Nonetheless, the Zeitung der Zeitverschwendung’s director labeled the train “the cursed train”. The moniker, under pressure from the government and suggestion by the Red Pontiff himself – given the sacred place and the engineer’s religious character – was immediately changed to “unlucky train”. Substituted later with “slightly unlucky train”, so as not to give passengers the impression of traveling on a time bomb.
Finally, a little before the train resumed his journey, a greeting telegram by the Red Pontiff of Climax was read. With it the passengers were reminded of the uncertain nature of being, the story of the gazelle and the lion (a lion cannot kill a whole herd of gazelles), and the mathematical aphorism: “A dead man, one certainty; a live man, a thousand uncertainties”. It was suggested that optimists never take life for what it is, and that pessimists never take life for what it seems. Then, as a sort of compensation, all healthy men were promised a free fuck in a state-run whorehouse, once they arrived at their destination.
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