I. – She

A Jouney Begins

 

Asked about, when this absolutely crazy story started for me, it’s difficult to find an answer. Like Mike too, I always believed and felt from the very young age of 16, that there must be this one, special soul, the other part of me, somewhere here in this world. The mistake I did was, that I only searched for this special soul in my surrounding and in my own social environment. Similar he did this mistake too, but he knew much earlier than me, that it was the wrong way.

So it is, looking back, not a big surprise that I did mistakes which I later regretted although I was absolutely sure in the particular situations that I found, what I had been looking for.

Always disregarding, no matter what I knew with the years about soulmates and „other parts“, that, first, it could be possible that it was not destined to meet that person, second, that this person could be anywhere in this world or furthermore, not incarnated, third, that he could live in very different circumstances like me and fourthly, that if I would meet that person, there would be the same love and feeling of belonging together.

So, I wasted many years with the wrong men, always disappointed and not understanding how it could be that the one which I defined as my other part, didn’t feel the same for me and didn’t understand and respect me as I expected.

I was married two times and lived in several longer relationships, hoping to forget about this „other part“ problem. But like a curse, one cannot get rid of, after some time the silent knowledge and the feeling returned that there must be someone who was on the same search like me what always destroyed my relationships. I had have a long time affair with a married man too, being so sure that this must be the one which I wanted, that I refused to see any warning to realize that I was absolutely wrong.

Becoming a 40 year old woman, who destroyed enough in her life with this romantic thoughts and at this time, for me so it seemed, sense- and useless search. I decided to give up and to rearrange my life, starting to follow my long time kept dream to be a natural health professional and to help other people.

My affair lasted, even survived my last marriage, but now without any illusion. There was not the illusion of “being one” anymore and we were only two people, one who was still a little bit in love, and the other one who came to have some nice hours, returning home to his wife again later.

At the beginning of October 2008 I decided, surprising for myself and not really knowing why I did it, to cancel this relationship after eleven years. I wrote a long letter, which was more a love letter then anything else, but with the absolutely clear statement, that I don’t wanted to meet him anymore. I cried a lot the first days after giving him the letter, not understanding myself anymore. Then I calmed down, again surprised, that it haven’t hurt so much as I expected.

But at the end of the month something strange started, what I never had felt in my life before. I got a weird, disturbing pulling in the area of the solar plexus. It wasn’t always there, but sometimes so strong, that I could feel it from the pelvic base to the teeth. An absolute feeling of “something is seriously wrong” and fear. I was confused. First I thought, it might be a nervous reaction, but there was no stress in my life that time and that could also be excluded after some examinations by a doctor. He told me it was nothing physically, so he couldn’t help me. The feeling stayed. And became more, increasing to something like panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep anymore in the night what was never a problem for me before. All my senses were absolutely awake. I felt as an antenna for something what happened somewhere and I didn’t know where or why.

Then, in January 2009, when the strange feeling nearly became unbearable, I thought again about my „other part“ falling in doubts, if I did not made a mistake with my ex boyfriend. I was absolutely sure, that something with him was wrong. More than that, I believed that he must be in a serious danger, fearing for his life. This was the “message”, the feeling was telling me.

I started to search the contact again and when I didn’t get a reply on my Sms, I nearly paniced and how much more I was surprised, when I heard later from him that everything, really everything was ok with him, and that he enjoyed a nice holiday with his wife when I thought to feel that he feared for his life. I was totally confused. And the feeling stayed. Day and night.

 

II.

 

The January passed, I started to meet again with my Ex from time to time, but the feeling would never be the same again. There was no love anymore and often I cancelled appointments with him because he started to bore me. Sometimes I thought that it was just a habit to meet him, without any sense. Something had changed. I still puzzled over the strange feeling, which doesn’t wanted to disappear and fought with an unexplainable sleeplessness, always thinking, something must be wrong. But there wasn’t anything wrong, nowhere, as far as I could judge. I tried to concentrate on my work and my studies, hoping that at the beginning of the next year I could leave my hateful job as a night club waitress, having then paid all the remaining debts I had, doing my exams and then, finally, I would have the possibility to open my own office.

I worked hard. My best friend Rosie started to study too, and often we sat together hours by hours, learning and dreaming of a better future.

I earned good money, but the job was horrible. The few hours I worked in the evening were a continuous waiting for insults, lewdness and permanent fight against groping hands. Even the day shift was not better. But I had my plans in mind and I was sure, that I could stand it just for some months.

If I had a free evening and Rosie wasn’t at my place, I tried to relax a little bit, cooking a nice food, Opening one por two bottles of wine, putting the legs up, watching a film or speaking with my cousin on the phone. He was a heavy man, friendly and cozy, and he was often bored in the evenings, sitting alone in his small single appartment 20 kilometer away from my house, watching TV, indulging his hobby, eating and waiting for someone to talk to.

 

So it was in the evening of the 24th June too. I came home, tired, too lazy to cook, opened a bottle of wine in the kitchen and looked on my PC whether there would be some of my friends to chat with. I tried to reach Rosie on the phone, but just that evening she fell asleep on her sofa. I was bored and thought about it, that normally I would have been in Spain that time, another friend who had a nice house there, invited me and I would have had to pay only the flight. It wasn’t only the money pressure, which brought me to refuse the invitation. I didn’t feel like leaving home, what was odd, considering that my last holiday were years ago. Sometimes fate comes soft-footed from the back to jumble our whole life.

I called my cousin, who was really happy to hear my voice, even when he always didn’t recognize me at the first “hello”. That time, we didn’t speak often, I was always too busy with my affairs. The conversation was like always. Family issues, politics, money and my job. And Ralf could prattle. Hours. Changing the topic at minute intervals without interruption. Mostly, I just listened and often after some time I even didn’t know about he was actually talking.

Around twelve o’clock I had shut down the Pc, not expecting anymore to meet one of my chat friends. They were only few, people which I knew personally and which went to bed early because they all had to work every day very early in the morning. I finished my first bottle of wine and felt sleepy. Ralf talked and talked so that I didn’t really realized it when he said „Hey, they just say in TV that this musician has died. It is said to had been published on a website, wait….”. he told me the name of the page.

„What?“ I said, „who died?“. He repeated the name and asked me, if I could take a look at this website to know what had really happened. I was lazy and tird, opened my second wine bottle at first before I started the Pc again because my cousin begged me again to take a look.

„It’s only said, that he suffered a heart attack and was brought to hospital. Nothing more“ I told my cousin. „I think we will not really know until tomorrow what had really happened“. I wasn’t much interested, celebrities were never interesting for me, even not, when I was a teenager and the most people in my age labelled the walls of their youth rooms with posters of their favorite stars. But not me. I was more interested in people around me, not in a dream boy or man far away, forever unreachable. Even when I had, like others, my favorite bands and songs when I was young, Star cult and being a fan was always a secret for me, which I couldn’t understand.

My cousin started nostalgically to talk about long time gone partys, where they once played the singer’s music. Meanwhile I drank my second bottle of wine, even not knowing how that person looked like. I tried to remember some of the songs whose names my cousin told me. But it was difficult. “No matter” I thought, “just another human being who died. Happens” Even when he was not very old, but that was not something unusual for musicians, to die early. If he was dead, what was not sure at that time.

 

Around half past three we said good night. Now really tired, I went to bed and fell in a deep and dreamless sleep, without only one thought about the dead singer.

 

III.

 

The following day I looked at that gossip news website again. Even if it was not really interesting for me, I was curious what had really happened there. Now they wrote, that the person really died. There was already a suspicion, that the singer had taken drugs, strong medications, and that he might have been killed himself because the pressure of the concerts which he wanted to do very soon was too much for him. There were talks of high debts, financial ruin, medication addiction and a bad physically and psychologically condition.

„Own fault“, I thought. Why these people couldn’t handle their fame…always the same. Suicide or an overdose. How many times that had happen to an artist?

I listened to some of his songs, but that was not my taste. Normally at that point, I should have started to forget it. But it came different.

One day later I had really much stress. I was always in a hurry, ran to manage everything what I had to do. I had to buy benzin, shocked about the high prices as always, and when I stand in the shop of the fuel station, the newest headlines of a boulevard newspaper about the musicians death jumped into my eyes. „Here he is losing his last fight“ the article headed, with a picture of him in an ambulance.

I didn’t really looked at it, but later when I was at home, I couldn’t get this picture out of my head. I was surprised about myself, how much pity I felt for this person, to whom I never even paid any attention before.

In the evening I got again problems with that strange feeling which haunted me now for months. And it became so bad that it nearly drove me crazy. From head to toe it felt as if I would be under electricity.

Restless I wandered through the house, not able to concentrate on anything. And all the time having the pitiful picture on the first page of the newspaper in my mind.

At eleven in the night, I did something, what was absolutely not understandable for myself. I climbed into my car and drove to a 10 kilometer away fuel station to buy that newspaper. I called myself crazy, but I wanted to see that picture again. Immediately. Not tomorrow. Not later. Right that moment. I bought two bottles of wine too, in the hope that the terrible feeling would vanish with drinking a little bit alkohol, even when I had decided before not  to drink that evening.

At home, I drank the two bottles of wine, not getting the singer out of my thoughts. But I couldn’t look at the newspaper. Something scared me deep inside and I laid it under some magazines in a shelf. I don’t wanted to have it around me. I called myself crazy again.

I developed an odd interest in the musician, not understanding why, listening to songs which I don’t liked, reading everything what I could get and watching pictures which I found not very attractive. I called myself silly and thought about it, if I were just catching up on my missed teenager affectations. But why this person? I didn’t know it, hoping that it would pass very soon. The only positive thing was, that in that time, the odd pulling in my body nearly vanished.

One week later I went to bed early, tired from a hard working and learning day. I read a little bit like always, before I switched off the light and fell immediately to sleep. In the middle of the night i woke up again, feeling a need of using the toilet. I hated that, when I had to get up again because of that. I got up, stepped in darkness into the corridor and pressed the light switch. Nothing happened. I pressed the switch again, several times, but it stayed dark. I became nervous. The feeling of another being with me in the corridor became stronger and stronger and I was sure that there was something coming closer and closer to me behind my back. An icy shiver ran through my bones. I wanted to scream, but my throat felt constricted. I started sweating and shivering, sure, that something very scary would touch me very soon, being already very close to me in this absolute darkness.

Just that moment when I nearly paniced, I woke up, starting hectically fumbling for the switch of my night lamp. I pressed the button, and the light went on. I was endlessly relieved. “My God, what a bad dream” I thought…just a second before something hits me hefty in the back between the shoulder blades. I squeaked. A second, stronger stroke hit me and a third one. Screaming I jumped out of the bed, expecting it must be another nightmare. A nightmare in a nightmare. I turned myself around, looking everywhere, frightened to death. I felt the area where I got the strokes in my back paining. There was nothing in the room. And I realized, that I was awake and this was not another dream. I ran into the corridor, switched on the light, which was now working and bustled downstairs and into the kitchen. I trembled at all limbs, when I sat down at the table and lightened a cigarette.

I wished more then anything else that I could have called somebody, but it was five in the night and everybody would be still sleeping. So i made coffee and waited till eight, before I called Rosie, who wasn’t really awake, but picked the phone and listened to me. She was sure, that the strokes which I got were also an imagination, a dream, but I still felt the spot. That wasn’t a dream but I don’t wanted to argue with Rosie, I was just happy that I had reached her.

The next days I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom. I slept two weeks in the living room on the sofa, lights on, TV on and the shutters up, absolutely not knowing what had happened that night.

And not knowing, that the following weeks much more incredible things would happen.

 

IV .

 

The strange traction in my body vanished and I was really relieved about that, still thinking about what that odd phenomena could have been, but not afraid anymore that it could be a symptom of a physical sickness after I’d recognized that it couldn’t have been related to my Ex boyfriend, which I more and more shunned. Everything seemed to be quite normal again. Maybe except my strange interest for the dead artist, which hadn’t passed even if I had been so sure that it would disappear very fast when it started because there was not the slightest feeling for him.

I went to work, came home, met Rosie for spending time together, talking and learning, learned alone intensively every day and did a lot of sport, enjoying to run through the green summer forests and the silence of nature around me, what gave me always a feeling of being one with everything and to be on the right way.

I thought a lot about the musician, and I felt more than a faint sorrow for him, which I couldn’t explain myself.

Then came the day, something changed again in a scary way. I was on my way home, driving down one of our rural highways, admiring a wonderful sunset which bathed the next village in golden and red light and gave the few clouds at the sky a dramatic appearance. I was lost in my thoughts about the musician. „Mike…you will never see this kind of beauty again….Why you’ve done this to yourself? Why? Why this must have happened to you?“ I asked inwardly.

And then, an answer appeared in my mind, which was not mine.

„Hi! I’m Mike….And to be sincere, I don’t know why I have done something to myself, I even don’t know that I did?“

„What???“ I thought. What was that? I held the steering tight, I froze. I was confused.

Then again, “It’s nice here, really. Very beautiful. And I can see it, yes. I can see this beautiful sunset, wonderful colors. Is this Germany?”.

I was near to a breakdown. I was absolutely sure, that I didn’t wanted to have this thoughts. My God. Would I start now to create dialogs with this bag of bones? Oh no, please not. What the hell was wrong with me? I listened into myself. Nothing again. I was not really relieved, but I was sure, that this had been a singular incident.

The following weeks would teach me better. That was not a single incident. No. A few days later, when I jogged on my favorite route through a nearby forest, it started again and I had a long and funny monolog about music, dance and how to gain success in my head. And it got a little bit more everyday, about all possible topics and a lot about Mike himself.

„Wonderful, really great“, I thought. „I’m going crazy now. I talk to myself with this fellow“.

 

V .

 

On August 6th the situation were already only terrible for me. When I tried something the more than anything else then to get this man out of my head. I thought that I had been always something like a normal person, but these „dialogs“ slowly drove me really crazy. I wanted it to end, immediately. But it didn’t stopped. Sometimes it was away for a while, and like a ghost behind my back, Mike started to talk with me again when I didn’t expected it.

That day was a Thursday and I was the whole day in a hurry because the next morning I wanted to accompany a friend to Erfurt for three days, visit there a classical open air concert there and spend some time in the environment while my friend would visit a political meeting. We wanted to set out very early the next day and so I wanted to try to sleep early. I wasn’t worried it wouldn’t be possible, I was terribly tired.

I laid down around twelve, read some pages of a novel, switched off the light an half hour later and tried to sleep. Tried. Because Mike talked with me.

„No matter, if this is a conversation with myself now or not“ I thought angry „I want to sleep now!! So shut up!!Shut up!!“. Whatever was there in my head didn’t stopped. And asked me for a favour that was so outrageous, that I was awake again from one second to another. I switched on the light. I curled up myself under the blanket and thought only „Go! Please! Go away! Leave me. I will never do that!!! Never!“. I felt something touching me. I crept deeper into the blanket and pulled the pillow over my head. Images what would happen, when I would fulfill this request crawled like nightmares through my mind. „NO!!! Never!!“ that was the only thing I could think.

I squinted my eyes and vowed myself to wait until this insanity was over.

Mike, or whatever it was, begged. Tried to convince. Begged again. Talked and talked and talked, and I was sure that this would be the night I would really going mad. Something touched me again, demanding. It was nearly a painful touch.

After an for me endless time, not far from crying, I gave up. I wouldn’t die when I would do him or my insane mind this favor. But I would have my peace. And could sleep, finally. Then I experienced the most incredible thing ever happened to me. I fainted.

When I opened my eyes, I registered several things. I sweated. Much. My hair was wet and someone drew it, again and again. I felt as I felt as if i had never seen my bedroom. Everything was strange.  I felt fear which felt not being mine. A moan came out of my mouth which I didn’t felt as mine. My chest went up and down as if I would gasp for air. My eyes were watching the room, which still felt strange.

Then my body turned around, without me doing anything. From one second to another I comprehended. My God. That was another dream. That wasn’t possible. No. But I was absolutely too shocked to do anything. This was not me. This was…Mike, and I felt his terror and panic so absolutely as if it would have been my own feelings. „He“ started crying. Screaming. Shaking in all limbs while he propped up “himself” on „his“ elbows, burying „his“ head between „his“ arms. I just watched. Myself, terrified but also fascinated. No, I was awake and this just happened, that was sure. I don’t know how much time passed while I just felt Mike. „His“ moves. His emotional confusion, which was so absolute and despaired I’ve never seen at a human being in my life before.

I started to become afraid, that this condition would never end again now. That I, he, would be caught forever in this way now. I tried to move myself. And it went. Nobody can imagine my relief. I tried to speak. “Mike?” No reply. But the sobbing stopped and my head went up without my will, my lungs again gasping for breath as if they couldn’t never breathe never again.

I felt peculiar calm. „Mike…you have to give me my body back“. If I would have been able to see him, I would have thought „like a wild animal, wounded to death“. Another endless time passed and I desired so much to say something, but my head was totally empty. Then, „Mike“ turned himself to set aside. The same moment I was myself again.

I I stood up, my legs were shaking. Now I gasped for breath. What in heaven’s sake had happened here? That was impossible what I had just experienced. Something like that was only reality in books, but not here, in my bedroom, with me. And not with this person, which I never knew, in which I was never interested, that man who was so ugly for me…and who felt so oddly familiar now.

I went downstairs, lighted a cigarette and sat down in the kitchen, totally confused. „Mike?“ No reply. I looked at the clock. Five in the morning. In three hours Dieter would pick me up. Suddenly I felt tired like never in my life before. I returned to my bedroom, fell into my bed and just a second before I was asleep I heard a silent thought in my mind „Sorry…Sorry…I haven’t known what would happen…Forgive me….please“.

VI.

Dieter picked me up, as promised, at eight. I was a little bit late, I nearly overslept, not hearing my alarm clock immediately. I felt, like a elephant had ran over me and wasn’t really able to keep my eyes open. But I tried to smile. I don’t wanted, that Dieter saw in any way that something was not ok. Dieter was in the best mood, happy that I would come with him. The first half hour on the road we still talked, but when we turned off on the freeway, we both fell silent. I looked at the landscape which flew fast past at my side window. We could expect a wonderful and sunny summer day…and I felt like I could only sleep for three days.

Since I got up, there hadn’t been any „voice“ in my head. Silence. I listened into myself. Nothing. I felt a wave of relieve, high as a Tsunami. „Thank god, it’s gone“ I thought. „I’m ok again. This craziness has ended“.
I thought about all the incidents of the last weeks. Crazy. That was the only word I could find for it. Why? Why all this came over me, unexpected and over all absolutely without any reason? And why this terrible experience last night, all this fear, this confusion….and now it was vanished? My head was full with a mountain of unanswered questions. The first over all was: Why this man, which I don’t liked, which I haven’t known and in which I was never interested in, even not in his music?

No matter how I long I thought about it, I couldn’t find any explanation. I closed my eyes and leaned back. Maybe I could sleep for a moment while we were travelling what would take nearly three hours. I dawned away, listening to the wheels on the road and the sound of the wind.

„Maybe…you should leave the freeway…“.

Oh no. I opened my eyes, sat up, listened again, but now inside of me. „Something will happen“. The voice in my head was back. I breathed a silent sigh. „Okay. So, why we should leave the freeway?“ I asked back in my mind. Wounderful. Again self conversations. The answer came immediately. „I cannot tell you when or why, but I know that something will happen on this road. And I don’t want that something happen to you“. I looked at Dieter, who drove fast, we were late already. „What should I do now in your opinion?“ I asked. „Tell him that you have a bad feeling. Tell him he should leave this road“. Mike really begged.Again and again. I thought hard about it. And then I told Dieter about „my“ fears. He ignored them, telling me, that we have to hurry and that he cannot see any reason to leave the road. It wasn’t much traffic and the weather was wonderful.

I tried too, to ignore Mike, but it wasn’t possible so that I spent the rest of our journey totally stressed, expecting every moment the worst. But nothing happened and when we arrived at the hotel finally, I was only angry with myself. How could I believe in conversations which I created by myself in my head? We brought the luggage upstairs, we had a small double bedroom on the second floor. When we entered the room and laid the bags on the bed, I felt a strange feeling of surprise and shock inside, which absolutely didn’t belonged to me. „You…you sleep with him in one bed???“ Mike. Oh my godness, would that have an end one day? „No. I can hear your thoughts. …But that was not the topic…You both sleep in one bed?“ he asked. „Yes. And I don’t think, that this is your problem. Not YOURS, whatever or whoever you are!“ I snapped back while I put my toiletry kit into the bathroom.

„Should we go and eat something?“ Dieter asked. I agreed and started to change my clothes to something a little bit more elegant and put on some make-up while I felt Mike uncomprehendingly mumbling something like „I don’t like that..No. That is not ok. I don’t like. He will try to touch you. I really really don’t like that“. I tried again to ignore him. Maybe. Maybe Dieter would try that, I knew that he was a little bit in love with me since we knew from my work. Mike knew that too. And he’d expressed it very direct, what he thought about my work. He hated it. What brought me only to think about it, why I suddenly couldn’t stand my job anymore, indeed hated it so extremely, even though I knew after all that I would stay there only for a short time.

And then…I wasn’t really sure anymore if all these feelings and thoughts were really mine. Whether everything was only an imagination. Mike was so different from me. He told me so many things, I was sure that I would have never thought of them. His opinions were not mine. He had moods which were not mine. And I couldn’t control whether he was „there“ or not.

We drove to Weimar, where Dieter wanted to chose a good restaurant for us and do a little walk to show me the historical city where Schiller, Goethe, Herder and Liszt lived. I felt that Mike was still sulking. Even when we started our sightseeing, he was quiet. Only when we visited a book store which was still open late I could feel a kind of interest. We walked around nearly two hours before we could be happy to get a place at an outside table of a restaurant. We shared the table for a while with a couple from Austria but we had luck and they left soon. Mike pushed me a little bit. That was another odd thing. Sometimes I felt something pushing me softly or touching me so feathery that I always got the creeps. „Can you please take a red wine…?“ he begged. I was surprised. „Eh? Why I should do that, I don’t like red wine“. „But you could do it for me. Maybe…maybe I can experience it a little bit through you….Taste it, you know?…You could do it for me….And…maybe you can try a dish without meat..?“. I was confused, not sure what to do and surely I exactly looked like that. Dieter, who watched my face, lifted his eyebrows, an unspoken question whether something was wrong.

„What a nonsense“ I thought, sending a bright smile to Dieter. „Ehh…I would like to have this dish…“, I pointed on the menue card, „and an…ehmm…Merlot please“. Dieter looked at me with surprise. „Haven’t you told me, that you don’t like red wine?“. I smiled again my brightest smile. „Maybe…but sometimes I can do an exception, or?“ I cannot remember how long we stayed in that restaurant. But I know that I drank a lot of Merlot. Really a lot of Merlot. I remember that Mike talked with me all the time and that I tried to talk with Dieter. I know that I talked with him about Mike too. And that we watched a video about Mike when we were back in the hotel. I know that Mike wanted me to sleep at the other end of the bed, at the most possible far point from Dieter. And that I was so terribly drunken I hadn’t been for a long time.The next day I overslept terribly. Dieter was gone for a long time to the event he wanted to visit when I woke up with a terrible headache. I crept into the bathroom and took a long shower, thinking about it, why for heaven’s sake I did that the evening before. „Because it was my wish…And I have to say thank you…yes. I have to say thank you“ said Mike. „You know that you nearly killed me, made me laughable in front of Dieter and that you ruined this day for me now?“ I was really angry.„Please…forgive me. You’ve done it for me, yeah, and that was great. It was such a nice evening. And you know what? I could taste everything with you…Isn’t that cool?“ He seemed really happy. I was confused again. „You can what? Taste food and wine with me? Sorry…that is too crazy!“ I was amused. „But it’s true…really really! I don’t understand too how that is working…but it’s so!“.
I dressed up. Dieter had left me a note and his car key, so that I could follow him when I would have slept it off. „Ok…you can taste, what I eat and drink, that’s what you wanted to say??“ I asked. „Yes…I can do that…And I can see, what you see…and feel what you feel..That’s why I hate it when someone is touching you….“. I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. That was something so incredible what he’d just told me right now, that I was only speechless. I left the hotel and drove to the conference hall. I needed some time to find a parking place and Dieter, it was very full. But I was also happy that I had some kind of distraction. Politically interested, I was happy that I could visit such an internal event and I was proud too, as a skilled photographer, that I got a press card and could take some pictures. Mike, for his part, was terribly bored and happy when the conference ended and we could leave. We went back to the hotel to prepare for the concert we wanted to visit that evening. I prayed in silence, that this evening everything would be normal and I wouldn’t experience any surprises with Mike. He too was excited about the open air concert, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which he said, he likes a lot. Everybody was happy and relaxed, when we left to drive to the inner city of Erfurt where the festival would take place on the outside stairs of the cathedral. And again everything came very different as I thought.

We were much earlier in the city than the concert started, it was just early afternoon and we used the time to look a little bit around, thinking about it if we should take a drink somewhere but it was full everywhere. Mike, as I felt it, looked around, examining everything, and if I could have see him, I would have said that he watched all around us with a childish curiosity. For me, I would have been glad if we could have sit inside somewhere for a while because my eyes were a little bit sore and I couldn’t remove the sunglasses without the bright light hurting me. A huge book store became my refuge after we watched the sights of the inner city of Erfurt. And it was an interesting place for Mike too. He seemed to love books, especially books about arts and other artists. And he wanted to see, which books were there about himself. Maybe it was not as much as he expected and he was a little bit disappointed and when I took a book which his father had written, he got nearly furious. „Put this down! I don’t want you to read that! Don’t buy…please!“. I don’t wanted to buy it, I just wanted look a little bit what was written there. But Mike even don’t wanted that. I must have stood there as a statue, the book in my hands, looking nowhere, just listening inside me. Listening to an angry and despaired Mike. Dieter tapped gently on my shoulder. „You want to buy this?“ he asked. I turned around, maybe a little bit too fast, startled and confused. „Ehhh…no…No“. I put the book back to the shelf, from where I took it. We left the book store. Walking side by side, I felt Dieter watching me. I kept my view straight and did, like I wouldn’t see his look. He took my hand to stop me. „What was wrong there?“ he asked me. „I cannot tell you…Please, I don’t want to speak about it“. I tried to shirk from his question. He looked at me seriously. „Dear…I feel it since yesterday that something is wrong…We are friends…You don’t want to tell me?“ he still held my hand tight. „I cannot. Please“. I looked to the ground. „What was wrong with this book? You looked so confused“ he asked. I looked up into his eyes and tried to remove my hand from his one. I thought just one second about it, whether I could trust him or not, then I said „I shouldn’t buy and even not read that book“. He looked at me, surprised. „I don’t understand…You shouldn’t…? Why?“ He dropped my hand and I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Would I really could trust him? I looked into his eyes. Okay. „Someone told me that. That I should not buy or read this book. Mike told me that. THAT Mike“. His eyes widened. „That Mike?….Dear…You are sure, that you are ok?“. His eyes widened. „That Mike?….Dear…You are sure, that you are ok?“. That was, what I had expected. Exactly that question. Now he would think, that I went totally crazy. „I AM ok!“ I said a little bit too loud. „“Let’s go and sit down somewhere…I will try to explain to you“. I left him standing there in surprise and went towards a small café near to us where a few places seemed to be free inside. We sat there for nearly two hours while I tried to explain to Dieter, what had happened all that weeks before, all these strange, scary, odd things. My doubts. In a way, I was happy that I could talk with him about it. I’d tried it with Rosie before, but she was just distanced, thinking that all that was just a whim of me which would pass very soon. She had a lot of mental problems before, and she’d told me that she have seen things like that before, but she thought that it was a just momentarily mental problem for me too. The phrase, that she would know things like that, I had interpreted fatally wrong, as the future would show. But that came later. At that moment I just thought about it, whether Dieter would really understand what had happened to me, when he told me that he too knew things like that, even when a little bit different, but contacts with ghosts. I told him everything about the incident with the wine and the food the evening before too, and I felt much better, when he started to laugh, sincere and without any air of condescension. „That’s very interesting! When we have time, you’ve to tell me everything about it“. He looked into my eyes. „ Hi, Mike….Nice to meet you…“ he said.

We went back to the cathedral very quiet. Everybody was lost in his own thoughts. On the market place in front of the festival area were already a lot of people. Mike still looked around curious.
He discovered an ice cream stand and wanted one, a big one and I bought it for him, even if I don’t wanted one that moment. He was happy. While I ate the ice cream, more Mike than me, with absolute pleasure and a lot of spilling, what lifted Dieter’s eyebrows again up, we saw the singers and dancers crossing the place to vanish through the artists’ entrance. The concert would start very soon. But it started to rain a little bit too. It was dark already but we looked up to the sky. „I hope that they can perform….“ Dieter said. I hoped that too. The concert was one of the reasons, why I came along with Dieter and I had really looked forward to it.

We went to queue up, waited a while before it was ok that we could go in and found our place in the middle of the grand stand near the exit. It started to rain more, but trying to ignore that, the artists started with their great show. It was really amazing, even when the rain was now a cloudburst. They endured the bad weather with adorable courage, until the first dancer fell on the slippy wet ground. The concert was over after 40 minutes. Disappointed we tried to get out of the area, sandwiched between too many people and umbrellas. Dieter, me and also Mike were really sad about this abrupt end of that event we were so happy to attend.

Outside, everybody tried to get a table inside the surrounding restaurants. We had more than luck and snatched a table in a nice italian restaurant, with comfortable armchairs and a calming atmosphere between all the rushing people around us. We leaned back, happy that we got this nice place. I looked at Dieter, who smiled back and handed the menu card to me. „Tonight, surely no red wine party!“ I laughed, checking the card. Ok…something vegetarian…but NO red wine. I ordered a fresh Frizzantino and a salad, Dieter ordered a beer and a beef steak.

We talked about it, how sad it was, that the festival must have been ended so suddenly because of the rain, when the waitress came with the drinks. She served Dieter the beer, put my Frizzantino in front of me…and then asked: „ And who gets the Merlot?“

Dieter and me looked at each other in total surprise. Which Merlot? We never ordered a Merlot. „Sorry, but we haven’t ordered a Merlot“ I said to the waitress. She shook her head. „According to your order, there is a Merlot for this table. My colleague wrote it down“. She looked surprised now too. I felt something like a hot wave, creeping from my stomach to my head and I’m sure that I blushed terribly. Not because of the woman, who was more and more confused, while Dieter tried to explain her again, that we really haven’t ordered a red wine. I felt this sudden heat because I really recognized what had happened. „No red-wine-partys today!!“ That’s what I had said to Dieter just two hours ago, jokingly. With full intention I had ordered a white wine for me. Now, there was that waitress, with another one. A red one. A Merlot. The same wine we drank the day before. How could that be? Coincidence? Why? Just right now? I heard a silent giggling in my mind. „Wooow…that’s so funny! Great! Hahaha..“. Very funny, I thought. I looked to the waitress and said „Please, it’s ok. Leave the wine here. I think, it’s alright“. „I can take it back, no problem“. I took a glance to Dieter, who grinned broadly, guessing what was going through my head. The waitress placed the Merlot on the table and left with a shrug. Dieter and me looked at each other. „That’s incredible…isn’t it? You think…he did that?“ he asked. I didn’t know. But that was the question I asked myself too before. Before the giggling in my head started. Mike found it absolutely amusing and he couldn’t stop to laugh. „I don’t know how or if I’ve done that…but it’s great, so great…hahaha..“. Dieter raised his beer „Cheers, and congrats to this clever way to get a red wine…Mike!“ he said with a big smile. Mike said to me „Tell him thank you! Cheers too“ and laughed again. I guess I made a face like ten days rain and told Dieter, what Mike said. Dieter smiled. Mike seemed to smile. And I was only confused and scared. I heard a voice in my head. Not only any voice. The voice from that person. Talking to me jumbling German and English, making fun, laughing, explaining, wondering, sometimes astonished himself about what happened. How, how could that be only an imagination of mine? The things he talked about, were absolutely not my topics. HE was not my topic. And HOW the thing with the wine could happen, just as it happened? I talked the rest of the evening with Dieter about it. He too was clueless but found it very interesting and quite possible, that things like that could happen. I was absolutely not sure. Not, that I could not believe in spiritual things. But as it is, when we are concerned ourselves with something like that, it is much much more difficult to accept. I was still absolutely not sure that there couldn’t be a mental problem for me. What was clear was, that neither Dieter, nor me really knew what was really going on and how things would develop in the following months and weeks. While we discussed and ate, me again a vegetarian dish for which I was begged like the day before, Mike, however he did that, enjoyed Merlot. Again a lot of Merlot, and when we drove back to the hotel, my only wish was to sleep for the next days and maybe longer.

The next morning wasn’t so terrible like the morning the day before. I took a shower and went downstairs for breakfast. Dieter was already there, he’d left the room when I woke up because he would go to the party conference again. I don’t wanted to accompany him that day, I had planned the evening before to explore the surrounding and Mike had begged me, after finding a flyer in the hotel lobby to visit a nearby zoo. I fulfilled him his wish and we drove there, walked around for almost three hours and returned then back to the hotel in the early afternoon to drive home with Dieter. Mike was a little bit disappointed because a lot of cages in the zoo had been empty and the ape house was closed because of renovation works. But despite of this, he was happy. We’d watched some tired and lazy lions for a long time, laughed about some playing suricat and were fascinated by some huge exotic spiders and colorful lizards which, as Mike remarked, would look a little bit like him to make me laugh. We laughed a lot during this visit, even when it was quiet and only in my head. Before we had left the zoo, we had eaten a big icecream and sat down for a while watching the proud flamingos with their wonderful pink color. It was my first visit in a zoo for decades, I felt young and free and I was happy too. It had been a wonderful day, spent with a ghost, about which I not even had known if he was real or not.