Two months twenty seven days after I had made the decision to set off on my own, I sat on a steel chair outside of a Starbucks in Bremen Central Station. I didn't order Caramel Macchiato this time, and just stared blankly at the crowds. My legs were as usual crossed; occasionally I would switch posture to ease the sore induced by a prolonged immobility. I kept staring until all the voices and chatters were reduced to mere hisses and sounds. Sudden outburst of laughters seemed to occur, rather infrequently so it did startle. The blond girl in the Burger King across from the corridor seemed ossified - her smiled appeared to halt and the way she drank from her straw. Her eyes were staring in another direction, presumably into nothing because she was laughing, and quickly contained herself to resume sipping soda.
Two black women, to my right, greeted in a language unknown to me. Now three of them, joined by another black woman, traffic controller, judging by her dress. It all startled me, like an overdone turn when I almost fell asleep, like a screechy blow of whistle in haze. I slightly awakened myself for a moment to inspect. I carefully adjusted my buttocks, and justified my move. Nobody shall notice me anyways. But it's always important just in case someone does. The train heading back to Berlin, would depart at 7:17 PM, unimaginably late from my perspective but nonetheless insignificant upon retrospect. And it's now only 5:22 PM. Still a long way to go, almost two hours.
I didn't know, since when I started to take Berlin as a symbol for return. "I go to Bremen today." "I go to Hamburg today." "I go to Hanover today." "And I go back to Berlin today." Or to be more precise, it wasn't Berlin that I would return to. It was the apartment at Christinen Street, inaccessible by public transportation, with a beat-up look so differed that of the surrounding buildings. Why then, out of all of these apartments, all of these rooms, I eventually settled in this one, facing another wall that blocked most of the view but a skim of the sky? The longer I lived in there the clearer the answer became for me, and the stronger my conviction to veil it from the knowings of the others. These were something that, after all, one cannot justify or circumvent because one ultimately belongs.
A pair of high heels just roamed by. I acknowledged their existence by paying a faint look towards the lady who was wearing them. I didn't see nothing. I was already too fatigued to distinguish even the mere clump of the shape, but I did see, a blurred shape of my sensation of having seen something. And that was where all of her significance of this life ended for me. There were simply too many people with high heels. She turned up like the myriads of the others, and quickly stepped down from the podium I constructed for her.
I yawned again, viciously so that the sleepiness purified. There were tears in my eyes without me feeling the urge to contain them. The broadcaster murmured something into the radio, information for another such and such train, the platform has been changed to such and such new number. Wasn't she as tired as I? My guess would be so. But she kept ushering her voice into the microphone as I kept typing on my keyboard. It was something not necessarily to be enjoyed; it was something that one did but out of an assurance of being alive. If the broadcaster stopped saying a word and I stopped typing on the keyboard, the agony might be gone for a while but what ensued would be a void, which would cause a stir and quickly fill up as if nothing has ever happened.
The people sitting to the right of me were gone. I didn't even remember how many batches of them were there. I needn't care, and I swore that even if I was sober, I wouldn't have noticed anything. And eventually I, like the girl in green coat, like the Syrian in jeans, like the youth with a black backpack and the elderly with a pushing cart, like every seemingly sentient beings passing in front of me, would join their inevitable ride, unto a journey towards a destination, and unto a journey again.
Thankfully, the fragrant smell from the Asian restaurant to the left of me reminded me of how beautiful everything could be. They were just cooking simple Asian foods. Though I couldn't cook like they do I knew for sure that their cooking wasn't up to bar, for I had been endowed with countless opportunities of tasting the servings of other restaurants, sensation perfected on an industrial scale.
I wondered, I truly wondered with utmost impatience, why the train still didn't arrive? Why was I still sitting here? Why time was always so annoyingly long when I needed the least of it and so mysteriously short when I craved for it. It was the will of God, I postulated, it is the will of God for human beings to have a window of yore yet to not have an actual means of firmly grasping it. Like love, which didn't exist, what I sensed, what we believed, were just our attempts to materialize something that wasn't supposed to exist, and of course, ultimately to no avail.
I got my ass up and moved around a little. And I began to taste a trace of sweetness in the back of my tongue. I was at the same time intrigued and terrified. Could it be, that my tongue had evolved to process food on its own? Or could it be, that such sweetness was indeed a precursor to something as serious as a heart attack? Meanwhile, the sweetness faded completely, never to be felt however hard I try.
Hand-holding couples, luggage-rushing men, and other anonymous people who are temporarily stranded at the train station, are all stuffing chips into their mouths, one by one, one by one, like a marching army, at its most brutal, at its most endless. Quietly at its side, I shunned away and walked back.
Monday, March 7
Saturday, March 5
3/5
Today, feeling incomprehensibly relaxed, I ate rather less than the several days that came before. It is not due to financial reasons though, since my expenditure has become not only minimal but also routine. it is due to other reasons, I assume, perhaps all of them compounded.
I now live perfectly normally. I would eat when hungry, drink when thirsty and breathe. When the orange juice runs out I will churn downstairs to Rewe to fetch another half a dozen. And usually after dinner, or lunch if it were to be judged according to my schedule, I put on my leather shoes and take a walk along the main road at Rosa-Luxembourg Platz. Interesting things might happen there, and delight me in the time after sunset.
Unfortunately, or likely not, during the evenings I no longer play computer games. After spending almost an entire day last weekend on them, I decide that it is not that appealing a pastime afterall. At the meantime, there is the void of having denounced my previous pastime while not finding a new one that congests me. It is an apt time to set off again for something refreshing and new, like the nearby sushi bar that is mentioned to me a few weeks ago and of which I am quite interested in, or the Italian restaurant I have seen earlier, where the gentlemen and their spouses dined, oblivious to the matters outside, or Mama India, with a tremendous logo design. I have always admired that. Though from the look of it, it might not be authentically Indian.
The room feels a little chilly as I am writing this and quickly warms up as I close the window. A deliberate arrangement that is - an iPhone with its flashlight on behind my laptop, and the familiar icon of iTunes playing Mozart in the background, for my enjoyment. I also keep the newly changed lightbulb closed in the main lamp. The room isn't too unsightly when well-lit, but after all there are too many varieties of objects on a desk as small as mine.
I intend to sleep before 1 AM today, since in the coming Monday I have a 4:30 train towards Bremen to get the work permit. However, conscious enough that sleeping early has never been a successful task for me, I submit to the good-old sleep late tactic, while entirely free of feeling guilt in doing so. I'd probably doze off well before expected anyways. And what other pursuit do I have worthwhile tomorrow even if I don't sleep late?
Two days ago, when I woke up I had a stiff neck. It came so casually that I thought it will be gone in no time. It turns out that I am still unable to comfortably turn my head. How beautiful must it be! How beautiful must it be if somehow tomorrow I could wake up without it.
Here, in this rented room once full of grandiose aspirations I take my time to write, to listen to music, to drink juice, to sustain myself. No one knows it better than I do. "I am still here; I am still here." Thusly I call.
Eh foolish young man. The party is over. Let's light-up the cigarette, sweep the floor and wash the dishes. Behold, behold, truth to be told, who doesn't have youth. Under the umbrella in the puddles of rain we sigh, without either hope or regret, the cap of the bottle, the collar of your coat, say good night and o' tomorrow!
I now live perfectly normally. I would eat when hungry, drink when thirsty and breathe. When the orange juice runs out I will churn downstairs to Rewe to fetch another half a dozen. And usually after dinner, or lunch if it were to be judged according to my schedule, I put on my leather shoes and take a walk along the main road at Rosa-Luxembourg Platz. Interesting things might happen there, and delight me in the time after sunset.
Unfortunately, or likely not, during the evenings I no longer play computer games. After spending almost an entire day last weekend on them, I decide that it is not that appealing a pastime afterall. At the meantime, there is the void of having denounced my previous pastime while not finding a new one that congests me. It is an apt time to set off again for something refreshing and new, like the nearby sushi bar that is mentioned to me a few weeks ago and of which I am quite interested in, or the Italian restaurant I have seen earlier, where the gentlemen and their spouses dined, oblivious to the matters outside, or Mama India, with a tremendous logo design. I have always admired that. Though from the look of it, it might not be authentically Indian.
The room feels a little chilly as I am writing this and quickly warms up as I close the window. A deliberate arrangement that is - an iPhone with its flashlight on behind my laptop, and the familiar icon of iTunes playing Mozart in the background, for my enjoyment. I also keep the newly changed lightbulb closed in the main lamp. The room isn't too unsightly when well-lit, but after all there are too many varieties of objects on a desk as small as mine.
I intend to sleep before 1 AM today, since in the coming Monday I have a 4:30 train towards Bremen to get the work permit. However, conscious enough that sleeping early has never been a successful task for me, I submit to the good-old sleep late tactic, while entirely free of feeling guilt in doing so. I'd probably doze off well before expected anyways. And what other pursuit do I have worthwhile tomorrow even if I don't sleep late?
Two days ago, when I woke up I had a stiff neck. It came so casually that I thought it will be gone in no time. It turns out that I am still unable to comfortably turn my head. How beautiful must it be! How beautiful must it be if somehow tomorrow I could wake up without it.
Here, in this rented room once full of grandiose aspirations I take my time to write, to listen to music, to drink juice, to sustain myself. No one knows it better than I do. "I am still here; I am still here." Thusly I call.
Eh foolish young man. The party is over. Let's light-up the cigarette, sweep the floor and wash the dishes. Behold, behold, truth to be told, who doesn't have youth. Under the umbrella in the puddles of rain we sigh, without either hope or regret, the cap of the bottle, the collar of your coat, say good night and o' tomorrow!
