Sunday, November 28th, 2004

Time	Event
8:38a	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT The Tears Of Sadness Turn To Tears Of Hallelujah As Emily stood on the platform crying, a familiar sound started to serenade her. She heard the opening guitar chords of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen breaking through both the cacophony of noise made by the passengers on the Metro waiting area and the cacophony of questions rising in her head from Sandra's statements. The haunting melody was coming from a squared in area further down the platform. Like a siren's song, she walked towards the music and on arriving saw a late teenaged busker plucking away at an miked acoustic guitar. "Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord...That david played, and it pleased the lord...But you don’t really care for music, do you?...It goes like this...The fourth, the fifth...The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing hallelujah." She stood transfixed and her mind cleared. She felt this music unlike she had been able to feel the music in the dance club a few nights prior. This was the very song that Scott had played for her so many times when she had felt very similar to how she felt at this very moment. "You say I took the name in vain...I don’t even know the name...But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?...There’s a blaze of light...In every word...It doesn’t matter which you heard...The holy or the broken hallelujah." It was as if she was supposed to hear this very song at the very moment to bridge any doubt that she had that Scott had been telling her the truth. She didn't believe in signs, but Scott did. And, she knew that if he were there at this very moment, he would be trying to sing it to her in his broken singing voice. It was never the sound of the voice that would soothe her, really it would be like nails down a chalk board, it was always the sentiment - a sentiment that would calm the inner turmoil. Before she could stop herself, she found herself singing along right in the middle of the crowded stop. She realized that if the people had not been looking at the broken girl, and that's what she felt like, a broken little girl, the broken little girl she had been when she met Scott and not the strong woman she had become, crying on the Metro, than they certainly noticed the American standing two feet away from this street musician playing underground. She didn't care. She had spent so much time caring about what others thought of her, like Sandra, she had been neglecting herself and her own feelings. She knew she would never see any of these people again - she hoped never to see this city again - so what did it matter? She didn't care because she felt the lyrics pulsing through her in a direct arrow to her heart and her soul. She realized how happy that she was that she would be seeing Scott in Berlin, but she could barely speak the words through the pain of what had transpired. She was saying the "hallelujah" in a broken tone choked by emotion. She was the broken hallelujah right now. "I did my best, it wasn’t much...I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you...And even though...It all went wrong...I’ll stand before the lord of song...With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah." How many times had she heard those very ending lyrics of the original version of the song? They were different than those in the Jeff Buckley cover (or the Rufus Wainright version that followed echoing the Buckley sentiment). In the Jeff Buckley reworking, she thought, there was such a negative ending. That version came after the breakup. "Remember when I moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too, and every breath we drew was hallelujah." She almost smiled as she thought of how much words meant to Scott and knew why he would choose to sing this version to her. He really wanted to be with her and the other set of lyrics was inappropriate. As much as he let his life be run by random events in its disorganization, there were some things he did not leave up to chance like trying to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. Occasionally he would not say anything at all to her if he didn't know what to say that would make her feel better. Was this the lying that Sandra had been talking about? Was the holding back of information that might not make her feel better, something he always tried to do, was that lying? The sentiment was like an epiphany. She had always believed that when he sang the lyrics they had been meant for her current dilemma at the time. That she could stand before whatever was bothering her and say that she tried. That she could stand before those who were judging her and say that she did all she could and that she had done nothing wrong that was in her control. That she could stand before the lord and say that hallelujah that things had happened the way they did. But now, she began to wonder. Why did Scott choose this particular song? Was he worried that she would think he was lying when he sang these lyrics to her? That he was lying in his own sentiment and trying to convince her that he was telling the truth that he wanted her to feel like she could be strong in troubling times? Damn Sandra! How could she say those things about him? How could she say that he was a liar? How could she desecrate all of those beautiful memories like Scott singing her, or trying to sing her, this song? That beautiful song! That song that held the answers to that sudden barrage of questions that were flying around her mind. Damn you Sandra! You're the one that was lying! She couldn't trust Sandra's words, she never could, and now she was sure of it. She raised her voice right as the busker raised his, hers with the American accent and his with the French accent singing in English and they echoed together the "hallelujah" that ended the song 17 times, Emily always counted to see that Scott had gotten it right. By this time the musician had looked up from the guitar and was looking her right in the eyes as if he understood his pain. He tried to match her cadence and her power as opposed to what would usually be the case. He tried to match her as she crescendoed in power as the song began to end, each "hallelujah" seemed to purge the sadness out of her soul more and so she sand it louder. The musician kept up very well as she nearly screamed the last "hallelujah" although the beauty of her voice still showed through. Emily almost felt a power being in the lead. She felt a power not only in the song, but in being able to control her own emotions again. The tears of pain had begun to dry and a warm feeling was rising through her. She was still crying but she knew now that they were tears of joy, they were tears of "hallelujah." The busker concluded and took a small bow. "Merci," he said. But it didn't just to Emily. Emily's spell of staring at him enraptured in the music was broken. She stared to her left and right and then turned around. During the very short song an entire crowd had gathered and were applauding. One person came up and clasped Emily on the shoulder, "that was very good," he said in French. Now Emily began to blush and demurred away but the entire crowd that had gathered began to applaud her harder, either to congratulate her or to make her feel better about a terrible job - like some sort of impromptu karaoke performance beneath Paris. She straighted her dress and walked up into the crowd of people that were now pouring bills and coins into the open guitar case that stood in front of the real musician. After they had cleared away, she walked up. The performer looked down at the monies and said to Emily in English, "thank you, I never do so well on just one song. It must have been you. They probably believe you are part of the act." "There is no act to that song, there can't be," Emily said, "you have to feel it in your heart. And, I think you did too. I've never heard it sung with such passion." "The passion is from you," the busker said, "it is as if you wrote the song and not Monsieur Buckley." Emily corrected him, "not mister Buckley, mister Cohen. That's the Leonard Cohen version. There is a huge difference. There is so much more hope in that version. There is so much more chance of reconciliation." "Oh yes, yes, sorry," the musician continued in English as Emily was reaching into her bag to pull out her wallet. She dropped a 10 Euro bill into the guitar case. The musician looked down and said, "oh kind miss, that is not necessary but thank you." Emily nodded and began to walk away toward the train that was going to begin her destination to Paris Nord Train Station. She paused. Turning around she said, "thank you. You can't even know how necessary that was. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." The doors opened and she stepped on the train with another, small, whispered, "hallelujah." Chapter Word Count: 1591 Daily Word Count:1591 Total Word Count: 59198 (Comment on this)
11:34a	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Crossing Into The East Over The Invisible Wall Of Ideas The city of Paris had faded rapidly from the vantage point of the window of the train. The buildings seemed to get generally smaller and smaller and the train stations seemed to have less people waiting at them as the trip progressed east. The terrain from the window became more hilly with large vines seemingly bursting with grapes getting ready for the harvest coming up. These fields of vines, which she was amazed were right by the train tracks, would be broken up by vast patches of forest. Everything seemed so tranquil in this land so close to Paris and yet worlds away. She knew there were tourists scurrying about the chateaus and guest houses in the small towns she passed, but it seemed like a region of France she might like to see at some time in the future. She might even want to settle there. Where was this France a couple of day ago? As the scenery had become more tranquil, so did the thoughts in Emily's mind. She had still reviewed the events of the morning with Sandra and it had choked her up a couple of times but there were no more tears. She would just look out the window as the train shook mildly back and forth over the undulating terrain and see the workers in the field tilling the soil or the provincial children in their nice bonnets and shoes boarding the train for a ride east to visit relatives or even to travel to Germany with her. There were such proud looks on the faces of the mothers at their young daughters. Emily sighed and thought of how much promise these children had. And she wondered if they would turn out like Sandra, every mother's nightmare or even like herself, an inner core of turmoil just waiting to explode. There was innocence there that had not yet been broken, had not been shattered. There was no such innocence now as Emily stood in front of the sex museum right downstairs from her hostel in Berlin. Part of her thought that Scott would be waiting for her as she got off the train. But, she knew that was asking too much. Even if he had gotten her message from the night before as soon as she had sent it, chances are there wasn't going to be a train from Warsaw to Berlin that would beat her here from Paris. She had been disappointed to find out that Scott wasn't in Warsaw anymore, but had instead moved on to Prague. The first thing she had done on arriving in Berlin was check into the hostel and buy internet time at the computers within. When she saw that Scott not only would not be in Berlin the next morning but not until the morning after, she decided to make the best of her time alone. Thinking back of her time in Paris, she realized that she should see some of the historic aspects of Berlin, as much as it pained her to follow any of that asshole Greg's advice. Now she began walking back to Berlin Zoo Station to catch the bus to take in the sights, gazing at the sex "museum" cynically while she passed it on the way. The check-in desk had given her a map and the advice to take the "Linie 100" if she wanted a quick tour of the city. She had printed out a list of things to do while at the internet cafe in Paris and now she had a way to do them. When the double decker bus pulled up, she paid her fare and was glad to hear a wash of people talking in different languages. She felt safe in the knowledge that she was a tourist and they were tourists. People who actually knew the country now seemed dangerous to her. The bus took a twisting route through the old West Berlin. She marveled at its modernity. All of Germany seemed so modern and so industrialized compared to what had been in France. The buildings were all so square and modern and tell. She took comfort in this, it reminded her of home - this skyline could just as easily be in Chicago as they were in Berlin. But she knew she wasn't at home, she was still definitively in a foreign country. And this was a foreign country where she didn't even enjoy the benefit of speaking the language as she had in France. This thought alone worried her although speaking the language had not done her much good in the country she had just left. As the bus continued east, the facades of the buildings began to get smaller and less ornate. It was as if they were in a different city. The former East Berlin, at least that's what she assumed it was looking at the dotted line on her map marking where the wall used to stand that the bus had now crossed over, was crafted so much differently than the former West Berlin. It had the feel of being stuck in a different time even though it had been 14 years since the wall was no longer and impediment to the cities merging. This invisible line, while still on the maps shouldn't have prevented the two cultures in one city from merging, but somehow it did. The planned bloc housing still stood, virtually unchanged by progress with the exception of a few billboards that now graced or sullied them. The people on the street even seemed like they were dressed differently. As opposed to the three piece suits of those West Berliner running to the train station after work, these were the jeans and t-shirt crowd who labored in the factories or even cleaned the floors in the western half of the city. She could see the skeletons of construction planks moving up the sides of the building to renovate them and even the bulldozers and cranes with wrecking balls ready to remove them, but even this seemed to be frozen in time. But what really differentiated everything was the construction. Everything in the East seemed to be brick as opposed to the steel and glass that was the West. Everything still seemed to echo in the steps of the apparatchik and unwilling participants who used to occupy these buildings. She wondered what it must be like to work in them today knowing that the labors you currently put in were once done by someone with different goals in mind. She felt as though the illusions she once had of the Eastern Bloc were shattered seeing the ghosts of East Berlin. Emily had always defended the system in the former communist sphere of influence. Not in Russia proper or in a country like Romania where the respective dictators throughout the procession of years had ruled with iron fists to match the curtain. But, she had always cited the more "enlightened" regimes like Yugoslavia and East Germany as an alternative to the materialism of the west. When the wall had fallen and the people streamed to the western parts of Berlin, she had always thought it had just been to engage in the process of buying unnecessary things. But, now, looking at the run down mess that still existed where East Germany had once been, she realized that it wasn't just for the so-called freedom that people had risked their lives to achieve, it was in a hope of achieving a life where the living standards could meet the needs of their families. If Scott ever did laugh at his political views behind her back as Sandra had claimed, a fact that Emily still doubted, maybe he had been right. If this was the utopian ideal that she had aspired to, where everyone was equally suffering even years later than she was probably wrong. She left the bus at the last stop, the Alexanderplatz and began to walk around the little square that surrounded the statue the looked like the map of an atom from high school. She followed the crowds back west as they looked wide eyed up into the air at the Fernsehturm, a giant pillar with a ball on top that looked like an observation deck at an amusement park. Emily asked the man who was standing next to her, "what was this used for?" He didn't respond at first, still staring nearly straight up. Then he looked down and in an accented English said, "was old broadcast tower for East German television. Communists put up to scare West Berliners into remembering they were surrounded by east. Was supposed to symbolize hope and prosperity but even we in Munich knew what was for. But we show them. Now inside is fine restaurant and people can go to top and see all of West. They not let them do during communism for fear they want lifestyle." Emily politely thanked him but she was amazed at the hostility in his voice when talking about the former East German government and the contempt in his voice when talking about the former East German people. She guessed she couldn't blame him because he was as much raised in a system in a system in West Germany to hate the East as so many East Germans were raised to hate the West. But so far she was inclined to agree with him to a point. She didn't hate this area for its poverty but she did feel sorry for it and it saddened her that in this one city, in this one country, could be two different worlds that still could not see eye-to-eye. These two groups of people, separated artificially could really not be that much different, they were all Germans. Why could they somehow not manage to reconcile? Chapter Word Count: 1622 Daily Word Count: 3213 Total Word Count: 60820 (Comment on this)
7:52p	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY CHAPTER FORTY The Power Of The Light Of Music On The Charles Bridge He pounded a hand that felt heavy due to alcohol on the heavy old oaken door of the hostel again. He looked down at the blurry numbers on his new watch waiting a second for his eyes to clear up. It was 1:18 a.m. He had missed the curfew by 18 minutes, only 18 minutes. He hoped there was someone else who had also decided to stay at a club just a little too long and have one too many drinks as he had done. But, somehow he doubted it. He figured if he left by 12:20 a.m., he would have plenty of time to get back to the hostel on time. No one had told him that the trains stopped running at midnight. This didn't seem like much of a problem. From the New Town to the Old Town, it didn't look like it was that far on the map. But he hadn't taken into consideration the amount of alcohol he had drunk and that it would cause him to get lost. At one point he saw someone point to him and say in a British accent which probably sounded as drunk as his own voice would sound had Scott been willing to talk, "I hear you mate. Ah, the many nights in Brno and Prague when I stumbled home over cobbles in the middle of the night." Scott waved a drunken hand to dismiss him and kept on walking in a direction that seemed to be correct. He was making progress but felt but with the comment, he realized just how much he was stumbling. He was walking barely coherent through streets that he didn't know just hoping one was the right one. Scott thought to himself that he should have just taken the Metro, he had written it down on the piece of paper in front of him, but someone had told him that it stopped running early. He just couldn't bring himself to leave the show early. He had found another group of Americans who were in Prague on business and they had been slamming shots all night talking about home. He now recalled why he wanted to be alone on this trip if it were not Emily who was accompanying him. The nights seemed to all end up like this when he had company. He pounded again and sat down on the step of the hostel. He debated just sleeping on this very stone step until someone who worked at the hostel found him in the morning. There was nothing worth stealing on him with the possible exception of his wallet. The worst case scenario was that the police would come and fine him for sleeping outside. But what if that wasn't the worst case scenario? They could throw him in jail overnight and he wanted, no he needed to be on that train in the morning. The best option occurring to him was to go where the people were. He would walk back down to the New Town and see what places still had people - places that were not bars, that was. It took an effort to get himself up off the step. He stumbled back down the street in the direction he had come from. Prague did not seem to be living up to its reputation of being some kind of late night city. All of the bars and restaurants seemed to be closed. He would walk up to the door and see that they all closed at midnight. But to his right he saw a glow that stuck out through the darkness. As he got closer he could tell what it was, the Charles Bridge. People were streaming across the structure to both sides of the Vltava River. The lights on top of the bridge were dwarfed in intensity by the individual spotlights that shown down on each of the large busts standing in a straight line along the side. But what surprised Scott the most as the majority of the city seemed to be sleeping was the sounds that were coming off the bridge. The noise of the crowd by itself made it in the form of a muffled roar to his ears as he stood 300 yards away. But, what was most unusual to his ears was the fact that he could hear music. The songs that were being sung on the bridge blended together into a symphony of textures. He began to walk toward the bridge to see what all the sound was and since it seemed to be the only way to stay awake. From a distance the people seemed to make a slow moving stream standing paused as they were on the thin sidewalks that ran along either side, stopped at the tables of the late night merchants but when he was actually in the crowd, the movement seemed to be at a standstill. He stood still and let the groups of people push him along at their leisure. The smells of the food had him stopping to eat alone. A small cart handing him a fried cheese sandwich covered in pickles, mayonnaise, and mustard. Seeing it originally repulsed him but he was amazed at the flavors that it produced and the grease calmed his stomach. But it also made his fingers a blur of red and white smears. They matched the wall of the concert venue earlier tonight he thought, wiping his greasy fingers on the napkin provided. He thrust himself forward on the bridge wanting to take it all in until he got to a point where a street musician stood singing in a broken English a song by Sting. In this land of foreign languages from all over, this musician seemed to have attracted a crowd of homesick ex-pats and English speakers. A group of Anglophones seemed to be clustered around him dropping coins into an empty oatmeal cannister. He paused and spoke into his microphone plugged into a battery powered generator that produced a lot of sound. "Does anyone have any requests?" he asked in English. A female voice next to Scott said in an Irish accent, "duya know 'alllelujah?" "Yeah," he said, imitating her lilt, "I cayn do 'allalujah. Do the Mr. Buckley do it?" The girl nodded ecstatically. Scott couldn't believe his ears as the busker began to play the Jeff Buckley tune he had sung so many times to Emily in situations similar to this - albeit the Leonard Cohen version. Scott looked over and say the woman in her early 20s grabbing ahold of the arm of the man about the same age in a ratty baseball cap with a Manchester United logo on it. "'e be playing out song there!" The man grinned a toothy smile down at her and kissed her on her forehead. She gripped his arm tighter. Scott smiled and hoped that his reunion with Emily would be something similar as he tipped backward for a second, righting himself before he fell over. The short, black haired Irish woman with large blue eyes, began to sing along with the musician. Her boyfriend joined in and they looked at each other in a way that said they had an incredible connection. Suddenly seeing them, others in the crowd began to sing along also in a combination of British and Australian and American and Canadian and even non-English speaking accents. The busker grinned as he continued seeming to know that he had the audience. Scott came in on the verse where the song diverged from the Cohen lyrics. "Baby i've been here before...I've seen this room and i've walked this floor I used to live alone before i knew you...I've seen your flag on the marble arch...but love is not a victory march...It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." The woman next to Scott began to break into tears at these lyrics and rubbed her eyes on the sleeve on her companion using her hand. This was obviously a couple who had been through some problems but had made it through them, like he and Emily would be able to. There was no doubt in his mind that they would be able to. He realized that all couples go through the same kind of things and that was what Jeff Buckley was probably going through when he wrote the lyrics differently from Leonard Cohen. He seemed to know that nothing was smooth and organized like a march, but that somehow it was still a beautiful tribute to what the human spirit could be. "Well there was a time when you let me know...what's really going on below...but now you never show that to me do you...but remember when i moved in you...and the holy dove was moving too...and every breath we drew was hallelujah." If he got the chance to sing this song to Emily again, he would make sure to sing this version. This was the cry of someone who knew the pain of losing someone who was so perfect for some stupid reason like worrying they would end up with someone else. This was his cry and Emily would understand. She probably felt the same thing. She would be here singing this version of the song right along with him. "Well, maybe there's a god above...but all i've ever learned from love...was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you...it's not a cry that you hear at night...it's not somebody who's seen the light...it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah." He couldn't bring himself to sing the final verse since there wasn't as much hope in it and hope was what he needed right now. He had seen the light and he didn't need any broken hallelujah to see what he needed to do. He needed to stay awake through the night and catch that first train to Berlin. On that spot on the bridge, he realized that he had made a huge mistake more recently than when he had broken up with Emily. He had made it in going to see the concert that afternoon. He should have been on that morning train or at least one of the evening ones to Berlin. He needed to be there for Emily as soon as possible. Eastern Sodomite might come to the United States at some time in the future - he could get that second chance to see them. Or, if not, he could see them the next time he was in Europe. And he swore that there would be a next time and it would be with Emily. He realized that it was all he wanted this time to show her all that he experienced as he had experienced it and to hear how she experienced the same things. He wanted to see the look on her face as she gazed in wonder at something that she enjoyed for its beauty or for its form or for anything that put that little smile on her face. He looked over as the girl had her arms wrapped around the waist of her boyfriend facing him and he was swaying her back and forth to the music to the musician's voice in the last verse. His head rested on top of hers. That should be him and that should be Emily, he thought. That could have been them that very evening to the sound of some other busker somewhere else in the world. But, he had made a mistake and he wasn't about to make another one. He dropped all the Crowns that he had in his pocket into the tin. He practically ran off the bridge, forcing his way through the crowd and back to the hostel. He stayed awake by singing "Hallelujah" to himself, every version that he knew. At first it was in his head, but in his drunken state, the words began to creep from his mouth and then got louder. That would scare away anyone who wanted to rob him, he thought. They would all think he was crazy. Singing and chain smoking to keep his eyes open he sat on the step and swayed for the over four hours that it took for the morning receptionist to show up. By the time the young woman showed up, he was relatively coherent again. It's a good thing, he thought, she definitely would have called the police. As the receptionist opened the lock, Scott apologized to her for missing the curfew. She said that it was not a problem so long as he didn't want his money back since he paid for baggage storage for his backpack if nothing else. He didn't even care about the money, he told her, there was something more important waiting for him somewhere else in Europe. He grabbed his backpack and walked in a hurry to the other train station before the sun even rose. He bought his ticket into Germany. He grabbed another cheese sandwich for breakfast and was at the platform sitting and waiting for the train before a preceding train had even showed up and left the same platform. He looked at the joyous faces of those who seemed to be going home and for the first time in a long time, he felt the same joy. Again he was asleep before the ticket taker had come around for the first time to check the ticket in his berth. He wrapped his arms inside the straps of his backpack again and put the ticket face up in his pocket hoping that the ticket taker would see him and let him sleep in. His drunken state had disintegrated into a horrible hangover. He was only woken up by the customs agent as he entered Germany who seemed to see the pained hung over look on his face and took sympathy by not asking any questions and just stamping the passport. The thunk snapped him awake more than any agent ever could, it meant he was officially in the same country as Emily. He felt like he was getting so close that he could almost sense her presence. He would be singing "Hallelujah" to her soon after the sun rose the next morning. But, as soon as the excitement of this thought passed through his head, he fell back asleep and began to dream. Chapter Word Count: 2370 Daily Word Count: 5583 Total Word Count: 63190 (Comment on this)

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