Can you imagine traveling through time? Back and forth. Or should it be forward and backward, if one wants to sound properly educated?

As the attentive reader already knows, it happened on a train. Deutsche Bahn does time travel. Officially. I took part. No, it doesn’t hurt. At worst, your soul may suffer a small crack. The rest of you arrives unharmed. At least as long as the rest of the passengers don’t already have pre-existing damage to the system.

Believe me, I noticed as early as last week that something about this train couldn’t be right. When I tried to book my seat reservation, all seats in both first and second class were suddenly completely sold out. Fine, I thought. I’ll try again during the week. Maybe the Railway Fairy is blocking the booking interface.

So I tried my luck on Thursday, and lo and behold: the fairy’s hand was not on my reservation. And I mean that quite literally.

Then came a very strange journey home on Friday. The taxi driver (with near-lethal certainty, the Taxi Fairy is a distant relative of the railway fairy) told me about his thirteen children and his three wives. He also explained how stupid German men are, because they have absolutely no fun in life with only one woman. In the same breath, he described the stress of keeping three wives under control.

Since my brain was still in listening mode after work, I actually remember all of this. Friends know what I mean.

Please excuse this rather long detour, but that very listening mode is probably the reason I even noticed the time travel. My fellow passengers didn’t seem to notice anything unusual at all.

Upon arriving at the beautiful and welcoming Düsseldorf Central Station, I went straight to the platform. A perceived million people were already waiting there for various trains. I still had ten minutes.

Then a friendly voice boomed from the platform loudspeaker: “The IC 613 to Munich has been canceled today.”

The amplifier crackled twice more, and every passenger expected at least some kind of explanation from Deutsche Bahn, the “Company of the Future.” But the future remained silent.

Outraged, an exodus toward the service center began. When roughly half of all suitcases, bags, dogs, hats, umbrellas, and humans had arrived at the service point, the railway fairy decided to activate the loudspeaker again and deliver the second part of the message:

“There will be a replacement train, scheduled to be ready in Cologne.”

I’ll spare you the details of the ordeal that was the journey to Cologne. I think it’s enough to say that the aforementioned suitcases, bags, dogs, hats, and umbrellas, along with their attached owners, did not remain at the service point but followed the replacement train in their reinforced indignation.

It was cramped. Very cramped.

But I don’t want to complain. After the lady in front of me moved her hat, whose brim was still relatively modest by Düsseldorf standards, and the gentleman behind me finally managed to tame his constantly opening umbrella, there was enough space. Honestly, I complain far too often.

At 5:56 p.m., the conductor spoke a few friendly words into his phone and promised that the replacement train would depart on time at 5:54 p.m.

And just like that, it had happened.

Did you notice? No? No wonder. Listening mode. Remember? You have to switch it on.

Once again:

At 5:56 p.m., the conductor promised that the replacement train would depart on time at 5:54 p.m.

Now you noticed, didn’t you?

It’s a shame the IPO was canceled. I would have loved to invest in such an innovative company. Just imagine if this also worked in the other direction.