Light

It's the fire alarm and late at night it looks like the earth from far away. Just a tiny, little star .... so insignificant. But I can't fall asleep and so I'm staring at it for hours. Another small red light is blinking every 30 seconds or so. I try to count the seconds in between each interval, but that doesn't help me either.

I wonder whether this memory is important or not. I wonder if I'll forget this moment, staring at a blinking light surrounded by nothing. I've been staring at it every single night for the last 4 years. So much has happened since then ... and all the while that light just keeps blinking on and on...

The circles around my eyes are getting bigger each day.They keep staring at me every morning while I brush my teeth. And a part of me is glad that it's early, because there's so much stuff to do and I love doing it. But at the same time something doesn't quite fit, something is off. How can this be? I'm so convinced that an external world is just a reflection of an internal universe. Like the earth from far away.

I blink and then it swallows me whole. Just like a train of thought rushing down on me, a domino effect that makes my feet touch the ground and the sand between my toes feels great.

S.M

Bombs

http://www.droppedthebomb.com

People post their secrets, nightmares and dramas online. They call it dropping the bomb. From bestiality to child molesters, from cheating wives to unfaithful husbands you get everything on one page. On some evenings I repeatedly click on the "random bomb" button to read through billions of dramas and sick tales.

And I feel bad for reading it.

Why do I read it? Why would anyone want to read it? There are so many people out there, with really serious problems... and they're not even the ones in war countries, they're the people you meet on the street. They all walk around each day faking a happy smile, when actually they'd much rather jump off a bridge any day.

We should all be more grateful that none of this crap happened to us.

S.M

Washing Clothes

What a waste of water. I could call them for laundry service, but I actually wanna do it myself. This is the first bathtub full of clothes. I need to rinse them, fill up a second one and rinse them again. Right now they're not really clean yet... so by expecting them to be clean, I would disappoint myself. Doing laundry brings up weird thoughts... They all need to be rinsed twice, two bathtubs, two times the detergent. They're not clean yet. So why would I even want them to be clean right now? Am I tired? A little. Do I hate doing it? Well, no. So why would I get mad, if these clothes in front of me are not clean right now?

I'm filling up the second bathtub. I rinsed them. They're cleaner than they were before, so I guess that's good. Maybe it's all based on patience. Maybe I need to relax. Two guys doing laundry: One of them is peaceful and calm, the other one impatient and angry. They both end up with a bunch of clean clothes at the end, but the first guy spent his time being happy. Maybe that's how it should be.

I gotta go, the second bathtub is almost full.

S.M

Minos

Once I saw an old man wander through the underworld. With his shaggy long hair reaching down to his waist,  he didn't look very differently from the rest of the creatures living there. And yet a strange silence seemed to follow each one of his steps as he strolled along a somber path. There was neither night nor day, neither time nor thought. Our shadows accompanied him from the very beginning, but eventually we lost track.

I lay awake one night and saw him sitting by the window. Seeing his hunched over silhouette against the streetlights scared the hell out of me. But there was nothing to be afraid of. He had been walking all his life and even before that. The fact that he chose my room to sit down and take a break... I almost felt honored. He told me his name was Minos. I offered him a coke, since that was the only thing available at the hotel that night. He declined with a smile and asked me to sit down next to him.

"You should be thankful. I miss being here."

"I am thankful", I replied. "But I sometimes miss it as much as you do."

He looked at me with his grey eyes, staring so deeply into my soul... I took his hand into my own and said: "I wish you the best, Minos." He smiled at me. And with the blink of an eye he was gone. Or maybe he was never really there and my mind just played a trick on me. Or maybe he's still on his way and I'm just looking for a clue to find my own.

S.M

High

I flew across Manhattan. Literally ... I was sitting in a helicopter looking down on one of the most amazing places I have ever seen in my whole life. While walking down Wall Street I found an awesome coffee shop. I sat down and watched guys in black suits buy mini-decaf-cappuccinos, listening to them talk about the stock market in a French accent. This city is crazy... everything is gigantic and without limits and yet comfortable. Manhattan feels like a giant living room: they even give you a TV screen at Times Square and Indian food in the village.

You can do anything, anywhere... I always thought that this whole ''New-York-Freedom-Thing'' was American superstition but now that I'm actually here, experiencing it, breathing it in and out while riding the Staten Island Ferry during sunset, I can feel it ... I totally understand why so many people tried to immigrate into New York.

Wanna go to Times Square? Just take the subway and you're there in 5 minutes. Wanna eat authentic Asian food? Just take the subway to Chinatown and you're there in 5 minutes. Wanna see the best musicals in the whole world? Just walk down Broadway and pick one among thousands. Wanna ask someone from Wall Street how the stock market is doing? Just sit down near that coffee shop over there and strike up a conversation with one of them.

On my way back, I stopped at Columbia University. Beautiful campus, but after 5:00 pm you really don't want to stick around in Harlem anymore. I saw a college girl run through the nearby park, because it's apparently an infamous place for robberies during the evening hours.

I'll be living here someday. I already know that much. No idea when it will happen though... could be in 5 months, could be in 3 years... let's just see where this crazy life will take me.

S.M

Manhattan

I hear the siren first. Then the shapes of a manhatten apartment. White walls, a white desk and a white lamp. The other guys are still asleep. I take a shower and sit down to eat some cornflakes in the kitchen before I head out to Times Square. Harlem is a strange place after all...

On my way to the subway I cross street after street, following New Yorkers wherever I go. Every street is big enough for 4 tracks and the New Yorkers know when to go and when to stop. A girl on the sidewalk holds out her hand, calling for a cab and as it rushes towards her I leap aside. All the while Louis CK is my invisible tour-guide... every joke he did about New York is resonating in my head.

Times Square killed me. I just sat there for I-don't-know-how-long, watching giant billboards and flashing lights. I had to think of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer made a deal with marlboro to get his face on one of the billboards at Times Square. This place is huge. Tom told me that if I always gazed into the sky while walking, I would look like a tourist ... well ... how do you walk through downtown Manhatten for the first time not doing that? They're just blocks... I wanna see where they end.

The world trade center is a silent construction site. People talk and babble everywhere in Manhatten, but here you can hear a needle drop. It doesn't look special... it's just a construction site. But there's a movie in my head replaying 9/11 when I stand there, and when I look around it's almost as if everyone else has that same image in their heads as well.

S.M

New York 1984

I was driving a dodge 1969 charger. Don't ask me where I had gotten it. I remember the smell of my leather jacket... or maybe it was just the car. 90 miles per hour into the wrong direction - away from home. I should have driven into the other direction, but it didn't matter to me anymore. She was sleeping on the backseat, snuggling her head into the suitcases and bags. We left everything behind, and it felt right. It just did.

It must have been around 5 a.m. in the morning, because the sun was rising as we flew across America. I had the window down and the cold morning air felt like a drug to me. I didn't want to stop, I never wanted to stop ever again. We drove across George Washington bridge and the shadow of each rail flickered through the car. This must have been what woke her up. I saw her open her eyes, yawning ... then she put her feet up on the passenger seat and sang along. We were listening to some rockband but I don't remember the name.

We went on for days and weeks. Sleeping at trailer parks, swimming in the lakes at night, rushing towards nowhere. I remember feeling alive, more alive than ever before. The world never seemed to stop and we just kept rushing on and on. Without a lane, without a plan, without anywhere to go to, without anywhere to be.

One night I fell asleep at the wheel. That's all I remember.

S.M