What Shall I Cry? All Flesh is Grass

I was dreaming and I knew it. In that dream I knew exactly I was dreaming. It wasn’t that real. All was dusty, cloudy and very colourful, but the worst of all: I couldn’t touch anything at all. And I couldn’t noticed anything at all. It was that scaring, that I tried to wake up right from the beginning. But it wasn’t easy. I was totally stunned, stiff, almost dead I thought that my will to wake up grew stronger every second, and as time flew by the colours around me shone brighter and the dust got thicker – I couldn’t even breathe any more.

Hard on the edge of dying I suddenly woke up. But it wasn’t a bed I woke up in but a meadow – a soft and very greenish meadow, very comparable to a bed. But I didn’t know this countryside, didn’t know how I was came to. I decided to stay here stretched out for a moment, collecting my thoughts, rearranging my mind. It seemed to be early afternoon and I felt fresh, so I thought I must have been my dinner at noon, got a little rest and than woke up totally recovered. It surely wasn’t the feeling of the first wake-up of a day. But the only thing I could remember right now was my past dream and my safely return from it into reality.

Then I decided to stand up to watch the landscape around me, searching for certain spots I should remember. I looked round and found myself not only onto a very friendly looking meadow but also into oleanders, other little yellow, red and violet flowers.

A few feet away from me there was a little path right towards a wood. But actually wood was almost everywhere around me – this wonderful meadow with the path between and the little forest around. I straight went to the trail and chose the direction that led slightly up a small hill right into the deep greenish wood. It was an atmosphere of pure peace, silence, and obviously I didn’t know this countryside deeply into my heart I felt, that I must have been here quite a long time ago. It was just a feeling, but this feeling was that strong, that my heart almost broke into little pieces. Very sudden there were both contraries together in that little room, my heart: pure joy and pure fear.

The joy was totally ecstatic and let my body fly above the road – I didn’t even felt that I took one step after another. The fear let me shiver all over outside and inside, because it was that strange, maybe crazy, to know that I must have been here already. It seemed to me as if I’d known every little stone and every flower on that path, every piece of dust and every blossom, every leaf. There was the old, single tree, there the swamp with the greenish water, the ochre sand on right hand side and the bluest heaven I’ve ever walked beneath.

My walk that path along was too short. I took it very slowly but the time seemed to stand still and so I was more quickly into the wood as I wished to. After a few moments on it the path came to its end and mounded into a street. I turned right and moved on. Not a single car or motor-bike, not even another human being crossed my way. I was totally left alone into an absolutely stunning rural area – it was obviously the best way to enjoy it.

I wasn’t already gone that far on the road there was another one on my right – same direction I was came from but some feet more into the trees. I had to make my mind up now: Should I follow this street I currently walked on straight along or should I turn right again? But I hadn’t really to make a decision, because my feet had already chosen for themselves – they had turned right and walked on. But not far away. Suddenly they stopped and my whole body felt down to earth, totally weak, with not a single drop of power remaining. I sank to earth and bedded my head onto the soft meadow.

I wasn’t able to move only a single muscle of my body, but I wasn’t frighten about this condition, because I was situated in the most beautiful countryside on earth – so if I would die here in that very moment, it wouldn’t even touch my soul; in contrary it must have been the best death ever. So after watching the slightly moving leafs above me I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

But only moments before the dream came I heard a noise coming nearer to me. It’s sounded like an almost destroyed bike’s motor – it was disgusting and I suddenly was in a very awake state again. But strangely as I was up the motor’s ghastly stutter became the brightest music I’ve ever heard before. Now I felt I was coming home. I stood up and realized just then the little cottage behind the low hedge I’ve leaned on.

Then I’ve waited, but not for a long time. From the opposite direction I’ve came here someone drove to me on his motor-bike. It was the motor-bike I’ve known quite well: a Brough Superior; and the driver I must have also known. So I’ve just stayed there where I was, waiting and smiling for a not-long-have-seen friend.

He stopped right next to me, turned down the engine and sat there moveless on his bike for quite a while, looking at me through his protective goggles (maybe because he felt himself safer behind them). He focused me totally and so did I – I wasn’t able to look away from him at all – there was something special between us and I wanted to share every moment. Without stopping fixing me he climbed from his bike and then spoke to me with his soft and kind voice:

“Would you mind to open the gate for me?”

I wasn’t able to answer – something kept my mouth shut – but I nodded and did as he wished. Then he continued to ask me but this time a more personal question.

“Where do you live? I haven’t seen you here before. You must have come here a long way, haven’t you?”

Slowly I began to speak with him, at first with a slight stammer and a sometimes broken voice, but it got better one almost-sentence after another.

“You’re right … I think. Maybe I’m that long and far gone there is no imagination for.”
“But you know where you live?”

“I knew it – certainly – but now it’s all gone. But my feelings told me this was my home.”

“My cottage?”

“No, no … just this countryside. So, I think, somewhere in here I must be living.”

“But you don’t exactly know it?”

“No, it’s just a feeling.”

“Your home is always there where your heart is. So it must be here, you know. You always should trust your feelings, especially when you’re out off your mind – trust me.”

He had taken his motor-bike right next to the cottage and I helped him as if this would be the most normal thing on earth – and it was. In this very situation I’d have done everything for him, without a single advice. Because how on earth could I know how long this dream would yet take? And that this was a dream – obviously it was very vivid – was without the slightest doubt. I had to enjoy every part of a second of it and this contained to be with him every part of a second until I’d wake up suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly and without any forthcoming warning.

That it was a dream I was absolutely sure about, because he would have never invited me into his cottage. I was a stranger to him and I knew that he had never invited a stranger into his home, his intimate, sacred own refugium.

But at first I helped him with his motor-bike. The stuttering motor was almost normality he told me, but there was a different problem with the engine. At some certain times he needed to long for starting and go off. He handed me over a bag with tools from behind the cottage, and back at the bike I helped him with handing over different tools, holding cables, working with oil and stuff.

At the end we had done it, quite all the time in absolutely silence, but as silence sometimes can produce a strange, uncomfortable feeling, the silence between us was that of two very close friends. You know, if there are two really close friends you don’t have to talk much to understand each other perfectly and so it was. Gestures, eye contacts or just a nod with the head were actually enough at most occasions. And although I’d love to hear much more of his voice his pure presence was much more I’d ever could imagine.

After all we’ve ended up into his cottage, first floor – the only room. We sat down together on the sofa, listening to Edward Elgar’s 1st symphony

from the gramophone. The room was just perfect for that. It was small but high enough to produce a great acoustic atmosphere for the music. Very positive for this effect were also the empty walls (accept a tiny bookshelf beneath the bed). While listening to Elgar we’ve eaten some bread with cheese, drunken water, and after the sun had disappeared we went to bed.

When I woke up the sun was shining brightly into my eyes. This time I was weak as ever at the first wake-up of a day. Slowly I walked into the bathroom and when the first drops of water touched my face I felt that there was something onto it that wanted to go off. I looked up into the mirror and saw slight streams of oil all over my skin – I looked dirty but suddenly stopped to wash myself anyway.


Finis.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.08.2009

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