Wailing Wall

This one is called wailing wall.

Tonight I was going about my piano practice hajj, about to board the red line.

As I approached the station, a very dark-skinned, striking woman was walking alone speaking out loud.

She was saying something about how she hated dealing with human beings and their "egotistical bull-crap shit".

She too was boarding a train.

For a brief moment, we were side by side, but she was not at all distracted from her diatribe. By anyone or anything.

In the train station, on the platform, her speech became more desperate. More like wails. She began praying out loud to Jesus. She thanked him and humbled herself. She sang hymns.

This was a human desperate to comfort herself.

And with all the talk of Katrina and the Crescent City, I could not help but wonder whether maybe she had lost a loved one in the storm.

She continued praying and singing on the train. No one else on the train spoke. It became so quiet...I could not help but wonder whether or not the other passengers felt the gravity of this woman's moaning. It deeply affected and saddened me.

I received a postcard from a friend in Prague today. The last one he would send from there, as he has now left, most likely not to return. He and his partner are making their way through Eastern Europe. Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria. Locations not necessarily high on the priority list of your average traveler, especially an American one.

The postcard is from the Ossuary in Kutna Hora. It depicts a chandelier made completely of human bones. And skulls.