head. His hands dripping from the spilled coffee by the speed with which they had come to a standstill. “Bring me back,” she begged. “Please bring me back.”
Not comprehensively, the driver put the train in reverse. What a weird girl. He thought to himself. First we want nothing more than to make this trip and we haven't crossed the next station or she already wants to go back. Shaking his head he put his glasses right again and looked at Aagje again. She walked back to her bench. Relieved. Her notebook was on the floor. She picked it up and wrote on the empty page, “Life is a gift. How can I live with an already unpacked gift? Then what can I be curious about? Worse than not knowing it is already knowing.”
The train stopped at the start station. She slammed the book, put it in her purse and continued her life path.
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