In my neighbourhood in Kreuzberg there is a small bridge that reaches across a canal. On that bridge, during summer, the locals like to hang out in front of an antique caravan. From that caravan they buy drinks, refreshments, and ice cream. They sit on camping chairs that the owner of the caravan put out on the pavement of the bridge. The cool thing is, that the sundown can be seen from there. It turns the whole area into a dark orange color that one can still feel in the morning. The glowing is that intense. Today I came by this place, listening to Shostakovich’s Prelude in D major, the fifth one from the Preludes and Fugues Op. 87.

:: Dmitri Shastakovich: Prelude in D major – Konstantin Scherbakov

For some reason I found the place especially appealing tonight, and so I stopped there for a moment. You know how the world around you seems to be especially removed and alien while you are listening to music over headphones. The colored lampions, the lights in tiny paper bags that were sitting on the railing of the bridge, the guests chatting quietly, their smiles – everything seemed as if under a secret magnifying lense. I was standing there only for a couple of moments, looking into the sun down, when all of a sudden a big ship came sailing underneath the bridge. It was one of these extra long passenger ships that carry tourists around the canals of Berlin, but this one was special in that it had no seats on the upper deck. Instead there was a green lawn that spanned almost all of the ship’s length. This lawn was covered with a variety of balls, all in different sizes and colors. They were spread randomly across the green surface.

I don’t know why, but at that particular moment I was profoundly happy. I wish I could share this feeling with you. I wish you could all have been there with me, listening to Sherbakov’s playing, smelling the warm breeze, seeing the green lawn sailing silently into the big orange…

Is anyone reading this?