body-container-line-1

The Underground Man - Part 36

Feature Article The Underground Man - Part 36
JUL 21, 2019 LISTEN

Anna felt like dying. She was unable to breath, her throat was shocked, squeezed to block air filling her lounges. Hot sweat run over her body, pushed itself out of each pore, nailed her heart to beat and beat wilder and wilder. Dramatic scenes unfolded in her mind. She pushed herself to wake up. Sitting upright looking out of the window she saw trees bending down, their branches touching the ground to kiss the soil, wet as it was. It did not seem to have rained yet, the leaves got wet when soil embraced them. It was almost as if the soil wanted to get the leaves back and swallow the whole tree to make it seed again. Clouds of rain took dominion of the skies. Stars came down like flash light tormenting all that was crawling or standing on earth. Bitterness was to be smelt in the air, time for a new resurrection of something not visible to her eyes.

She did not dare to talk. Her heart was captured in sorrow, in a mood as mysterious as the night had shown its face to her. Something magical was about to happen, that is how far she was able to think. Even thinking too much, the attempt to make sense of it all, was a move she tried to stop and stop harder as time passed on; the spooky night was supposed to last for long that is what Anna was sure about. Her head was paining her. Her eyes saw fog so clear, so near...where there was nothing. The night was dark and clear, wind was pushing clouds aside.

Anna was hearing a voice, male, dark, crystal clear, straight forward: "It is I!"

She looked around. No one to be seen. The voice spoke to her again: "But you know me!"

She rubbed her eyes, the fog got lifted inch by inch. "Hamburg...the bunker...me!"

For seconds Anna closed her eyes trying to reassure herself that she was not going mad but still keeping her senses. Thinking straight was a problem, a big problem. The headache increased while the voice that had disappeared for moments came back: "I will never for sack you...I am at your side always...no matter where you go, what you do, what you feel, what you think...what happens to you...I will be always by your side, stand behind you, walk before you that you might not hit your foot at a stone on your way."

Anna got scared; her heart jumped pushing her breath to jump and grasp for fresh air. Fear started to take control over her body, she was shaking. Her arms were feeling like in ice water, cold on the outside, warm on the inside. She moved her arms to massage the fear out of her body. Shaking her head from left to right, Anna tried to take control of her being, of the moment, the unfamiliar situation. Everything she was was tormenting her, a torcher of the worst kind. She felt being upside down, nailed to the cross, prepared for the slaughter house, prepared for her end.

"Good that nobody knows that I am Rumpelstilskin hot", was a Lilliputian dancing before her. Fire rose in the middle of the room warm and bright. "no one knows what I am up to...I am up to...no one knows what I am up to!"

"We must kill Julius Caesar...he becomes too powerful...too powerful. Let us use our knives when he walks up the stairs to the Senate...let us do it!"

"John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on his campaign trail...and the whole world stands still."

"I am Alexander the Great and you do not have to tell me what I have to do or not. When I wear the traditional clothes of the Persian Empire, it is entirely my own decision and no one has to dear to tell me that I am not supposed to do that...no one ever should try me!"

"Capitalism creates jobs, Communism creates survival...!"

"The world was certainly not created by God as scientifically God cannot be measured in any way. The universe created itself through a blast... ."

"The Germans should never forget what they had done to us Jews, so any criticism of our policy and handling of our Arab neighbors is not for them... ."

"Climate Change must be tackled immediately and what the Presidents have decided in Paris is not the solution for what is needed... ."

Anna was opening her eyes, rubbing them again and again. Books fell onto the floor, invaded her room from nowhere. Little people jumped out of them shouting their belief around them and into the ears of the other little people. Each little man and woman stood on the grounds of the book they had come from. Everyone wanted to be heard first and loudest. All of them wanted to be seen to be the most important voice of all. More and more books fell down onto the ground out of...the air. They were laying on top of each other with no order, they voiced themselves as they wanted to please themselves, to pay tribute to the words written in them, in big and small books, in paperback or covered in leather well designed and printed. Black letters mixed with the colors of the rainbow.

"Get off my face...leave me alone!" shouted Anna trying to push a Lilliputian away from her. The tiny man had grabbed her by her ears, opened her mouth and said: "History is nothing for fools...listen and learn!"

Anna struggled with him ever more pushing him off her face: "Got off me...you fool...get off!"

Before she was able to force him off her face, Anna felt a small girl around her waist holding tight to her shaking body: "We can fly to the skies if we want to...we can fly...we can fly!" Anna got the little man off her face concentrating of the little girl holding tied to her body. "We can fly...we can fly. No limit...there is no limit. Everything you want to know...everything there is to know...oh, life is wonderful. Everything you need to know...you ever need to know...is there...there! Cannot you see? Cannot you see what has been written...what has been said? Cannot you see the words...the power of the word?"

A little boy had grabbed her feet, trying to open her shoes while she pushed against the little girl to set herself free. She was looking into the wild eyes of the girl that was furious, holding even tighter to Anna´s shaking body saying: "The world has no limits...the world is endless...the world is great...the world is full off everything you must know...the world... ."

The boy at her feet managed to take off her shoes for Anna to stand barefoot before her bed. Anna shouted: "You demons...you demons...get off me...get off me!"

The little creatures rushed to her, fighting her, trying to make her mad. Anna puled all her strength together not to lose her mind, not to faint. She was punching and punching the little devils away from her.

Than she was hearing the voice over the scene declaring: "Look up to me, Anna, I am...I am as I was and as I will always be. I will not change! I will rescue from your adversities...I will give you rest!"

Anna looked up and saw herself in a gigantic library full of books. Old books mostly covered in red and green leather. In the center amazing light was shining onto a hugh bible open with the story of Joseph in Egypt land. Her mind jumped into the words she was so clearly able to see, holding her thoughts to them like an anchor, an instrument of peace, a tool for survival in a situation of fight with the devils. While the little demons were trying to tear her down, to naked her, to strip her off her clothes, her eyes were seeing the bible above her head in the gigantic library. The library got filled with more and more light by the second. Each moment she demons were pulling and pushing her body. Her eyes dived into the light, the amazing peace she saw above her head. She was saying a loud prayer asking God to rescue her form the underworld. In a second, she was free. The demon’s had disappeared as fast as they had come into the unknown. Anna laid down completely exhausted. Her heart was beating wild, her mind was spinning round and round, her headache faded away. Slowly was she able to sit upright again and look around. She tried very hard to understand what had happen to her. She touched her body to examine it and see the marks of the demons caused...but she could not find any.

Ian, a local carpenter, had been called by Fred to install the long metal bar delivered three days before. His cottage was nearly to completion. Upstairs in the future bedroom strengthening of the old structure was needed. The metal was protected by red gloss coating to be an element of design later for the cardboards to be placed around. It was supposed to be a symbol of strength and the will that anything that needs human intervention and fixing, can be fixed and brought to good use again. The metal bar was reaching into the stairway over o the guest room visible to anyone climbing up to the first floor. The former attic got demolished to have an open space to see the structure of the roof covered with old, old roof tiles. The annex that used to serve as a storage facility and place to wash the laundry, was converted into a study for Fred and his wife; its roof was lower than the main part of the building. Behind the cottage a small garden was allocated from The Abbey grounds to give both inhabitants space to relax under the sun and breathe fresh air from all their hard work done.

Anna sat on the narrow stairs leading to the upper floor watching over Ian`s work. Ian was a middle aged man, slim, yet a small belly visible, no glasses, well saved, excellent mannered not as she would have expected it from a man of his profession. Doing dirty work he was always ensuring to leave a place behind at the end of the day people would like to see. She knew he was someone special but could not explain herself why she thought like that. All she knew of him was, when you called on him and he would give the customer date and time, among all workmen in the country he was the only one turning up right at the time he had promised, if not, at least he would give a call.

"Why are you looking at me like this?" asked Ian picking up a screw form the floor, massive, red, heavy, needed to fix the metal rod to the outside wall and span it over to the other side of the cottage so that both sides would be bound and stabilized together forever.

Anna took out her sandwich and tea, offered Ian his own and both sat facing each other on the dirty old floor of the house saying: "You are not like the others. I mean I have watched you carefully always and seen that your work attitude is so much different."

"Oh, thank you. But...what you mean by that exactly?"

"The way you walk...the way you talk...all that is so different form the bunch of people I have come across so far."

Ian lifted up his eye brows: "These people do what exactly?"

"Their language is simple...they do not understand my English. These people talk to me in a strange way. And", she laid down the half eaten sandwich to pore more tea for Ian adding a good portion of fresh milk seen her biscuits laying a bit further from her, "their work ethic is poor...I mean they come whenever they want, they do not call when late...and so on. All that makes life difficult. They know that these days to get a good workman is very, very difficult as there is so much to do in the country, everyone is rushing for them. So, they take things very, very easy."

"Oh yes...young lady...I do know what you are walking about!" agreed Ian finishing his breakfast and thanked Anna for having served him well. He looked on his watch, he checked his smartphone.

"But for you...this is all different. You are kind, very, very professional and the way you walk and talk, the way you compose yourself...simply out of this world, so astonishing."

Ian smiled, then laughed: "My grandparents were coming from Bremen...maybe this is why!"

"So, you are a German by blood than", laughed Anna shaking his hands.

"Easy...easy young lady...“, he laughed even more still having a close eye on his watch. A message had come into his phone, he checked over it briefly while saying, "there is German blood in my body, that is true...even very diluted...but certainly there is. But...my brain is very much British to the last letter in the alphabet! Seriously...I am so British in my thinking than even a British is not that has only British ancestors."

"You are confusing a young lady´s mind", was Anna flirting with the father of two boys happily married for almost a decade. Her smile stretched as far as her mouth could reach.

"Sorry...that was not my intention...to confuse you, I mean", flirted Ian back taking two biscuits offered. The dark chocolate was not much but delicious.

Anna wanted to find out: "Why is it that you are so different, not like the other workmen that are in all their composure a bit more simple, a bit more uneducated...if I may say so?"

"You can say as you wish...as this is a free country and no one of this simple minded people is around", laughed Ian even brighter than Anna. "On a serious note...maybe it is because I have my A-level education...and German blood deep, deep down in me?"

"Oh...what a nice surprise!" shouted Anna out seeing through the window of the staircase that Fred was walking out of the grounds with his old shopping bag knitted by a friend, a clear sign he would attend church service that early morning to practice for his confirmation to become finally a Minister into the Anglican Church and do the shopping in the local provision shop in Abingdon later that was selling organic food, especially peanut butter and muesli well composed and made. "So, you have a really high education than...that is great! But tell me...why did you not use that talent and went further to University...I mean to become a Scientist or an Engineer to invent something the world has not seen?"

"Good question...very good question", looked Ian at Anna straight and paused for a moment thinking back of his decision. "I was pushed by my parents to do my homework...if not, life back home would have been miserable for me...really." He looked up to the roof as if he wanted to look for something he had lost. "I never felt good the way I was...never. But my parents wanted me to finish my A-level and by the time I had achieved it my mind was clear already that to sit on a desk over books with no end...that this would be nothing for me. I looked into my hands and my heart, than I knew I wanted to work with my hands, and with my hands alone."

"What are your parents doing...if I may ask!"

"My mother is a teacher, my father is a Professor at London School of Economics."

"Ok...ok...“, was Anna more than surprised. "That means they have made an academic career for themselves..and you...sorry, do not get me wrong...moved back to a lower level of achievement in this world?"

"I would not call it like that", was Ian refusing to accept while moving from side to side. "It is all about fulfillment...I mean everyone in this world has to do what he is called for...I mean that we are all not equal, we all cannot do the same job, be at the same level. I mean...who would do this kind of job, fix tires, give out residence permits, arrest the bad people, judge them, harvest food, clean our streets, educated our small children in kindergarten...if we all only had A-level or University Degrees and work with our brains...that can never work for a society...never!"

"But...is it not so, that we were all born equal as innocent, vulnerable little persons in the same condition mostly...only into different spaces and times?" asked Anna wanting to get down to the point of the matter.

"I only can speak for myself", made Ian clear while getting up standing before the staircase window to look out over the grounds that the sunlight was touching like generations long gone. "I know inside of me...I mean I found it out over time of course...that when I work with my hands...like I do now...that I actually see what my brain is telling me...I mean it is not abstract, not a theory but actually something very creative...it is visible right on the spot. And that is the kind of feeling, the kind of satisfaction I expect in and form life, that I want to see the results of what I am doing here on this earth each and every day with my own eyes...and I also want others to see right here, right now what my hands are capable of doing, by which they know who I am and what I stand for, what I am made of. You get me?"

Anna smiled saying: "I try hard to follow your words and try to walk in my mind in your shoes."

"Good...sweet young lady...good."

body-container-line