People of Character: Nowhere Man

Let me give it to you straight: Nowhere Man is a no-nonsense kinda guy. Not in a cruel, brutal way (although if you’re trying out a new haircut, or think who might have put on some weight, let me tell you now that his opinion is not the one you want to hear), but in a direct way.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s a kind man, but he’s a rare breed: the kind who assumes that, if you’re asking a question, it’s because you want a straight answer. And a straight answer is what he gives you every time, without disappointing.

Which means (quelle surprise) he’s not always great with people. But before you write him off as a heartless sociopath (which I assume is what you’ll do if you ask what he thinks of your new haircut or if you’ve been putting on weight), give him a chance and read on.

People of Character: This Charming Man

Everybody knows This Charming Man.

Unlike Her, who’s mostly a literary version of someone’s alter ego (please don’t tell Her that – she’d kill me), This Charming Man is far more elusive. He is different things to different people, part prince charming, part regular guy. He’s stylish knowledgeable, attentive – but at times impossible to pin down (understandable, seeing as he didn’t have a mobile phone when I first imagined him circa 20 years ago). He comes from a good family (which isn’t always free of complication), and he’s sure of himself – which means he doesn’t have everything figured out all the time, and that’s still ok.

People of Character: Her story

I’m not sure exactly where these three characters came from. All I can tell you is this: they have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

The details of how we’ve been brought together are a bit muddled; it’s simply been too long.

… And then we were five.

I wake up to the whirring of machines and blinking little lights. This, I declare to myself in my internal Alan Rickman voice, is becoming too frequent.

The smell lets it be known to me before I even open my eyes that I am, yet again, on a hospital bed. Unlike last time, I’m waking up knowing where and who I am. I also know I am in pain (this fact hits me hard immediately after I open my eyes). But that is entirely secondary.

Of Airports and other purgatories

With the end of the year drawing closer and closer, so does the possibility that I’ll have to be in a plane again.

Like many other people who hate flying and who enjoy grounded life, planes are obviously my least favourite places in the whole wide world. Airports and government buildings in South America are a very (very!) close second.

Airports, I feel, have become the place where good manners and elegance have gone to die. Where else can you expect to see people growing impatient, angry, anxious, before abandoning all resemblance of common decency and beginning to engage in line-cutting, foot-stomping and sometimes screaming? And all of this happens even before they ask you to take off your shoes at the security check – by which point, particularly during the holiday season, we’ve come to embrace the madness.

About a boy

I always had a deep affection for children. I’ll probably never know where it comes from. But as far as I remember, it was always, always there. The desire to care for someone who is not yet capable of understanding how much danger can lie in connecting little chubby fingers to the electric socket on the wall. The desire to comfort them once they learn for themselves that this (among many, many other things) causes them pain.

And it’s exactly this affection and desire to comfort which cause me to shoot out of bed when I hear a cry in the middle of the night.

Open your eyes.

For a split-second, everything is darkness. I’m not sure where I am, and need to focus to remember simple, but crucial information: who am I? What is my name? What is the last thing I remember? Do I remember enough to open my eyes and not be dreadfully surprised?

First page, first draft. Here we go.

“The flight AL817 to London City airport will start boarding shortly.”

Anna closed her eyes and took another one of those deep breaths while clutching her book with already clammy hands and mentally cursing the plane, the airport, and indeed most of the city of Zurich. Seriously, why? Why go through this irrational, predictable agony every time?

I’m going to die today. I can feel it.

Her throat feels dry. There is a kiosk selling bottled water about six and a half steps away from her chair, but she feels her expensive high heels glued to the ground. Another deep breath.

When suddenly, in the still of the night…

BRI, WAKE UP.

It wasn’t a loud voice. But it did wake me.

It was a woman’s voice, which sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, echoing from a dark abyss somewhere. I woke up and immediately looked to the window to check if there was anyone there (we live on the fourth floor, but after you live in a big city some habits die hard). There was no-one there.

Castaway

I’m drifting. Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, there I am on a small boat, rowing, rowing, trying to get away from something, trying to make it home. I think to myself that I should have exercised more throughout the year because rowing is much harder than I thought it could ever be.

The water is at once clear and turquoise. I can see the shadow of my boat on the sand some three metres below me. Indeed, I can see my own shadow. And that of the other three people on the boat with me.

I let the oar down for a moment, and it nearly slips away and into the crystal clear water, just nearly. Before it does, Nowhere Man stops it, pulls it back into the boat, to safety. I’m exhausted, on the verge of tears, really. I’m so tired. I can’t go on.