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Todestrieb

There's a warm sunlight, a sunlight warm like summer sun. When your life was quiet sunlight, when you were there, a thin white blanket. Slowly breathing morning, quietly the door opens. Quiet, quietly now. Close your eyes, little one. I'm just here to…sunrays were only soft then, quiet the morning in summer. Many mornings in summer. Outside, life awaking, you in the warm cocoon, the thin blanket soft, under the blanket…Anna, oh Anna, you angel. Smells like ladybugs and flowers, the door opens softly in the breathing morning. Anna, are you awake? No, don't wake up. Stay as you are, my angel. Little creaks below, under the blanket, under and up, the sunlight warm right through the thin blanket. My god, you are perfect. You are a gift from God. I don't want anything but to bask in your perfection. You are so beautiful…the garden flowers swayed a little in an early morning breeze, then they were still. The sun that summer, soft. Your hair is so soft. Hidden hiding places in the forest. He whispered in the early morning…

There's nothing wrong with feeling good. This could make you feel good too. Let it make you feel good. Let me make you feel good…

Your father is a cop, a good man with a good family. What a pity it would be if they thought you weren't good anymore…

Someone is coming up creaking stairs.

Is that John? John!

Be quiet, little Anna, your hair is too soft for words.

Don't ruin the moment. Don't ruin it all.

There's nothing wrong with feeling good…


**********************************

When your eyes open, it is still dark outside. Is it morning or night? Cold, not like the sunlight that was so unusually soft that summer. You shiver in the morning cold. What was? What?...It all comes back down in small flurries, back into memory.

"Mom," you say dully up to the ceiling. "I have to go home for my mother's funeral. I have to get ready to go home. I have to get ready right now."

You turn on the bedside lamp, which casts a dim thoughtful light over the piles of books all over. You're not planning on bringing a single one of them back with you. Rummaging through your closet, you pull out your battered old suitcase, which you absentmindedly begin to stuff with various articles of clothing from the closet, from the bureau, from the floor. You don't want to think of which particular events you will need which items for. The beauty of the early morning is that it is the time before anything has become real. There's nothing wrong with feeling good. You discover another old bottle in the back of your closet, this one still containing the remains of some flavored vodka from an early semester party. You open your throat gratefully to what's inside, letting it all in, not flinching. You had been feeling sick upon waking up, now you feel all right, and that is all right.

Essentials, you need the essentials. Sunglasses, wallet, keys, phone, ticket. A card inside is from a local cab company. Someone wrote a time on it. It's coming in half an hour, right to your door. You put your headphones into your ears and walk out the door, forgetting to lock it behind you.

The fascination of transit. Buses connecting to trains, connecting to planes. All around the world, from any one point to any other point, there is a way to get there, there are people going that way. What kind of lonely thoughts do the early-morning travelers have as they drift down the empty highways?

You have 1 choice:

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