He saw her immediatly, a new face was rare in his job and this one he was sure he never would forget. Not because of its beauty but the expression was intense, in a way he felt anxiety and hate. He wasn´t a person who easily exploded into emotion on the contrary specially hate he never had felt before, so he was irritated that this face had deeply touched him immediatly.

A church, dark, high above some light is falling through the dome, a cruzifix in the middle, showing Jesus in his ordinary pain, common for the whole christianity. Some people are sitting in the rows, young students, few older ones, quiety reigns there are still some more minutes to the beginning of regular sunday morning divine service. A woman rushes in, not looking around. She´s like an animal followed by the hunter, there´s an alarming whistling in her eyes, not because of a special colour just flackering like candles. It´s amazing and he isn´t the only one who notice it.

God, why are you so cruel, what´s the necessity to present her to me, are you god and devil in person? Are you testing my skill to withdraw from danger? She is devil if you are not and I´m attracted not by sex or love but because of the danger and death of rebellion and freedom she seems to personify. "J´ai peur", he whispered and begged his master pardon. "I don´t want to go through this." No excuse: Go! And be brave.

After church she went home, feeling much better and in a way relieved from all the pains that ached her. There were strength in the words of the priest, he was absolutely religious and believed what he was talking about. She felt that it wasn´t an easy way he was going with his god but in fact a way. She could imagine his struggles and fights his thoughts of unbelieve and rebellion, sometimes his trials to run away from the power of an instance he never will be able to understand. But his character is firm and he is strong enough to get through all difficulties. She admired but she saw without doubt that it never could have been her way. She stood aside and the door to enter paradies was closed for her.

Dear Anne,
I´m not strong and firm as you think I am and the imagination to meet you made me shiver, I´m anxious and I know it. I would withdrew your invitation of drinking tea together but even therefore I havn´t enough strength. Being a catholic priest I´m sure you think I´m afraid of your gender in general but that´s not the reason at all. You have a power and nearly don´t know of its existance and I fear that I´m predestinated to wake it up. We should meet nevertheless, perhaps my dark thoughts are wrong. See you sunday after church.
Brian

God, what have you done, is this really you I adored and whorshipped for years? My believes are destroyed not a single word of the bible and of all that is said in religious context seems true and right any more. I´ve lost everything, not only strength and will and character but truth, justice and the believe in live. I´ve lost you, god, and it´s your fault: you sent me Anne you created her as she is and you gave her the power she has. And it was you who let me meet her to wake up her possibilities. Oh god, what have I done, I was only an unnecessary priest totally in your hand and my whole life in your circle of power. And now I´ve fitted together the two big entidies that reigns word: creation and destruction, the cabel was capped but I pasted it: Energy streams intensely. I´m overwhelmed.

Anne looked up and saw directly in god´s eyes. She knew the moment was there for which she had longed. There wasn´t the chance to escape any more and she felt prepared for the gigantic fight that had to take place and in which the universe would burn down completely. It was time to start and to kill definitively the enemy: "I´m death and hate and even you had to obey. Your creation is rubbish you´ve done only pain to your world, I despise you. Why was I thrown out of your heaven, why have you closed my eyes so that I had to live all the centuries without knowing who I am?"

The universe waited for an answer from the only one who it thought was able to give it: Silence.

"It´s my duty to become a married woman, the only possibility in my circumstances to get the freedom I need" My grand-grandmother was an extraordinary person, she had learned hairmaker and was able to look after herself. She was independent when one only looked at the money she could earn, but the thoughts of all the other persons around her were the most restricted one can imagine. "Look, young Miss R., she thinks she´s something special who needs no man. She´ll fail sooner or later, I beg." Her husband took her because she had a correct hairstring and clean shoes, that he thought were the two and only characteristics that count when one looks for a good wife for the rest of one´s life. I´m sure it wasn´t love what the two fitted together but they managed life and having a fixed position now in human community, wife and soon mother, she was free.

"It was a wonder when I met him, he was so different from me but he could open my eyes for the world´s beauty. I really admired him" These are the words of my grandmother, I often heard her talk of her gigantic but short love. It was the time around the 2nd World War, just before they married and soon after he had to become soldier and she was pregnant. They hadn´t long time together, but their love seems to be a miracle, intensive, with the strength of two hearts who felt that death was hanging in the air. He fell in the "field of honour" when his daughter was nearly 2 years, and it wasn´t quite necessary because he wasn´t dangerous wounded just so that he could soon go home to his family. In some way he felt relieved that his wartime had ended and the thoughts that he might see his little daughter made him happy. But in the night he died suddenly on embolia. Later my grandmother married again to give her child a father it was still easier to be some man´s wife than to live alone with a daughter, but there was no freedom only anxiety and rebellious thoughts of leaving him.

"There was and is still love between us, perhaps it was random that we met and even more random that we married in the end but looking back I see I´m choosed to share life with the person I love for such a long time." My mother´s only wish was to become completely independent from her family. She learned a lot and loved her job who gave her enough to live and to stay alone. She never thought of giving up working and learning just because one meets the man one loves and wishes to live with. He was a student when they first met and for long not able to "found a family" as elder generations might say. They married because they were made for each other but they stayed independent over the years and that fixed them completely together. Liberty had made up an arrangement with her sister called Love and together they were able to create the "perfect couple"

And now it´s my own turn and I have to confess that everything except Liberty had vanished: I don´t mind what the people around me will think of my way of living, I never had a satisfied "firelove" nor a love that grew constantly by time and fitted me completely to one person and I´m sure that´ll never happen. I´m completely free but I sacrified love on the altar of independence. Sometimes I think if it must have come like this, if it was really a succeeding process from generation to generation. In some way we were all longing for a person to share our independence but we differed in the way of making compromises. I want the highest stars and I know I only will get a silver little nothing and that´s it.

It was a joke when Louis took the blond hair of his niece and draped them over his forehead "look how beautiful, will you give me some of them? It´ll grow again but mine here at the front won´t any more" He smiled, Jane was only 3 1/2, looking seriously at his blank forehead "Why?" "Well, I´m too old, men at a certain age often loose their hair, that´s normal, you mustn´t be sorry about"

Uncle Louis had arrived friday evening to have a nice weekend together with his sister Anne, her husband Paul and their two little children Jane and her older sister Doris. Saturday morning they went shopping and afterwards had a picnic at the little lake nearby the town, the weather was fabulous, it couldn´t have been better Louis thought when he took out all the slices with cheese and ham, the tomatoes, apples, orange-juice and all the neccecities you need for a real successful picnic. He saw the smile in Janes little face when he gave her the apple he had specially rubbed at his pullover to give him a glance of summer and sweetness.

The children loved their uncle, he was so different from their parents, he always liked playing with them, he could tell exciting stories from his adventures, he had been in so many different countries and seen a lot of fantastic things: animals, flowers, buildings, people, it was delightful to listen to him sometimes also fearful, but never boring. What profession he has exactly, they didn´t know, they guessed something with photos, because he always brought a lot of them back from his "adventures"

- what are you grumbling about?
- well you know I don´t really like your "famous" brother
- don´t be sarcastic, he isn´t famous at all, but look how excited Jane and Doris are, they nearly adore him
- they are children, they can´t see his immense faults
- that´s really unfair only because he doesn´t take much care about a solid profession and has no aims to earn a lot of money and make an imposant career you mustn´t say he is something like a black sheep of the familily or a bad influence for the children. He plays with them
- it´s quite normal to be tired after a hard working day, when I had freetime like your "beloved" brother...
- shut up, it´s enough now you´ll never see his qualities but don´t disturb our children the view they have from their uncle

There stood Jane, a serious little human being, and looked up to Louis. With dignity she presented him her light blond hair she had cut off for him.

"Why havn´t we met in different circumstances?" That always was my thought when I saw Dean, a man in his beginning 30th, handsome and what I heard from others an interesting personality. I had the feeling that normally we could have been really good friends, I found him familiar and often understood his reactions because they were exactly mine.

"Well, come on chap, I´ll bring you home, can you walk?" It was a real bad time for me when I first met him, I couldn´t accept the job I had, the way I lived and even myself I found really disgusting. To be honest I had begun to escape from selfhate and feelings of guilt and shame by drinking, well, not quite a good way, I know. Completely drunk I was able to forget, it was a short but necessary relief. Even if I felt more and more ashamed of myself, it was a vicious-circle I wasn´t able to break out. One night Dean found me sitting on the pavement with eyes not seing what´s going on around, deeply depressed and nearly alcohol-poisened. I must have been in a desolate state because Dean, coming from a party or something like this, a little drunk too, felt responsible to bring me home. It wasn´t more than 200 metres and even to my own surprise I was able to walk, but that killed the possibility to become friends. He has seen me in the most vulnerable state without any selfcontrol and nice fassade. It was my black inner life he had seen, and it was quite normal that he despised it.

What a poor boy, what helplessness, how must he suffer. I look at him and I have the painful feeling to see myself some years ago. The same expression of no hope in his eyes, the same struggling to manage it and exactly the same method to escape. How often I was drunk like that and next morning ashamed. But that´s past, I´ve managed, but I know there´s always the possibility to loose again strength and power, to become a mental cripple and that´s something I never never want to become again. He must help himself, I´m not strong enough and still too labil.

It was several weeks later when we met again, in a little café, I wanted to thank him so I went straight to his table. At first, when he recognized me there was a spontaneous smile, his eyes lightened but immediatly became reserved again. My trial to get in contact with him failed. Other randomly meetings here and there were also painful, because in his presence I always felt like minor dust, his face reminded me at my complete lost of selfcontrol this night at the pavement.

I saw him again and again, I saw pain in his eyes when he tried to come in contact with me and it nearly broke my heart to stay cool and reserved. I know he was quite an interesting person, he had perhaps deep thoughts and ideas. There was something in his quiet behavior which attracted me and at home I often thought it might have been fantastic to become friends. But he retired, no wonder.

For months I didn´t went out. I stayed at home, reading, learning, trying not to think of my problems, all the troubles that bother me. I stopped drinking consequently but I knew it wouldn´t help to get rid of my selfhate and my tendency to escape in the one or the other way. It was a risk to begin going out again but I knew even my strictly staying at home was something like an escape. I wasn´t stronger than before only more anxious. I didn´t want to long for friendship or love any more, it would be hard but I swore myself: no more tries to get in contact with anyone.

And here I am, sitting on a small table, being alone, but this is exactly what I want. On another table at the window sits Dean, we cannot speak together, we are separated forever. There´s only the exchange of a long glance: I know you, I like you, I even feel attracted of you, but please keep the distance.

"One will be too much I think, take the half it´ll be enough for you." Dan looked to his friend and immediatly understood. "How clever, then we can have the other half, right?" "Exactly." Thomas and Dan were used in taking soft drugs, they often smoked a joint and knew, where they could get them. The Netherlands were a paradise for them and the last weeks they were nearly every evening stoned. Now they stood in Madelaine´s room, their visit from Belgium, and presented her a really big cookie brought from their trip to Amsterdam. The whole week Madelaine had asked for something like that, she was here as guest student for an intensive course and to be honest, it was not as easy as she had exspected. The whole day she had courses and to be prepared for the next day she had to learn additionaly several hours in the evening. It was hard working and so she longed for something really new and exciting to forget all her troubles.

"What? You really have brought me a cookie?" "We couldn´t hear your sufferings any longer", it was Thomas who said it, half sarcastic half smiling, he himself had taken 2 or 3 together with Dan and couldn´t help giggling and feeling flattered in his stomach, it has an immense effect even though he was practised. Madelaine had no experiences at all and therfore he was curious how it would be for her. "You both are great. Thanks a lot." She took the cookie and broke it in two pieces. "And you are sure, that´ll be enough?" "Yes, you are a beginner and weight not much." Madelaine tasted her half, it was delicious, the chocolate, the crossness, sweet like honey. It was much better than smoking a joint. A few days ago she had tried one from Dan but because she was nonsmoker and couldn´t breath in as necessary it had no effect and was really disgusting. She leaned back in her bed, carefully observed from her two friends, joking and having fun with their last half of a cookie. "What do you think will happen, what if she only fell asleep?" Dan couldn´t answer, the laughter was overwhelmingly.

Madelaine, where are you, you have left your friends, this little room, the town, the country, universe is waiting for you. Your senses never were clearer than now, you see, you hear, you smell, you tast and you feel more than you thought were possible. I hesitate to describe what I see, it´s not spectacular and I don´t want to bother you. The world looks highstructured, I see every line in the wooden bed, I see the different colourshades of the white wall, the thousand glances in Dan´s hair, it´s fascinating, surprising, shocking, I´m afraid but not really. Can´t you feel yourself any more, Madelaine? Havn´t you emotions and thoughts? Where are your goals, aimes, hopes and wishes'? I feel as if I have lost myself completely, everything is unimportant what counts is this single moment in time and location. I´m unable to look forward into the future or back to the past. I´ve lost all normal dimensions, I´m gone, flying away without body and head, there´s nothing but this gigantic feeling of... - independence.

"Hey Dan, look at her, see?" "What´s this, I never saw her like that before d´you mean she´s ill?" They both were worrying when they saw Madelaine, stretched out on her bed, not speaking, not giggling, laughing or jokeing like they used to under the drug effect. "Hey Madelaine, you are all right?" Thomas took her by the shoulders and shook her softly. "Sure I am" There was something like a smile in her eyes. "I feel fantastic, really on top" They changed a look, wondering what´s going on, not knowing what to do with her. "Are you sure you are o.k.?" Thomas insisted sceptically "Of course I am, but please leave me alone"

Closing her eyes she went into a different area where she could forget everything and everybody. She, who always controlled herself with military strength and never was able to forget her selfhate and the strong feelings of guilt, shame and responsibility, she had found a way to get out of the net she normally was caught in: I´m a bird see me fly, I´m free, independent at last, delicious cookies how I like them, how easy to fly, how easy to fall into complete dependence...

And there it was: after I had suffered month of month my feelings of love and adoration were disappeard and I felt the most free in my life.

It was autumn when I first met Angela, a waitress in my café I usually joint in at the end of the day, often emotionally overtired. My job wasn´t easy I practised as a psychologist in an organisation for drug-taker, hard stuff to be honest. Angela was new there, I was very familiar with the waiters because of my regular visits, and she was quiet young, twenty-something. I looked in her eyes and there was this strange glittering which fascinated me immediatly. I wished I had never seen her eyes, her face, pale with dark eyes, not very common. It was the regularity of beauty you know it from greek statues, stone and coolness. I took my special place in the corner of the room and couldn´t stop observing her, her hands taking tea- and coffeecups, cake-plates or else, I knew it was really crazy, it would led straight into hell but you know, who ever paid attention to his inner voice when his heart was burning? I was too old, that would have been not the main problem but I also was too serious for her. Her blank face talked of parties, having fun, lots of friends, kidding and never thinking more than necessary. I knew her well even I had seen her the first time. We never would fit together, I was sure and so I tried to become master over my fireheart.

"Hey, what´s that?" She looked full of surprise when she saw the little bearfigure of porcellain in her hand "Well, just a little present because of the lovely day." I had paid and leaving I gave her the figure. I wasn´t able to look back, to give her just a little smile was impossible, there was this fear to see her laugh or mock at me, I wouldn´t have stand it.

The days went by and I couldn´t go to the café. I felt that I had made a perfect fool, like every lover, I was really ashamed of myself. Christmas day came, I went home to see my brother and his family and tried by hard to forget Angela, but like most of the things you try by hard it never works - so in this special case, too. One day my brother asked if there was something I want to overtalk with him but well, would you have spoken with your brother about such a delicate thing like Angela was for me?

January came, I was back but never went to the café. I was still trying to forget her. Then in an emotionally uncontrolled moment I sent a little parcel with a necklace to the café, I didn´t know her complete name nor her adress. It was two or three days later when I couldn´t help myself and went to the café again, full with fear - and hope. Hope? How absurd thinking of hope! i saw her, yes, she was really there, but because of the many people and therefore a lot to do for her, we just shared a glance at each other.

Again a few weeks, again I stopped my visits at the café, again weeks in fear, hope, love, selfhate, anger and unpatience. I didn´t know what I was exspecting perhaps I praid for a miracle or something like that even I didn´t believe in any gods or goddess and never went to church in my life but the thought that from somewhere maybe heaven or so someone may come and solve all my problems and pain was however pittoresque.

I wake up I look around, something has changed, but what? I´m looking out of the window, I feel strong, somewhat strange but full of energy and really surprised I notice that I feel - free (?!) I had a fantastic day at work, I was really successfull and had managed a lot of the work I wasn´t able to do the last weeks and months to my full satisfaction. Content with myself I decided to go to Angela, I was sure to meet her in the café, and overwhelm her and myself with the strongness of the day and my freedom.

Normally I was totally shy, I never brought the words easily over my lips but to be honest I really had changed. I talked to the waiter I hadn´t seen for several times and who recognized me immediatly, we joked a little and when I saw Angela, I invited her to drink a cup of coffee or tea with me as if this was the most normal thing I was used to do. I was really surprised. She looked as if I had said something really cruel and obscene and her face went to express a sudden distance. I heard her words, not really heard them just guessed that she felt insulted, and when I saw deep into her dark black eyes I realized with a sudden pang: There wasn´t any love in my heart, only this immense energy which filled it completely. I was able to smile at her and I could laugh because of my sudden faux-pas. While enjoying my cup of tea I relieved, I had regained liberty and my eyes were again wide open for the world´s beauty, not my heart.

Give me a chance

I´ve seen a girl
I looked in her eyes
and hesitated
There was a mixed feeling inside
and I wanted to ask her:

is there a chance
for you and me
is there a place
in the whole eternity
I´m not jokeing never be more serious but now
give me a chance

That´s what I thought
but my mouth was closed
there were no words strong enough
to overwhelm the high walls of anxiety and hate
but my eyes tried to speak:

is there a chance
for you and me
is there a place
in the whole eternity
I´m not jokeing never be more serious but now
give me a chance

I hope there will be a time
where I´m brave enough to speak
where I´ll find words
and give them a door to slip out
and for gods sake you must hear them

is there a chance
for you and me
is there a place
in the whole eternity
I´m not jokeing never be more serious but now
give me a chance