Another Sunny Day

In The Midst Of This Quietness, The War Seems To Be Infinitely Far Away.

The lake is frozen and the dark ice speckled with white bubbles, like a rather dense starry sky in the early morning.

It is going to be another sunny day.

My heart beats clearly uncomfortably.

The light comes closer and stops at me.
I hear a Hello Sir and quickly put on my shoes
to look at least somewhat respectably.

He says it is amazing what I am doing but unfortunately he can not allow me to do it here.

I think of all the shaking heads being disappointed in me. I will never tell anyone about this.

Surrounded by an eerie quietness, vast flat corn fields and a beautiful evening light I am invited for a Schnaps by a colleague of the dead.

It is flattering how nice and inviting the people here are. Getting sentimental to the tension that is always present and also somehow not, I am wondering how my perception is being filtered here.

What does a landscape mean anymore?

The sky is always there. No matter what.

Russian radio is playing as we drive over bumpy roads and the driver bangs his fist hard on the air conditioner several times because it is broken.

Here you do not have to use a safety belt
and people drive as fast as they want.

It feels like freedom.

Everything is quiet.

Except for an owl, a crow and three stray dogs which are calmly and purposefully biting into thrash bags. Now and then military vehicles are humming.

And the boxing machine.

That casually alarms with warning sirens
into the silence.

When the war started, the diner was full of journalists and therefore out of food.
Tragic. Only a few schnitzel were left.

As a child I liked to play war.

Not being aware of it the feeling of power
and control intrigued me.

My friends and I were hiding behind trees
and jumping into the ditch when a car approached, that we imagined was a tank. A wooden branch, pointed at the car, was my gun. Hungry and exhausted we later went home to have dinner.

I was a child and war was a fantasy.

Being here is the lowest and highest point of my naivety.

War was my fantasy and it fell apart.

Obviously a long time ago. But still there was this longing. Maybe for a strange feeling of excitement. But being too afraid I do not want to cross this border.

The border from fiction to reality.