Thursday, April 28, 2005

On violence (1)

A leaf on the ground crushed by feet. Floods have vandalized the German city nearby. The riverside road still shows the ravages of water. Garbage hanging in the trees, plastic drainage pipes ripped out, a washbasin on the country lane turned upside down. Voices upswelling and dying away, like aircraft noise.

6 years after the Meissen incident when a 15-year old boy stabbed his woman teacher to death, in front of his classmates. My niece and my nephew went to his school, just a few walls away from him. 3 years after the Erfurt school massacre when a 19-year old expelled student killed 14 teachers and 2 kids from his former school, before killing himself. Images that will never leave my mind, like these faces of Beslan: The man smoking, focused and calm. The child not understanding what happens. The scene is bloody real but it looks somehow unreal to me, like in a cocoon.

Fuss in the media, explanations, promises drained away. No traces left, the scenes have been cleaned up, the buildings reconstructed, the facades painted. A girl prowls around the Erfurt school taking photos of walls and windows and corners collecting memories and useless stuff.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Marie

The teenage daughter of my neighbors, Marie, sits on the steps in front of the house, smokes quietly. She must be 17, 18 now. A few years ago, at night, I heard loud voices from the apartment where she lived with her parents, male and female voices yelling with rage at each other. On another day, I came home and found blood all over the walls in the hallway. That was the day her mother threw her father out of the house. A few months later, another man moved in, obviously her stepfather now. He looked like one of those guys I do not wanna meet in times of oppression, in a dictatorship. One day at midnight I found her drunk and apathetic at the front door brought home by her friends. She behaves like a girl with good manners. She looks like a bird to me that wants to be set free.

Monday, April 25, 2005

L'Institut Français

A call from the Institut Français où je suis le cours de français le lundi. A girl left a letter for me there, a girl with no name. I play with the idea of leaving it there, unopened, as a mystery. Another story untold, another turnoff, wrapped in paper.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

It never occurred to me

It never occurred to me to create a blog of my own until 2 weeks ago. It was evoked by chance, as often in my life. Looking for some French weblog to deepen my French language skills, I came across Valérie's site and tout de suite liked her style of writing and viewing things and the layout of verstehen. Thanks, Valérie.

Stories from the parking lot

Dresden, downtown. Tuesday in the afternoon. At the parking lot, a woman with red hair feeds the parking-meter, runs out of change. She looks nervous, uneasy. I throw some money into the slot, she looks surprised. 'Coz it's such a beautiful day, I say, just to relax her. She thanks me effusively, waving her hand to me. Leaving the parking lot, she turns to me again from the distance, smiles. In my mind there is a movie going on. A tiny, ridiculous gesture that sets in motion the big things... The woman with red hair gets into her car elatedly, sings while driving. In the supermarket she cheerfully asks the ill-tempered shop girl about her children, the shop girl smiles for the very first time for days, this evening she is not going to turn on the TV and to yell at her kids and to regret later. In front of her house, the woman talks to the boy next door, the boy next door replies hesitantly, still unbelieving. The next day he is going to stop blackmailing the guy with freckles after school, the guy with freckles could explain the mystery of math to him, maybe? The woman gets upstairs, with each step she gets younger and younger, tonight she is going to beget a child with her lover and to bring new life into the world... If I had snarled at her (hurry up! I've got no time to waste), she may have got into her car with anger, may have run over somebody on the road. At night she would go to bed early and feign tiredness to her lover, while the shop girl would sit in the kitchen crying. The guy with freckles could not sleep at night while the boy next door would sit on the doorstep looking up to the lighted windows and volunteer for the army someday and get into war and abandon lives. And the woman with red hair would stand at the parking lot again someday searching the sky with flickering eyes while time passes...

Friday, April 22, 2005

L'insouciance du papillon

Il fait une chaleur lourde un instant, des gouttes de pluie timides le prochain instant. Des nuages blancs, des nuages gris. Je suis dans un bistro au quartier où j'habite, le quartier s'appelle "L'œuf de Nuremberg", j'aime bien ici, en plein air. J'écris, j'écoute, la musique du haut-parleur, le Jazz sauvage va bien avec la chaleur. L'insouciance du papillon. Le désir. Je brûle. Les adolescents à coté de moi font du bruit, un des hommes don le ton, une des filles veut plaire, elle rit un peu trop forte, c'est son anniversaire, elle avoue. Ils jouent les jeux des adultes, comme des petits animaux apprivoisés...

Je n'assume pas ce que je pense, elle a dit. Elle a écrit à un bout de papier. L'histoire de Stéphanie.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Out in a different world

This is the story of a reoccuring dream
Some other images cut in between
Endlessly seeking for identity
Of what there is and what there seems to be ...

Lyrics in "About" and "About me" conceived by Katharina Franck and Ulrike Haage or The Rainbirds.