If a hamster runs in its wheel it´s clear for everyone that it never will go straight on and that this work for itself is completely useless. Naturally the animal can talk into believing that it does something for its health, moving is important, specially if one sits everyday in a small cage and it has to do something to have a right for its existance and a good conscience to eat its daily fodder.

Well, in another way we are all hamsters in a wheel but only a few notice. Working is mostly exactly the same as senslessly running in a wheel and not coming forward. Working as end in itself, to have something to do, to be busy, to feel as a useful member of community and to have good conscious to eat our daily bread.

But what if evolution meantimes went into a completely other direction? What if it is meaningless if you work or not, because work need not be done from others? In former times on a farm f.e., the work had to be done from the others, if a member of the family was ill or couldn´t work because of other reasons, and naturally it was unsocial to shirk of work or to make off. But, in a community with less work than workers and the potential to rationalize even more work because maschines are much better, work as a "value" lost its sense.

But what if evolution meantimes went into a completely other direction? What if it is nearly criminal to work in special departments because it is harmful for others or ruin our basis of life? If someone today works in a nuclear power station, in the car-industry or weapon-branch, isn´t it necessary to ask himself honestly about the effects? Can he eat his daily bread with good conscious and feel as a useful member of community? Doesn´t he feel queer if he is an employé of a relief organisation f.e. and earn his money with the misery of others and therefore in a way depends on this misery?

Thinking one step forward and misery lasts because it saves many jobs and war lasts because too many make money with it, nature dies because economy has to step up. Our values work, acceptance, economic growth, prosperity, money, community are not very helpful to save our planet on the contrary it´s time to scrutinize them critically and look for others which are more qualified for future. The necessary basis is asking the question of meaning.

Similar to the change of paradigm from the Old to the New Testament it must be a fundamental change in our thinking: The old "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" in a former economical context means "you give me that and I give you that". But today the structures are more like a net, so that our acting isn´t only just for one partner any more but have effects on many other areas. Analogical to Jesus who turns the other cheek and bursts old structures with it and at the same time provokes the opposite and encourages to start thinking and changing view, we also should try to develop new rooms for manoeuvre.

If there isn´t a direct exchange any more, the value turns round, work won´t be measured on how much it earns, i.e. in Euro and Cent, but will be seen in the great context, i.e. in its sense and consequences. Therefore the work of a big industrialist whose production is ecologically harmfull is less valuable than that of an unemployed person who organises honorary an open meeting place for young persons: A new way, a new chance for all of us.

- I´m not sure if you´ll stay and work here more than perhaps a half year.
- You´re more than honest and I can accept your doubts. I myself have nearly the same doubts, but not because of the collegues I´ve to work with, I like the atmosphere here.

She won´t stay, she won´t, it´s like a stupid singsang in my head, I force myself to stop it. I´ve just started here with my work, just arrived from a little town more than 500 km away. Changing my surrounding completely I can´t forget that in my inner I always want to be at home somewhere. Perhaps that´s why my first impression of her signaled me immediatly her difference. Looking in her eyes I feel immense distances and there´s the curiosity of "the other", there´s no explanation I could give for my interest, but an inner voice says I have to hurry, do I know how long we´ll work together?

- Well, I´m not sure if I´ll be able to go to this meeting in April next year, my contract ends in several months and at the moment I don´t see a possibility how to work on here longer.
- No discussion, we need you and we´ll find a solution, there´ll be a prolongation of your contract pretty soon I swear.

Why is he so different now, why has he changed so completely? At the beginning I was surprised by his directness, I felt in some way seen through, but it was easier. Now he always comes several times to me but just for talking, that´s my impression, because his official questions are answered in 2 minutes and he stays much longer, what for?

- Oh hello and good morning, back from holidays? How was it?
- Fine, thank you, by the way there´s a question concerning...
- Alright, just come in later during the day, I´ve a term now and have to hurry, sorry.

How can I hold her, how stopping her fast steps, her inner hurry? I don´t know why I go to her room so often, why I talk to her much longer than necessary, it´s not love I swear, I´m married and have 2 little children, I´m not in a single-situation looking for an affair. I don´t want her to leave and I never was more sure that she will, perhaps must. In this months of our working together she reached a state of familiarity she means in a very special way security and being at home for me. But what if she leaves?

- I have to go, there´s a very unlucky affair with my chief I was forced to give away my professional ethics and that´s impossible for me.
- I knew you would leave us sooner or later, but I honestly hoped to give you some sort of a rest here.
- Thanks, I liked working with you all, but restlessness is in my blood I fear.
- In your eyes, to be correct.

Germany, Hamburg, Bus
- can´t you imagine, I love you!
- I understand, but I don´t
- but why?
- well, feelings can´t be enforced
- is it becaus I´m black?
- no, no, that´s not the point
- well, god has decided that you must become my wife
- but I have no feelings for you
- I love you!

France, Marseille, Underground
- I love you, you´re the woman I want to marry
- I don´t love you
- it is because I´m black
- no, I´ve a lot of black friends
- so why not?
- I can´t
- you´ve a problem with black men?
- no, no, but...

Spain, Barcelona, Parc Guell
- is it becaus I´m black?
- nonsens
- so marry me
- how can I without loving you
- I love you that´s enough
- do you really think so?
- yes, god´s my witness

Germany, Hamburg, little room
It wasn´t possible to communicate with him, he talked nonstop, without hearing my words. I argued against a wall, he was fixed at the point that I didn´t like him because he was black. I hadn´t seen him before, it was the first time we met and he talked of "love", offered me his heart without even knowing me. But now I´m save at home and can read and forget.

France, Marseille, café
It was humiliating to be seen only as a woman. He behaved like an animal during the rut. He gave me a feeling of guilt accusing me I wouldn´t love him because he was black, it was unfair because there are so many factors which must come together before you´ll fall in love and he reduced all to the most unimportant point of his skin-colour. How happy I am that I´ve a friend I can talk to about all this.

Spain, Barcelona, disco
Marriage, partnership, love, how unrealistic in our times, never can I imagine to marry. But how can you explain this to someone who never listen and is filled with the prejudice that you don´t love him because he´s black? He just started the conversation with this gigantic and false thought in his head. Impulsive as he is I guess he will be disappointed again and again and his explanation always will be because he´s black, how easy. I must dance the whole night to calm down a bit.

Let´s try to find a way out of the dilemma. Let´s try to find an answer to the question, which shocks and accuses without reason: After several useless tries of argumentation you´ll just shout: I hate men! Or you can threaten and answer: My friend will kill you! The most successful and resigning way is to lie and agree: Yes!

She met him in a little café. She sat at a table, drinking tea, reading. It was the first time she came here, new in town she was looking for a café which could become her favourite. He went in with his friends, there was no free table any more so they decided to ask her for the free places. Not long and they were talking together and found each other sympathic. Several hours later they went in a pub and went on with beer. It was a lovely evening and he gave her his telephone number. She knew that he had a girlfriend and because his companion was gay and had asked herself she had outed herself easily, so the frontiers were clear: friendship, no love.

He met her in the underground and immediatly felt attracted. He sat down beside her and ignoring her staring out of the window he started talking to her, in english, because he felt more familiar than in german and could express himself easier. He demonstrately showd her his feelings, touching her shoulder and arm, grabbing her hands, etc. She felt quite uncomfortable and there were several stations to her house still left. She felt very sorry for him that his heart had choosen so wrong.

They met several months later, she had telephoned at last and again they went in a little café together and again in a pub later. A lovely evening again, there were enough stuff to talk and a comfortable basis of relaxed conversation-style. She could joke with him like with an older brother, or perhaps more like a younger brother because even he was 2 years older she had the impression of the charming naivity of a child, she enjoyed it. Nevertheless there were moments in the midst of conversation were she caught a dark glance in his eyes she wasn´t able to interpret. Fright and a shiver of panic touched her but she told herself not to be childish, he was only a friend, not more and showed no sign to long for more. Later when they had to go into different directions home he told her that his girlfriend had left him like others talk about a new shirt they bought last week, then they embraced shortly and said good-bye.

The words changed. At the beginning he had "liked" her, she was "sweet" and "funny" and he felt "attracted" and offered "friendship". Now it was "love", an "uncontrollable strong feeling", he was a "human being" just a "man" and she a "woman" and he couldn´t see "why not?" They had reached her home station and she got out, hoping to escape at last but no chance he followed immediatly and didn´t stop his explanations of love and "suffering". Her unwillingness was for him just a sign of "racial suspicion" so he became defiant and in some way agressive: "and why not? Because I´m black? Is it that? But I´m a human being, can´t you see?" "Sure I can, that´s not the problem, but you are a man and I´m not looking for a relationship or love or sex affair or whatever, I´m really not interested, I´m sorry, so sorry."

Another meeting, together they went to a concert from his friends in a little private club. Before they started they had some drinks and talking but she noticed that the conversation wasn´t so fluently and easily as before, often he stopped in the midst of a story or even a sentence and just stared at her as if he had completely forgotten what about they were talking. She tried to ignore it and filled the holes but it was hard work and her doubts grew. She tried to calm herself, that he knew about her homosexuality and must have accepted because they never had talked about love and feelings or relationship and other difficult things later, no intimacy, no deeper questions. A big release for her.

He nearly started crying in front of her, embraced her strongly and told her about the bible and Adam and Eve, that the woman should be the companion of the man and that she had to accept his feelings and handle him with care, etc. Her weak protest that she couldn´t love him in return he ignored completely, it wasn´t important. He had found his woman for life, a woman which attracted him, which he explodingly loved, it was kismet and God´s special will that she should become his woman. She was able to speak english and understood him, she was christian and well, she didn´t love him but it was her duty to develop love to him, wasn´t it? Moment of panic when he grabbed her more hardly and embraced her passionately, trying to free herself she knew that she was psychically killed from love again. "Stop it, go and don´t follow me any more."

During the concert her senses were absorbed by the music, she looked at the musicians, listened and applauded. It was fascinating and she nearly forgot the man beside her, but when she noticed him she felt guilty because she saw something growing in his inner which found way through his eyes and which frightened her deeply. She hoped that there would never be a word about it between them. Late at night, they had to separate, his embracing was much more intense for several seconds she struggled for freedom in his possessing arms squeezing his overwhelming love into her, killing her, as so many men before - without a word.

Tim stood in his little room, there wasn´t much inside, a bed, a chair, a little black wardrobe like a big oppressive box, no carpet, no pictures at the wall, no plants on the windowsill. Friends who had come years ago thought he must become crazy in such a ruinous atmosphere or commit suicide. Well, he wasn´t crazy any more, he once had to stay in a psychiatric clinic for several weeks but that was because of different reasons and definitivly not because of the room´s tristesse. On the contrary, when Tim thought back he always had a queer feeling of familiarity and coming into calm seas by returning at home. It was his home and what others thought or said was nothing.

Tom entered his penthouse in the richest quarter of the town, took a glass of champagne and a spoonful of caviar, kissed his love Corinna and arranged the last grapes on the buffet. His friends would soon arrive, it was his birthday-party and he was extremely excited and a little nervous, too. Although he was really extremely rich and the son of high-born old families he never felt as a "bird in a golden cage", he thought it a stupid phrase just to make oneself interesting. He had friends, real friends and a lovely girl he was passionately in love for nearly 3 years now. There was no reason to blow the pipe of sadness.

Evening, 8 p.m. springtime and bright in the little room. Tim had come home from a long working day at hospital. He helped there for nearly nothing, just a pocket-money. He saw people die there because of cancer after short or long periods of treatment, strong therapies which weaken the patients and brought them near death. He saw their struggle, their hopes, their tryings of escape from the illness, but often, to be honest nearly in every case, death won and took them with him. Old people between 60 and 80 or even older and young people of 30, 20 or just children.

The first guests arrived with loud shouting, singing "happy birthday" and laughing. They congratulated Tom heartily and went into the party-room for dancing or in the other rooms for talking and eating. It was a light and relaxed atmosphere and Tom and Corinna went on dancing a calm blues, embracing each other and gliding away in the upper sphere of lover´s heaven. Normally he felt responsible for his friend´s comfort and offered drinks and food all the time but today he knew that it wasn´t necessary, they were his friends no strangers or business-men, he never had felt it more deeply and it made him blissful. There was Corinna in his arms, her body, her hair, her smile and her eyes, he couldn´t help being thankful, what a privileg, what kismet.

10 p.m. Tim had learned for his studies, he would have most of the exams in several months and the stuff to learn and to know was a lot. He hate himself for being so unconcentrated, lazy and without motivation. He studied jura for getting a job later and being able to earn money, but it wasn´t what he liked. He felt like denying his inner and burning down his dreams and visions. Everyone he thought in such moments have a special ability and he is sent on earth to let it grow, like in the bible the story with the talents you mustn´t bury. Sadness heavy as stone fell over him.

Tom had slept with Corinna in one of the little secret rooms, he was somewhat drowsy and dizzy from the champagne. Corinna slept beside him, he looked at her and seing her smile became all of a sudden soft and melancholic. What had life more to offer than love and beauty and what else could he demand. He was even at the beginning of his life but he felt quite old and experienced. Life had given him mor of its sweetest fruits than others but was there anything he could give back in return? What were his qualities and abilities to give him the right to see all this?

Tim painted a picture, his way to flee sadness and find a way out of thoughts of suicide and despair. Out of the colours grew a man in a garden, it was a lovely garden full of green and sunshine and other people reading or talking together. And in this idyllic scene he killed himself with a revolver.

Tom was found next morning. The music high above in the penthouse was too loud to hear the pang of his revolver. The garden was flooded with morning sunshine.

Where is death? Who of the "normal people" has directly experienced how a human being or an animal dies? Who has consciously experienced, what it means to dy, how something lively changed into something dead? Who still knows, how to slaughter a chicken or a pig, how to shoot a deer or a hare, how an old drivelling grandmother pass slowly lingering illness and dies in the end?

We grow up into a clinical clean surrounding, where no blood, no dying, no death seams to exist. The meat we eat lies hygienically packed in refrigerated shelves of the supermarket and in its small and compact form doesn´t remind of the animal that it was before and had to be killed. Even near relatives dy quiet and secretly somewhere in an old people´s home or unobtrusive and hidden in a hospital, for not inquiering or dismaying others.

At the same time we are flooded with blood, dying and death. TV, radio, internet permanently report on war and destruction, pictures of bleeding corpses, children in shreds, burried people are part of our daily life, they build the horrible background when we work, eat, tidy up. The deaths are there and not there, frightening real and unreal, the connection between perception and feeling is cut because of the indirect conveyance of neutral media.

This seems exactly to be the key, that the difference between game and reality cover up, that crime and consequences, killing and dying are separated. A human being who hasn´t seen, what it means to cut off the chicken´s head or to shoot a deer and then to see how the animal really dies, eats its chicken McNuggets without thinking and plays moorchickenhunting. A human being who never has seen how life dissappears out of a person is still sure that warcraft is necessary to secure peace and cannot feel that every single warvictim is already one too much.

Shock and dismay on terror attacks or amok runs is hypocritical if it is only concentrated on the offender, he just re-establishs with his action for himself and all the others a connection between perception and feeling, it is in small what happens daily in big, directly in front of our eyes but normally separated from our sympathy. Show children death again, take them to hunting, let them experience what death and dying really means. But also show the grown-ups death again, send politicians directly on the battlefield, let them see people teared to pieces and dying.

Death will never be routed out, it is part of our life. Because we try to ignore this basic fact and hide and gloss it over and emotionally exclude it from daily life, the inexplicable can go on directly in front of our eyes. Children and youth just let us see into a mirror. We can turn away with shiver and damn and punish this lost youth or at last accept the challenge, look in and confrontate us with our own horrible grimace of the offender.

"Helen? Is it really you? Here in this country? In this town, at this special place?" It was too late to escape, she had seen me first and as a natural habit of her character immediatly came straight to me, sitting in the shadow of a tree in the gras, reading and sometimes just looking around. I was on holidays in Italy, to be honest I was escaped from the bad english weather into the south, without an exact aim but after some times of lingering around here and there I went to Florenz and now I was nearly 2 weeks in this town I knew from a study travel in college times.

"Susan, that´s Helen, one of my special friends at the college. She was the one who opened my eyes about myself." Oh yes, I did and I gained nothing but hate and rejection and had to accept that the close circle of friends were now and forever shut for me, I was thrown out immediatly and never got the chance to enter again. Well, perhaps that´s not at all correct, I myself never tried to get in closer contact after the desaster, I was too humiliated and ashamed by her demonstration of her powers.

"And that´s Susan, my new love, we met 3 months ago in a museum in Paris and madly fell in love and now we decided to go on some sort of a "marriage travel" and which town could be better for it than Florenz?" She was madly in love, congratulation. In her very typical way of honesty she had shown her happiness and luck directly, with the brutality of a child or a genious not thinking about the feelings of others. She was always so and perhaps this was the speciality that gave her the charm and freshness that attracts everyone she meets.

"Come on Susan, sit down for a while, it´s so fantastic that we met Helen, how long havn´t we seen us?" Over ten years. I looked at her with critical eyes sitting now next to me, talking about her life and former times, Susan next to her, shy and somewhat uncomfortable what I could easily understand, not knowing how to cope with this funny situation. But there was nothing to criticize, she was taller than before, her style of clothing was more elegant but still nonconformal as in our times, her hair always short were now much longer and draped in a node which gave her the impression of strength and power. I myself felt like a child compared with her having not built an exact characterline and being as unsure of myself and the world as before.

"What have you done all the years? And why havn´t you written or telephoned?" Written or telephoned? I was shocked, she had capped all our strings of friendship, had stopped answering my letters in which I had tried to explain or excuse myself. Yes I wasn´t able to write or talk to her after college time, I left town and country and fled, the only way for me to handle pain and conflicts, not very brave, I know. I had studied a bit, had worked, had started different jobs and professions but never had the perseverance to do it longer than 1 or 2 years, then I had to leave again. She talked about her life in these 10 years, about her career, her love affairs, the others from our course and their ways, she was full of life and energy and charming as usual, I never would have exspected her to be like this when we would meet again. A year after college I had seen her downtown shopping with a man on her side, I guessed her friend.

"Oh no, that was only Alex, a neighbour, I always pretended at college that I would marry him, you remember? But well, you were quite right with your guess that I´m a lesbian. And how thankful I must be that you let me see myself as I am." All the years her hateful words had followed me, that I must be crazy even to think such thing about her and how brutal I am and that´s a fault she never would be able to forget and that I had to understand that even normal friendship with me is now completely impossible forever.

"Yes Susan, Helen was my destiny-angel, she awaked me and gave me enough braveness to think about loving a woman. Without her I would be now a very unlucky married woman with perhaps 2 or 3 children and no taste of real love." Susan looked half thankful half suspicious at me and I unwillingly laughed about the absurdity. I was frozen in this moment of her "awakening" as she called it, unable to offer my feelings of love again, frozen in the allmelting sun of Florenz.