fractured times

From Berlin, 1907, ...

The hours that rolled into days, before we knew it. The time spent, exhausted; the most important thing of all: to keep oneself in good spirits. I look back with narrowed eyes at all the half-closed doors behind me. A chapter has come to close and I have to muster the strength to keep my heart free. Smaller, the world makes me so. It's fine, understandable, given everything, there are techniques for letting things pass, you know. A ship sails softly in the black night. Now, are you sitting comfortably? Finish your soup before it gets cold.

***

The lively is always more contemplative than what is dead or sad.

I am not conscious of my existence, and am neither happy nor sad. I am lord of the manor and nothing at all. Up above grey skies; I want to close my eyes and imagine the most perfect green. This half-heartedness and drowsiness beneath the green. Today, in the blustery light, everything seems like a dream. Perhaps that is where we find beauty, me and you?

In a single hour at least seventy leaves fall to the ground. The streets and shops are closed. What kind of dream is this where I'm the only one awake? This talent for not being able to make any sense of anything. You tried to hold too many things in your hands with the result that everything fell to the floor. A lesson: one thing at a time.

*
1908,

A fire stops everyone, draws people together in an artificial way. Bodies jostling for space. It strikes me: everyone sees the same thing in a different way; no-one knows nobody.

An old train station. Pleasantries are exchanged: a smile, a nod, timetables and authority. This is one of the few places where the hands of strangers will almost touch one another in their daily transactions. A thousand feet, a final whistle, a man holding up a yellow card to announce the last chance. A few lunging bodies. Who will make it and who will give up the chase at the gates?

*

What became of me? I once had a fine head of hair and knew how long the day was, down to the last seven seconds. I could name many extinct animals and play the first seven notes of a tune. Now when people see me they see someone else. Much of what I have experienced in the wide world has vanished completely from my head.

What became of her, she who sat under a plum tree and grew old and whose child had grown tall. Food for thought. Her sorrow cast a romantic spell that made her appear beautiful. Is it enough to know that a beautiful woman once looked at me? Something like a beginning, something like an end. And still I say Yes, No, Yes, like time. This much has been permitted me.

"What is it you want from me?" she asked.

My mind lay as if broken in fragments before my grieving eyes.

Summer has passed in silence. I expect you to say even less in fall. Time is fractured, when will it heal?

When I look back I think to myself, certain states, circumstances, and circles are there only once, never again to appear, or only when one is least expecting it. Are not expectations and presuppositions unholy...