(All persons are over 18 years old!)
Dark Water
The icy wind burns his narrowed eyes as he gazes at the troubled, dark waters of the Elbe. A single tear finds its way down his pale cheek.
With an effort Matti pulls a hand, immobile with cold, out of the pocket of his old favorite Levi’s, wipes away the tear, strokes his three-day beard, and has to smile.
In spite of everything, he has to smile, because Max appeared in his mind’s eye. Max, who had made the same move less than 24 hours ago. He stroked his cheek, smiled and said, “I love your beard!”
Matti looks to the other bank and sees small red cars darting across the quays, even from a distance, their threatening yellow flashing light hurts his eyes.
“He said he loved my beard, but does he love me too?” he asks aloud to the wind. And as if to answer, two extra-strong waves crash against the stones at his feet, and an old, weathered piece of wood lands on land with a chuckle. It looks black and slippery.
That was the question that Matti had driven out on that cold, drizzly September day, out of his cozy one-room apartment, and towards the windswept Elbe. Perhaps the wind, the water, or the rain would give him an answer, because he couldn’t find any more in the confused chaos of his feelings, but knew, if one waited long enough and observed, that an answer would always come. Whatever.
So Matti got on his blue GT Karakoram bike and set off through the darkening Hanseatic city. Just the freshness of the airstream made him feel better. He was starting to feel his body again after feeling strangely numb and dull all day. His lungs filled and his heart skipped a beat. Biking was Mattis’ everything. After four years as a messenger, he and his GT had merged into one unit, and he had developed an all-round radar that automatically recorded all evaluations in the field of vision. So he could put his thinking off and give himself over completely to movement.
This time, however, he did not manage to clear his head, the impressions of the last few weeks had simply been too strong, and Max kept appearing in his thoughts. So he didn’t even notice that his journey was getting faster and faster until a taxi driver tried to push him off the street and he was instantly wide awake.
The hiking trails on the Elbe, as well as the beach, were almost deserted in this inhospitable weather. Matti drove leisurely along the path looking for an inviting place. An old, sideways tree that vaguely resembled the shape of a question mark seemed just right. Matti felt question marks were more than enough within himself.
After leaning the GT against the protruding roots, he carefully climbed the damp tree trunk and sat down.
Evening shipping on the Elbe; a dark launch chugged slowly past, and was overtaken by a brightly lit red tugboat. In the docks and on the opposite quay, it’s always busy.
The wind tugs at Matti’s much too thin Nike jacket and blows through his short hair. After a brief look at the panorama, Matti looks past his feet dangling in the air at the ground. istanbul travesti And finally the tears come, the tears that have been swallowed again and again for days. A tremor shakes his slender upper body, and Matti claws both hands into the bark of the tree, seeking support. But it’s like falling into the abyss. When the first convulsion subsided, Matti lifted his head, the tears dripping from his chin onto his thighs, and he turned his face to the wind and screamed as loudly as he could, “This is not fair! This is just not fair!”
But the words don’t make sense.
For many years Matti was what you might call a loner. The last love had left deep wounds, and he remembered the pain as fresh as if it had been yesterday. In a way he was scared of people and kept his distance. Only at the courier was he able to deal casually with everyone, then in his role as a city cowboy, he was one of the last free people.
Courier driving; Gym; the colleagues; and long conversations with Frank, his best friend, that was his life. For a long time.
But one day Matti had to have the gears readjusted in the main workshop. And there was Max. His bag shows that he drives for the rival company. Glances meet, words are exchanged, a meeting is arranged.
When Max first left the workshop, Matti noticed that he was looking a moment longer at the door that had just slammed behind Max, and that he was gripped by a strange silence.
That’s how it all started with Max.
The first meeting was in the park, and as they tinkered with their bikes and helped each other to straighten warped rims, they realized how many interests they had in common.
The second meeting was at Max’s house and they had cooked together. Matti was more excited than he had been in a long time, especially since he had chosen the recipe. But everything worked and he enjoyed the long talk about literature, his second passion besides biking. Life took on a different taste, imperceptibly.
Then everything happened very quickly. Books were exchanged, CDs, important topics constantly had to be discussed, they met more often, they talked on the phone.
It must have been at the fifth meeting when Matti kissed Max. And Matti was lost. Hopelessly lost from the first moment. When he got home in the evening he cried. Weeping because he felt again what he had denied all these years. He was crying and happy.
An irrepressible longing seized him.
“Max, Max, Max!” it shouted in his head, and his body asked for Max’s hands, lips, arms.
A huge gray container ship is pushing down the Elbe at astonishing speed. It seems deserted, as if moved by magic.
Matti looks at it, but doesn’t see it. His face, damp with tears, still turned to the wind, he begins to speak. His words come slowly, cautiously.
“Max, dear Max, please give me a sign. Or you, gods, give me a sign that he wants me the way I want him! I just want…, I want…, these Lips, those eyes, oh no, no!”
Matti can’t go on talking, his throat tightens into a tight lump, and again tears run down his face, istanbul travestileri which is twisted by pain.
After this fateful first kiss, Max and Matti met again at Max’s apartment. Matti had hardly put his bag down when Max began his long speech, and Matti sat upright and stiff on an old office chair, listening, and a crack opened in him. He looked at Max’s beautiful lips, smiled, and the words did their work.
Max doesn’t want a relationship, and if he does, Matti should give him time. But he wanted to be free, to concentrate on his work, and he wasn’t worth it at all. And relationships destroy friendships; that was the argument.
The rift that Matti felt was as follows: on the one hand, that what is presented as reality feels wrong, and on the other hand, that what is felt, but what does not match the supposed reality.
Matti was happy when they changed the subject; and noticed that he was trembling.
Later that evening Matti sat down very close to Max, who put an arm around his shoulders, pulled him close, saying,
“Finally! I’ve been waiting for it!”
and he kissed Matti.
From then on Matti no longer knew what to feel. It was so beautiful, so beautiful in Max’s arms that he forgot everything he had said and let himself be kissed by his friend.
It was getting late and very nice that evening, and Matti was happy when he went home.
When he got up the next morning and saw his sleepy face in the bathroom mirror, he could only laugh and shake his head.
“It almost seems like you love this guy, this great beautiful guy!” he said to his reflection in the mirror and threw his head back, laughing.
And then he remembered what Max had said and the rift reappeared. Matti looked serious and scrutinizing into his blue eyes,
“Oh nonsense! He loves me too! I can feel that, I’m not stupid!” he said to himself, tried a smile, and turned his back to the mirror.
It was Saturday, Matti didn’t have to work, and wasted the day at home; unable to do anything, he sat at his desk or walked through the small apartment. This nagging feeling came up again and again, the insecurity, the doubt, until he couldn’t take it anymore, and had to get out, out of the apartment, out of the carousel of thought.
For a long time Matti looked motionless at the now black, restless water of the river. And just as restless as the water, his thoughts flow in confusion. Desires arise; Pictures of moments with Max; the taste of his lips; Words and pain from his last relationship so long ago.
“Okay folks, back up a bit! Nothing happens here without a reason, there is a plan, a goal! So where is the task?”
The loud, booming horn of another incoming container ship tears Matti out of his thoughts for a moment, and he throws the ship an almost hostile look.
“So, how far do I understand all of this so far? I’m sitting here crying because I was dead, my god I was dead, and then Max came and gave me my life back. Wow! That’s tough!”
Almost silently the ship pushes through the water, just a distant travesti istanbul even roar can be heard.
“But it’s true! He gave me my heart back!”
Night has settled over the river and harbor. Matti watches the retreating ship, looks at the waves and the stones at his feet. The next sentence is formed with hesitation, he hardly dares to pronounce it.
“I should touch his heart.”
And Matti knows this is the answer, he feels it all over his body and his muscles relax for the first time that day.
“What if he doesn’t want that at all? What then?”
For a moment he feels inside himself whether there is an answer, but everything stays silent.
“Oh Matti, Matti, whatever your thoughts are! Everything must always be on the safe side, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll tell him that I love him, regardless of whether I run into walls or not. That’s the job and I’ll do it, I’ll touch his heart!”
Suddenly everything seems so simple, so logical that Matti wonders why he had suffered in the first place. All tension is gone from his body and the fear from his heart. Matti sits up straight and takes a deep breath of the fresh, icy air. He takes handkerchiefs out of his Timbukbag to wipe away the remaining tears, and then his mobile phone. Max’s number is saved, so he can be connected to him quickly.
“Yes?”
“Hi! Here I am, are you doing something important, am I bothering you?”
“No, I read.”
“Um, I would like to tell you something, would it be possible for me to stop by?”
“I have to go afterwards, and until then I wanted to clean, you know what it looks like here, and then I’ll just read.”
“But it is important and it doesn’t take long.”
“I’ll call you the day after tomorrow, okay? Then I’ll tell you everything else.”
“Yes, hm, good.”
“Ciao.”
“Yes, bye.”
Matti thinks he is surrounded by a vacuum and suddenly it is difficult for him to breathe. He looks in amazement at the phone’s display; 1:33 indicates it. The conversation between Max and Matti lasted a minute 33. Tears well up again in his eyes and he has to blink several times to see the display. He stares at it until after a few seconds the light goes out.
Mattis has no thoughts as he puts the phone back in his pocket. Silence. For a moment Matti sits slumped on the old tree trunk and looks into space. Then his gaze falls on the piece of wood that had washed ashore. The sparse harbor lights glisten on its damp surface.
With one leap, Matti jumps to the ground and carefully balances on the stones and walks to the place where the piece of wood is. Unsteady on the shaky ground, he bends down to pick it up and slips off. With a gurgling noise, his black bikeshoe sinks into the muddy sand of the Elbe, and he stands up to his knees in the icy water. He bends down again for the wood, takes it in his hand, and thinks he can feel a deep calm that emanates from it. Moist as it is, however, it slips out of his hand and falls back into the water from which it had emerged. Only a few air bubbles remain in the place where it sinks. Spellbound for a moment, Matti looks at this spot, and the air bubbles seem like an invitation to him.
When the heavy waters of the Elbe close over Matti; his body sinks deeper to be caught in a current, he says with the last breath left to him:
“Max.”