Trang Trang Trang

THE STATION OF GREY GLANCES by Thassio Rodriguez Capranera

Translated by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel

“There was an old man, a guy named Linotti, he was a pussy, an asshole as they said . . .”

Beyond this story’s factories, I am that old man, too, who also comes back in at the end and defeated yet again as reader and controller, thanks a bunch! This is craquelure literature supreme, with a black narrator who sets the tone of colours, him black and tall, and others who are or become white, grey or even transparent grey if you are dragged under by the train from the station you do not recognise that makes you think you had lost a day; I do not recognise this place but it has factories and the narrator works oppressed in one bottling beer, with noise and noise. I’ll quote bits below, or retell bits, within reason, to show the context, people called Italians and others, in South America or Italy or wherever. The venue of the plot with factories and shopfronts is thus, for me, like his missing station, hanging fractured like haunts … and his wife with big belly who stinks. The stations of the turnstile, not the cross. “I would slap Christ if he looked at me funny.” Importing Waki, too — and a train going “slower than a stuttering priest’s mass.” No clock in the station, so allowing Zeno’s Paradox to go even slower… turning into rats, rats, rats. And “TRANG TRANG TRANG”, train wheels, and the brakes like a squeaky girl’s scream, big belly birth of wife as a natural progression, thus snuffing out any Anti-Natalism thoughts by that first asshole old man, I guess. Or are the rats the rats of a Rasnic Tem? “I remember well that it’s still with the Tac tac temm temm of the factory, and the tchaquetchaque of the train…”
“After all, it worked to wait, another time.” Bottle cap, loose. So much more I’ve not told you of what is in this story. And some things I may have told you that are in the story that are not? And then, of course, as I said, here I am, near the end of this story’s text, now, still writing this, just! — but soon out of control as the reader, the biggest asshole of them all “like a bunch of old man withering.” (sick) (sic)

“…silent and gray-eyed people with no names.”

***

My full review of GHOST TRAINS from Raphus Press here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/11/27/ghost-trains/