You are in Venice, on your way to Milan, on your way to New York. You sit in the train station and watch the departures flip through the 21st hour, through the trains to Rome and to Florence and then through the 22nd hour to Vienna and to Nice. You suddenly irrationally want to see 24 appear on the train schedule. You want to see 24 and you want that to be your train.

Instead the Milan train appears at 0:01 hour. You focus on the 0:01 train time as if this minute after zero is what you have been waiting for the entire trip. You are eating popcorn and drinking mineral water, sitting on the scuzzy floor of the Venice train station watching the departures flip and the arrivals flip as if it were a movie and the climax were about to occur. An American couple with backpacks banging on the closed change booth, an Italian student reading Il Manifesto and drinking a beer, a German skinhead on the prowl, and an old guy with a salt and pepper moustache selling overpriced cokes, are all extras -- subplots to this major theme.

And you, what are you doing? You are debating whether to call your girlfriend or the psychology student during the last 23rd hour you will have in Italy, in Europe, on your vacation period. You stare hard at the 0:01 train. This decision, you know, is portentous. You procrastinate -- you should finish your popcorn since it's rude to talk with your mouth full. You think disingenuously you could call them both. But you can't decide who to call first and you don't have much time. Eventually, you reduce it to a monetary decision. Calling Donna requires lira. Calling the psychology student is collect. It seems crazy that it could cost less to call an unemployed psychology student than a well paid architect. It seems ludicrous that it could cost less to call the US than to call Naples. Your mind runs in loops around the 0:01 hour. You feel the cold wind blowing off the Venetian canal, the paranoia of the German skinhead, the darkness of the shop windows that surround you.

You step back and look at the clock -- it is 23:10, 23:15, 23:20. Indecision is costing you time. But you do not trust yourself. After all, your other decisions have left you unemployed and apartmentless. You should reform: stay with your girlfriend, buy more furniture, read the paper, talk about politics.

23:25. 23:30. 23:35. This is ridiculous. You are an adult. You make decisions all the time. Even in languages you barely understand; you arrange trains, hotels, meals. You'd be a fool to break up with Donna. Maybe you can change. Maybe she'll take you back. She is everything you want.

23:40. 23:45. 23:50. On the other hand, you think wistfully, the psychology student almost makes you believe in psychology. You still want insight. You think of Freud's cocaine stained nose. You whisper whimsy into the Venetian dark.

23:55. You call collect. She's there. You smile. You talk until the clock hits zero.