Freedom never comes - Part 27

"Mr. Ceremony...that is how people call me!" greeted the unknown figure Heinz Wohlfarth and took the fear out of him. "I hope you trust me...that I am only here to help you and not to scare you off in anyway."

Being a bit shy Henz Wohlfarth replied: "Do I have any other option?"

"Most certainly not," answered Mr. Ceremony holding his iron rod in the ground on his stretched-out arm that looked like a wing of an angle. "Most certainly not."

Heinz Wohlfarth did not dare to say anything, waited patiently for Mr. Ceremony to make the next movement, a step forward in the darkness of the black night. He saw the man shining white to make three steps to the side to look down on something on the ground Heinz Wohlfarth was unable to see what it was.

"Sebastian...Sebastian...," said Mr. Ceremony with commanding voice. He paused for some moments as nothing happened, he said commanded again: "Sebastian...Sebastian...come out, show yourself to us!"

The earth trembled; the ground was shaking. An earthquake was the scary thought running through Heinz Wohlfarth`s mind. In the near distance hardly visible to his eyes, the earth indeed opened up letting a man appear before Mr. Ceremony like a ghost. It seemed to be the skeleton of a man, by his bone structure a man in his late forties. Worms and bacteria seemed to have eaten up most of his flesh as his bones where nearly all completely visible, white at most parts with pieces about to disintegrate and mix with the soil he emerged from to be one with it one day. He was between ashes and dust, a transition period, an idea of a man that once had life breathed into his body and lounges to make him walk freely. Mr. Ceremony introduced both to each other with wisdom on his face asking Sebastian to tell his story.

Sebastian started by saying: "There is basically not much I can recall...I mean my life was never exiting, never something special...just a normal life. I know of people that have much more to share. One I remember so well, one of my teachers that I told him if I would be ever at his age, I would never know so much like him even if I would try my very best. He was always laughing about me when I told him what I thought about him. And he would always laugh at me and say that it is all a matter of time and interest which makes everyone know more and understand more. To know and understand is not a privilege to anyone of any social class, that is what he tried to tell me, but I did not understand his words. Accordingly, to him life and wisdom of it that is not only in knowing but in using what knowing means to someone...is a matter of time and decision making. He tried to convince me that to expose oneself to unknown often scary situations will bring out in anyone of us the capacity and wisdom to understand life`s matters and to use the understanding of life for someone’s own good and by that for the good of others also. So, basically it is all a matter of time to understand and be wiser than the day once born."

"So, why did you not use the given chance to be wiser...as it is possible to anyone?" asked Mr. Ceremony while Heinz Wohlfarth still did not dare to move an inch.

"I know the American constitution, the Declaration of Independence, is categorically talking about the personal luck each citizen should strive for and that all humans are born equal, an idea I was told based very much on the French revolution my teachers once told me with me little understanding of the meaning and implication. But the little I know what his history lessons that even a country or cross border societies can proclaim legally equal rights and striving for personal, independent freedom and luck, it does not mean that such legal framework will bear fruits the right way. Many people will not understand the true meaning of their rights, others will misuse the rights given or misunderstand the possible implications on personal and society life to turn the intentions once set out upside down and reverse the intentions infact. I mean in America equal rights in the Declaration of Independence for all human beings was also set as standard for the Blacks but misused for generations and violated still in their society today. So, as for me that hears the words of my teachers and others that know much more than me, I do not really understand those things. I mean I was born into a family of two other siblings, two brothers in fact, and raise in humble conditions. We were not ambitious. My father went out for work in the mornings as a carpenter, my mother took us to school before heading off for work as a cook in a small restaurant, and when we all met in the late afternoons were kids went our own ways over time. One of my brothers went for football that soon became the center of his life. Each Saturday he would go out to watch his favorite team, would by all fan items he could get hold of, would pay tickets for matches outside our city. The football time he loved so much was his second home. His wife would complain eventually about him spending more time with football but basically only spending time and money that made the professional players drive expensive cars with no academic education to back them up once players of history only, while he himself would not even have the savings to buy a house of the family or a small apartment. He, like myself and my other brother, never saw our parents reading a book or watching interesting reports on TV. They treated us right and with love, but never challenged us to strive for the highest level in life possible. It was our upbringing that in the end made us follow in our parent’s footsteps. Yes, you might say we served our term on earth well. We did not steal anything, we never cheated on our wives, we worked hard as our bosses commanded us to do, they in return honored us with a bit of money and even a bit of career jumping up the ladder...small only...and we all had good working marriages, at least our wives did not complain towards us too much. So, basically we were leading a simply, honest life...never left Germany to dive into knew cultures and see how other people might manage their lives to learn from and to reflect on our own life possibly to change something that could help us to more forward better into a greater future and come out great with a true stone left behind so that others could and would remember us for generations to come. No, that was never our ambition, never a plan that would come up in us...simply because we were not exposed to it by our parents...the education we went through. Yes, I would not want to lie that we have seen other people we grew up to overtake us, even one we were schooling together, made it to the top of a foreign country, a nation far, far away much to our own surprise selected by that nation to lead them and bring them out of their mess. He knew so much and used the knowledge he had collected over many years in personal isolation, I mean to deal more with himself in times of quietness than getting involved in other people`s thinking, action, and affairs. He was an observer, a thinker and a man trying to make sense of everything he was able to see and hear about. Yes, he was like us from humble background and made history, in fact left a great stone behind. But for boys that was never something that we ever thought of or thought it could be possible also for us. We were always to active and among so many friends that were keeping us busy all the time. To go out with them, have a good beer, watch a good football match, spend our money on fan items to make other people rich, our kids playing games on the computer to kill virtual humans in useless settings not developing any interest for life and the change of it, wasting time and money on the games to make the inventors rich and richer. Yes, that as the life we had as parents, all of us three brothers. While I got never divorced, my two other brothers had to face these challenges but came out of their mess quite well, not too much harm done to them. And as we were so interested in friend and friends and more friends time was flying by very fast. Party followed party, family birthday and Christmas gatherings, year in and year out...that all kept us busy. How would there have been time for ourselves, I mean to see who we really are and what is really for us and not put into us by others that we are supposed to do and think and proclaim. No, the years passed as it was tradition, as it was expected of us. We followed the instructions of our bosses, the society, the family, our friends and never looked back to see and get to understand that our life is for us and not for others. Yes, people around us told us, some even blasted into our ears that we can achieve more than we think, can reach for the stars and gab them to benefit from them, for ourselves and the rest of our families, for generations to come. They even stood high above us on stages to lambast about people that are not like them, that are hamster people interested not in understanding and going out to change their lives. To be very honest to you, I hated such people as what they think they are. Are they better humans than us? Why should we follow them; I mean they should do whatever they think is right for them and leave us alone. We have a right to go the easy path and not to know too much. Headache is not good for all of us but when people are strong enough to cope with headache and fight their way up to the top, fine, we have nothing against it. We are not stupid, I mean we know that we need jobs and we need laws that give us a good life and some people must be born to handle all these things so that in the end we can have a better life. We know these people do not fall down from heaven like people think manna would feed them. We know these people are born in the same hospitals by the same midwives than we were born, and taught by the same teachers than we were taught and started with us a career after which our ways departed from each other...yes, we are not stupid and not blind, we know all that. But why should I not have the right to live a life in peace, no headache, no battles to win, just moving slowly and swiftly forward on my own pace. Let other go ahead, I wanted nothing but a little happiness form self and my children, that is all...and I have a right to live such a life. No one should eve come and blame me for not being ambitious, for not travelling the world but follow the many little instructions given by my family and my society, by others that do not know me as I am deep inside me but have their own personal understanding of what I should do and how I should look like. Let’s not blind us, let’s not forget, in the end we all end up here. Look down in my grave, the bacteria and worms they kill us. Look at me personally as I am standing here. My bones are nearly rotten, in some years I will be turned into dust by these bacteria and worms, nothing left form me. But you people here walking on our graves, leading the waves and having big ideas and words over us, you deal with your own time, your own problems, your own hopes, your own future...and leave us alone, let us rest in peace. Yes, I can see that over there is a stone, a special stone for someone that has made great impact in this world for his people, that is standing out and must be remembered. But look, hey, he is also going to rot and the people that are still alive remember his great works and so what? They only see in him what they want to see, not the person he truly was. The idea he was bringing to the world has truly changed their fate, no doubt about that. This fate will once more change when another one comes along, is born, raise, educated and makes his way through the ranks of society to invent something or come up with a great political plan for his and other country´s society. No, problem, no problem at all. These are people that, let’s face facts, chosen by whoever to achieve what they have achieved. We are not jealous of them, after all, humans can never be equal, even as we have equal rights and the world is open to the brave once...which is true. No, my friend that I do not know from Adam even both of us are from Adam...confusing though but true when thinking well...I have a right to be who I am and no one has to judge me, not as a human being, nor as citizen...as in the end whatever we do, whether we leave a stone behind or not, are bees and aunts to serve our families and societies...we all get rotten and be dust that will be blown away by the wind...gone and forgotten. My freedom is that I can choose who I want to be and in which limits I want to live...I do not have to live a life of an independent man that flies around the world like an eagle, I can also be free by deciding which form of freedom is good for me. And if this is in my own style I used to live, so let it be...and let me be free in my own decision that I have a right to make. I am free to the extend I intend to be free...and no one has the final right to judge over my decisions."

"You do not regret anything?" dared Heinz Wohlfarth to us Sebastian in quiet tone not knowing how best to communicate with dry bones.

Sebastian that had only faced the shining white man with his rod in his right hand turned to Heinz Wohlfarth and answered in crystal clear voice being confident of his statement: "Why should I? Big man, man that go before us...do they not need bees and aunts to be seen as great people?"

"You mean," tried Heinz Wohlfarth carefully to respond and put out, "in that sense...you are great as well as you will have fulfilled your mission, the supporting role?"

"I am proud of you...as you tell the truth...that simple. We are the heroes that stand side by side with the hero’s you people still know of till date."

"But...," tried Heinz Wohlfarth to challenge Sebastian. He saw how the man collected his dry bones, packed them together ready to leave to where he had come from, from under the ground, below the surface of the visible.

"No... but!" insisted Sebastian and was seen no more.

"There you have it!" said Mr. Ceremony. "Simple as that...as he mentioned." Mr. Ceremony made a sidestep, moved around the iron rod, and called out loud: “Sabine...come and show yourself."