`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven-

He sat in a train, right on his way home. It was one of those dirty, poorly enlightened trains which should have been set out of order years ago. The walls were painted over and over with graffiti, nothing artistic, more like those “Fuck the system”-things, bored teenagers draw when they got too much energy. Outside the landscape passed along, trees, houses, street lamps, everything seemed to be moving except of him.
He had a rough time these days. His whole life seemed like one of the old Leonard Cohen songs, slow, melancholic and accompanied by a voice which sounded like it came out of his own grave.
It had been a while since the train had stopped at the last station and the next one was still a couple of minutes away.
His eyes began to feel heavy, but he wasn't really tired. It felt more like something was overwhelming him. Maybe he had eaten too less the past days. He did not live very healthy, he ate only small meals, drank too much coffee, smoked too much cigarettes. Not really a wholesome lifestyle, but rather “pedal to the metal on the highway to hell”.
He slept very bad that night and so he was in an even worse condition. His view was getting blurry more and more and finally his mind passed out.

When he slowly regained consciousness, the train had already arrived at a station he did not know.
He felt weakened, his head was humming and his whole body felt a little numb. The doors of the train were already wide opened so that neonlight of the station fell into the wagon.
Slowly he began to stand up, grabbed his bagpack and exited the train.
The station appeared to be totally unacquainted to him. He had no idea how long he had passed out nor what time it was, so he took a look at the big clock assembled to the roof of the underground station. That clock looked strange, something seemed to be wrong with it, it was very dirty, covered with light grey dust, the dial was yellowed and the hands moved faster as usual, too fast to be showing the right time.
That whole thing was creepy, it looked like it came out of one of these old horrormovies, silent pictures from the twenties or thirties.
He wasn't able to avert his eyes from the fast moving hands. The long one took nearly two minutes to surruound the whole dial, time flew with speed of light.
It made him feel claustrophobic, stressed, like he would not have enough time for whatever he was about to do.
Things were about to get ugly, he could sense it in some way. It seemed best to leave the underground station to go upwards, where he might be able to figure out where he was and how to get home, so he took the escalator which led to the upper station.

While standing on the escalator, he felt stressed even more. He thought he had wasted to much time by staring at that clock. Due to that, he started climbing the stairs, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
As he nearly reached the top of the escalator, he could already see the train hall of the upper station.
It was a very huge hall. The whole building was made of cold light gray concrete which appeared light blue in some spots, according to the incidence of light.
On the left side, close to the walls of the building, stood some stores which seemed a little bit out of place in a train station. The two biggest ones, a stationery shop and a record store, stood out of the others, mostly junk selling shops.
On the right wall, close to the platforms where the trains should arrive, stood some abandoned fast food booths.

The station was totally overcrowded, it must have been millions of people in there, which made him feel very uncomfortable, because he hated it to be so close to so many people.

Everyone in the hall was moving very fast, the people nearly ran from one point to another without any sense behind the act.
Nobody looked at him. It seemed like they could not see him, like he wasn't even there, but it did not bother him, he was not in the mood to gain too much public attention.
No, no attention, the only thing he needed now was a cigarette. It had been hours ago that he had the last one, so he pulled one out and headed for the big exit doors at the rear of the hall.
As he nearly had reached the exit, he saw that the doors were blocked by big rusty chains and old locks. He stepped towards one of the chains, grabbed it and pulled it very strongly, but nothing happened. The doors were locked and there seemed to be no way to get outside.
That made him feel really uncomfortable. The whole situation seemed to run out of his hands and he was quite over strained in fact of knowing this.
He felt the nervousness overwhelm him and hands started to clench, so the cigarette broke in his fist.
The loose tobacco gushed onto the ground and he angrily kicked it out of his sight. Something really weird was going on in this place, but he could not figure out what it was nor what it had to do with him. It seemed like the entire world had stopped to exist, except of this place and everyone and everything in it had gone nuts. Was this just a dream? Was he still in the train, sleeping on his way home? No, everything seemed quite real, he could feel the hard concrete under his feet, grab the cold iron chain and smell the stench of the dirty station. Too realistic to be a dream, too fucked up to be real. He turned around and let his view roam through the hall.
It appeared a little bit brighter now. The sun shone right through the big windows. But even the increased brightness could not make that place look friendlier.
He spotted another one of those big dirty clocks, which hung right below the exit sign.
That clock's hands were also moving much faster than usual, but he slowly got used to that so he did not take further notice.
The only thing he was caring about now, was how to get out of that damned building, or even better, how to get home.
He walked towards one of the pedestrians in the hall and tipped her on her shoulder.
The woman seemed not to feel his tipping, she seemed like she did not even feel or recognize anything. She just continued her aimless walking around.
OK, that was weird. That was really weird. He picked up a bottle which was laying on the ground and threw it right into the nameless purposelessly moving crowd. It hit three or four persons, one directly into the face, but no one of them even looked at him.
Now he felt really lost, or better, abandoned, like someone who has been left behind on an uninhabited island, somewhere in the middle of the big, wide ocean.
He felt the panic rising inside of his mind.
What if he was captured inside of this hall? What if he never could get out? What if he had to be imprisoned in this building forever, trapped in a box, only with his mind to talk to?
Now he definitely needed a cigarette. He felt so stressed, he could eat it instead of smoking.
His trembling hands felt their way towards the cigarettes inside of his pocket.
He picked one out, lit it and took a deep puff.
The smoke crept into his lungs, made it's way through the veins into his brain.
He could feel it, feel the nicotine burning in his lungs, flowing through the chest into the whole body.
God, that was what he had needed now, that cigarette felt better than a blow job, better than winning in the lottery, better than riding a Ferrari pedal to the metal on a desert highway.
He closed his eyes to be alone with that feeling, so he could feel it a little longer and more intense.
Pure catharsis. Sublime calmness. Spiritual. He held his breath for a moment to keep the smoke inside, then blew it out, slowly, like the act was some kind of meditation.
Now he felt better, not much, but the situation improved, gained from “hell on earth” to “Folsom prison”.
Yeah, Folsom prison...Mr Cash's got the point...”I hear the train a comin' it's rollin' 'round the bend, and I ain't seen the sunshine, since, I don't know when, I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on. But that train keeps a-rollin' on down to San Antone...”

. His mind played the song like a record player. Cash's words characterized the circumstances perfectly...this place really was a prison for him. His own prison, where he had been sent to without committing any crime or anything else he knew about.
How did he deserve this? There was no explanation for his situation, no one sued him, no one judged him, so why he had been punished like that?
A million thoughts and fears ran through his shattered mind, but they were all useless. He started again to walk around in the hall.

His steps echoed from off the walls, which gave the scene a very dramatic appearance.
One foot after another, step by step, he made his way through the crowd, his view roaming around, analyzing the ambiance.
Everyone kept walking while he tried to avoid any collision. It felt strange to wiggle through the masses like a snake.

He stopped at the window belonging to one of the sores he saw when he entered the hall for the first time.
It was one of those record stores with long lines of racks which contained a huge amount of records, stored in alphabetical order. The door was opened wide and so he entered the shop.
It was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. He could smell the old paper of the old record's covers very intense, it must have been thousands of them in the racks.
The air was very dry and the radiators were operating at full capacity. He took of his jacket, the heat in there made him sweat, and threw it on a chair next to the entrance. One of the racks, standing only a few steps apart from the chair, looked like some kind of rummage table. The records in it weren't in a clear order and some of them appeared to be second hand.
He stepped towards the rack to have a closer look at it's contents.
Definitely used goods, some covers had big cracks or scratches, others were yellowed or dirty.
The genres were also strongly admixed. Nearly every kind of music was available.
Dylan, Waits, Hendrix, Beethoven, everything. Nice offer, but no one there to buy it. Not even a salesman or shop owner in sight. The store was abandoned, like the rest of the station seemed to be, even if there were millions of people in it.
He felt very uncomfortable while he was standing there, loitering in a shop where he could find everything and buy nothing. Brave new world, everything available and nothing at hand.
The damped neon light in the shop made it look creepy, like those sanitariums in horror movies, but it fitted perfectly in that station, which seemed exactly like one of those.
Suddenly he heard a scratching noise, such as someone or something with very long fingernails was grabbing an iron bar. He felt observed, he could sense that someone was looking at him behind his back.
Then a croak yelled through the room, cut the air and made it's way into his ears. He turned around, nearly tumbled over his own feet, and saw a big black raven sitting on the top of an iron rack.
It was looking right into his eyes, it's cold view seemed to slice him into pieces, like it could read his mind. Scary demon, it's small black eyes sparkled in the neon light and the plain black feathers shone like a funeral suit. One of the ravens feet was dark black, the other one deep red. As far as he knew, and he knew not much about birds, that wasn't normal. It must have been some kind of genetic defect or mutation, not very surprising in a place like this.

He could feel the bird thinking, it seemed to judge him. No man should be judged by an animal, not after a million years of evolution had set him ion top of the food chain. The bird was still looking at him. It's view clasped his mind like a vice, he was paralyzed, the way this thing was staring at him hit his mind like a sledge hammer. He felt as if he was drowning in it's eyes while it was eating his mind.
Something told him to leave this place immediately, this shop was no good and that damn view of that damn raven was about to drive him insane.
Slowly he started to walk backwards out of the store, while the bird still sat on the rack, staring at him and he was staring at it.
As he noticed the hard concrete under his feet again, he could feel how a heavy burden dropped off his shoulders.
Something happened to the raven. It began to spread it's wings, jumped of the rack, flew right over his head and landed on one of the fast working clocks. Here, sitting on that clock it continued it's staring. Wherever he would run, that thing and it's view would chase him.
His nervous eyes began to search for a place to hide. His roaming view stopped at the other store, the stationery shop. It's doors were also wide opened , so he walked towards it, the ravens stare still resting on him. As he entered the store, he directly recognized it's similarity to the other one.
The same neon light, the same racks – just with other goods on them, the same look of abandonment. This shop held the usual things those shops sell : paper, pens, newspapers. Nothing special, nothing rare, but everything weird instead.
The weirdest thing, but also the only remarkable thing was a big book, probably with thousands of pages, which was laying on the counter.
By stepping closer towards it, he could see, that all pages were blank and an old, noble looking pen had been placed next to it. The book's cover was made of brown, faded leather which gave it the look of a bible or something. It was opened, so he turned some pages, but nothing was written on them. He shut the book to have a closer look at the cover and he saw, that the book, which was totally empty, although had a title. The title was written in those old letter people used in the dark age or the early 19th century, so he could barely read it.
After he figured out the meaning of a few unknown letters, he was able to read the complete title.
“An ode to whom it may concern” , strange title for an empty book.
He had the feeling that he had seen that book before, but he could not remember when or where, it just appeared familiar to him. In some ways it seemed that he should write something, just to start filling it, not to leave it empty. So he opened it and wrote something he remembered out of a book he read years ago: “Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd.”

. Nice. That was what should be written in a book like this. He placed the pen next to the book again, maybe someone else would come and write more.
Suddenly he felt observed again, exactly like he felt when the raven in the record shop stared at him, but he knew that it was outside. Then he heard a rustling noise out of the shops background.
He turned his head towards the direction from which the noise came, but he could see anything.
A few seconds later, there was another sound, like the sound of a paper fan, or and at that moment he already knew what made the sound, the flaps of a bird's wing.
The sound came closer and after a short time he saw another raven landing directly on the book on the counter. It looked very similar to the one from the other shop, but that thing in here had a white foot and a black one. The raven raised it's head, yelled an infernal croak through the room, lowered it's head and stared at him, exactly like the other one. That was too much. His blood pressure seemed to blow off the roof. No way. Two of them. Too much.
He ran out of the store, the raven flying right behind him, chasing him. The other one, which was still sitting at the clock jumped off and joined it's fellow.
Both birds croaked very loudly, the insufferable sound filled the entire hall.
And he was running, running for his life, running like hell.
Then he tumbled, fell down and his head was smashed onto the ground.
He sat on his knees, raised his head and while the warm thick blood was running down his forehead
he looked around, searching for the ravens.
They were sitting on statue, one on it's left shoulder the other one on the head. He saw that statue for the first time, maybe he overlooked it when he walked through the hall. It was made of the same concrete as the rest of the station but it looked like the artist took more care in creating it than he took in building the hall.
The statue enthroned on an column so that it's head was close under the roof.
It allegorized a young lady holding a black and white emblem. She looked over her right shoulder so he could not see her face. Altogether, it was an impressive scenery which really fascinated him.
The lady seemed not to look at something, it appeared like she was looking away, like she was ignoring him. Well, according to the apathy of the other people in the station, it was no surprise.

He stood up, wiped the dirt out of his cloths and took a look at a schedule which hung on the column. This station seemed to be the terminal stop of all lines. There were only arrivals listed on the sheet, no departures. Ultimate destination, Dead end. No way out. He had to stay here, forever.
In some ways he had resigned. There was no possibility to escape and he started dealing with it.
His body and mind were exhausted now, burnt out, too tired to sleep.
He looked at the statue again, which was still on it's place, looking away, ignoring him.
It's light gray concrete looked very harmonic in the light of the evening sun, which was now falling through the windows of the train hall. That light gave it a very sublime look, it made it's entire dignified appearance even more intense.
He could spend hours looking at the concrete lady, even if he could not see her face, due to her indifference.
Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the ghostly whistle of the last incoming train. It was an old train, probably over a hundred years old, but it still seemed to be working very well.
Gray smoke streamed out of the flue so that he could see it even if it was still miles away.
He could slightly hear the distant gasp of the train, it was slowly approaching.
The headlights of the engine shone unnaturally bright, they looked like eyes, the eyes of an iron horse, galloping over the railway, snorting fire and smoke out of it's nostrils.
He could feel that the ground slowly started quaking. The earth was struggling against that man-made beast.
The two ravens, which were still sitting on the statue started to croak again. The noise was insufferable , he felt like his head was about to burst. He tried to make them stop it, shouted, threw things at them, but nothing seemed to work. Then one thought came up in his mind: what if he really had to stay here forever, with the crows, the statue and all the other weird stuff?
No, he won't take it any longer. There are only two ways to be: sky high or six feet under, start taking arms and dive into the sea of troubles. His feet started to walk on their own, moved him onto the edge of the platform, climbed down and stopped in the middle of the rail.
The two ravens spread their wings, flew straight towards him and landed on his shoulders.
There he was, the coronation of god's creation, laying face down on top of the food chain.
The train was now only a few hundred meters away, he could feel the vibrations in the rail, hear the moaning of the old engine, smell the smoke from the coal fire which burnt inside of it. The two ravens were still sitting on his shoulders, screaming their infernal croak into his ears. He took his eyes up to have a last look at the statue. The train was coming closer, in a few seconds his suffering would come to it's end.


Then he heard a creaking noise, the statue had turned her head and was now looking at him.
For the first time, he could see her face . Pure loveliness. A bright sparkle in the impenetrable darkness hitting him right between the eyes. The fading twinkle of a long forgotten hope. This was how female beauty shall be defined. Impersonated perfection, looking at him with her concrete eyes. Watching him. The patroness of the dying.

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven-

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 09.05.2009

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