The Last Train

Tomas looked at his phone and felt his stomach drop. It was twelve ten in the morning, and the station gates were closing. In Tokyo, the trains do not run all night. The last train on most lines leaves around midnight, and everyone in the city knows the exact time of theirs. Tomas, who had been in the country for four days, did not.

Tomáš sa pozrel na telefón a žalúdok sa mu stiahol. Bolo dvanásť desať ráno a brány stanice sa zatvárali. V Tokiu vlaky nejazdia celú noc. Posledný vlak na väčšine liniek odchádza okolo polnoci a každý v meste pozná presný čas toho svojho. Tomáš, ktorý bol v krajine štyri dni, ho nepoznal.

A taxi across the city would cost more than his hotel room. A station worker saw his face and pointed down the street. There, between a convenience store and a noodle shop, glowed a sign for a capsule hotel. Tomas paid at a machine, took a locker key, and slept in a clean plastic pod the size of a single bed, in a quiet room full of other people who had also missed their trains.

Taxík naprieč mestom by stál viac než jeho hotelová izba. Pracovníčka stanice si všimla jeho tvár a ukázala mu dolu ulicou. Tam, medzi večierkou a rezancovou reštauráciou, svietil nápis kapsulového hotela. Tomáš zaplatil pri automate, vzal si kľúč od skrinky a zaspal v čistom plastovom module veľkosti jednej postele, v tichej miestnosti plnej ďalších ľudí, ktorí tiež zmeškali svoje vlaky.

In the morning he bought coffee from a vending machine and took the first train home, fresh and slightly proud. Now he checks one thing before any evening out in Japan: not the menu, not the map, but the time of the last train.

Ráno si kúpil kávu z automatu a nastúpil na prvý vlak domov, svieži a mierne hrdý. Teraz si pred každým večerným výletom v Japonsku kontroluje jednu vec: nie jedálny lístok, nie mapu, ale čas posledného vlaku.