By Milan Gagnon

It’s hard to empathize with those who wonder how something wrong can seem so right when nothing seems quite right. It’s always one foot out the door, your life dictated by “This’ll do for now.” You can’t even commit to a season, you don’t realize so much as admit en route to Sídliště Lehovec, end of lines 3, 19, 52, and 54.
It’s cold now, so you decide you’ll play in the snow until it gets warm, which happens soon. But you know that come spring you’ll waste your days soaking in suds and sunshine and plotting for winter, when it’s cold and dark and you can start writing to-do lists all over again and accomplish those must-dos on days frigid and short. Excuses abound, and nothing gets done, so much as happens. Deadlines and obligations are all you have to dictate your deeds.

So it’s this tram stop, and there’s nothing doing on a Sunday, likely not much ever. There’s this bar. You can’t miss it. First bar in the projects, across the street from the tram stop, on Kardašovská. It’s Krušovice, 10º for 19 Kč, which isn’t so torturous because at least the piss on tap ain’t overpriced. Inside, it’s eight tables. Two women at one, two men at another. Fish swim in a tank. There’s no corner to hide in, so you sit in the center of the room, and goddamn if that don’t make it impossible to be inconspicuous. You search your bag. There’s a letter you got in May, and you’ve yet to respond because you can’t find a moment you can commit to for two months, which is how long it takes for a letter to get from Prague to her town in the Yucatán. What’s the use in updating her if the news is old by the time she gets it? Responding to the letter, of course, was a task reserved for the stale, stagnant, standard, and static days of winter, when the only stuff going on is too far away on nights too cold, and you’re always too tired, anyway. 
You can’t write it now, being all on display in the center of the room, more so, you decide, than the fish, who do their thing against the wall and have a castle to hide in should they feel shy. You leave because if you can’t commit to winter, spring, summer, or autumn, if you can’t commit to Palm Desert, San Diego, Costa Mesa, San Francisco, or Idaho Falls, if you can’t commit to waiting tables, delivering pizzas, washing cars, running a roller coaster, or installing fiber optics, then how the fuck you gonna commit to Sídliště Lehovec? It’s the end of the line for certain trams, but, for you, it’s just somewhere to drink a couple of beers on the way.

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