the liberation of fighty fire (fier)
hazard · fire & ice · pheebee fights · some vids · burning, the final · the Cure · the jumpie · focks · fille
2014-04-18
Phoebe Fights [working title]
— a short story —
All those distraction techniques of mine seem to work less and less these days. After scrolling up and down those facebook news for about the third time, i was pretty bored already. My body was sinking deeper into the chair into a more uncomfortable posture. Nothing of that facebook world could catch my attention. Okay, i thought, one last ›refresh‹ of that site and then back to work.
Then it popped up at the very top:
Alice Phoebe Lou: »Playing on Warschauerstraße at the exit of the U1 tonight at around 8. See you there.«
After i read, happily laughed about and liked the comment »woop woop.. ill be there!« by a guy called Marcin Zawisza, i immediately closed down my laptop and started to walk around in my appartment, saying to myself »I will not go. I will let go off Alice, i will let go off Alice…« I did this as long until i realized, that i was actually acting like an idiot. So i stopped, relaxed and decided to see, what it would actually feel like around seven p.m.. Then i went back to work.
After bringing some last bags of my ›cleaning-out-my-closet-sessions‹ to the charity container and finished some things that were waiting to be finished, it was about seven. There still were some doubts, but there was nothing else, what i wanted to do. So i packed my things and went out.
In the subway some people stared at me again. I wonder what they see when they do that, and what they actually think about what they see. Maybe i'll ask them some other time…
Exiting the train i saw one of the goodies* employees chatting with a friend, so we greeted one another with a horizontal high five and i continued my path. Ten meters later i saw Frank, one of Warschauer Bridge's last summer's residents, who also recovers from working by far too much for far too long. He worked quite some years for these freaky corporate-business-monster-factories amazon and ebay.
The guys in charge of him seemed to be those kind of people(?), who push their employees out of any healthy human relation into a freaky you-have-to-work-properly-24/7-robot. As if they wanted to see, how far this can go and where the limit is – where and when the human collapses – when this Wheel-In-The-Chain will finally break – to be replaced next day.
Well – or course – at some point – they succeeded. And these days Frank is standing around at the Exit of Warschauer Straße – chatting with friends – doing nothing – a beer in his hand.
He was busy searching for some music on his mp3-player, but i wanted to say »Hi!«. So i approached and stopped in front of him – and kept waiting until he realized, that i was there.
We hugged and talked a bit. He was about to see a band called Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space. That band name made me curious … quite some strange beings around on this planet…
Frank was hiding his eyes behind sunglasses and seemed to be pretty filled with beer already. That made me kind of sad, but after i realized, that we choose what we do, i let go of that sadness.
He said, that Alice was just about to start. Indeed … some airwaves brought the first lines of The Acrobat to my ears … i could feel attention and a smile rising inside.
Frank stepped into the subway and i headed out of the station, towards Alice.
As i entered the auditorium, a quiet but still theatrical »Ta∂aaa!« came out of my mouth. I moved a bit like an unsure and stuck Ballerina. Yes, indeed, i was pretty unsure if this appearance was appropriate.
After observing and listening from some distance i decided to place myself on the asphalt, sitting first row, like in the good old days of last year's summer.
Somehow it felt wrong sitting there. It seems, as if my own life is calling me louder and louder again these days, wanting me to fully jump back into it, instead of running after someone else's … then i felt like a four year old kid again, sitting in the sandpit, stubbornly stamping into the sand, saying »but i don't wanna go home!« to its mother.
After a while those calls faded and i could concentrate on the music again. One pretty drunk guy was running right into Alice's set a couple of times, constantly wanting to hug and to kiss her. She, with her comparably small and petite body tried to and did push him away, super positive, as always. After his third attempt of interrupting her, she told him to stop, she would get serious now:
»I am småll, but i am strånng!«
Applause from the crowd. She is so cute! And i happily shouted out:
– and my revolutionary fist jumped high into the sky.
Phoebe made her point clear and this guy kind of left the scene (or at least my focus).
At the end of the set, Alice announced a new song, which she called ›Caution to the Wind‹. That made me wonder at first, because on soundcloud and her CD the very same song is called ›Deep Blue Sea‹. But i do not wonder about anything anymore and just accepted it as it is.
My mind was happy being busy with bringing up all the possible explanations there might be, what this could possibly mean and so on, but i wanted to listen now, so i told it to be quiet and wiped those thoughts away.
After Alice finished her set, she was surrounded by quite some people, so i decided to take a pee before saying »Hi.«.
I stepped down the stairs to the station's lower exit, and in the middle of the stairs that drunk huggy guy from before was walking around kind of randomly. His friend was sitting on the stairs next to him.
As i returned from body business, i saw him pushing people that were passing by. Immediatly i became curious and excited: Will be push me too? Somehow i really wanted that, because
a) i did not do any sports today and
b) my inner aggressive part was as well suppressed for an entire lifetime
Therefore i was wondering, how i would possibly react to such an attempt these days.
When i was about to pass him, we looked into each others eyes and he gave me a push towards the wall. ›Yes!‹, i thought. I immeditaly turned around, my left hand jumped right up, snapped him at his throat and i pulled his drunk body to the end of that stairway, right to its railing.
As we were like two dogs staring into eachothers eyes, i told him in german: »Alter, du hast dich doch gar nicht mehr unter Kontrolle!« He said something in some kind of spanish with a strong drunk accent. »¿Que?« i asked back and he continued to mumble some stuff i could not get any clew off. So i told him in russian, that i wouldn't understand: »Я не понимаю.« He – who obviously wouldn't understand me either – then put quite some insult into his voice and tried to copy my words, mumbling again.
Dude, this guy really wants to fight – and my right fist so much wanted to jump up into his face to smash his nose. But his movements where all so helpless, out of control and coordination, that it seemed by far more grotesque than anything else.
I started to wonder, how it can actually be, that all these alcoholic mates overestimate their abilities that much and totally misinterpret the situation. As i stepped away from Phoebe's set some minutes ago, another drunk guy was back-checking his acrobatic skills by throwing his full bottle of alcoholic something into the air, somehow sure, that he would be able to catch it. Of course the bottle smashed on the asphalt a second later and all that liquor expanded on the floor.
Well, i still had that guy's throat in my hand. »I am Portuguese« he said at some point. As if that would make any difference. But at least it explained, why his spanish did sound so strange in the beginning.
As he still made some attempts to fight, i repeated my words slow and clear: »Du hast dich doch gar nicht mehr unter Kontrolle, Alter.« I sticked to german, knowing that the tone of my voice would reach him far better, than any spoken word had the chance to be merged into some sense by this numb brain of his.
I changed the grip and my left hand pointed right behind him, behind the railing, where it went straight downwards for quite some meters. I measured something about maybe five or six and thought about all the possible consequences for his body, if i would just push him over that railing and let gravity do its job. Everything between crippled and – in case he fell unlucky on his back – a broken neck seemed to be possible.
But he did not seem to be aware of any of those consequences, which could bring an instant and decent change into his life. So i just let go off his throat and continued my way back up the stairs.
As i reached the upper stairs, i realized that my original plan was to say »Hi.« to Alice – and i stopped right there. I figured, that in this emotional state it would rather be a good idea to not say hi to anybody. So i focussed on breathing and observing all that slowly fading inner fighty fire. Then i turned around, because something back there caught my attention.
He looked at me from down there. Then a smile appeared on his face, constantly growing to its biggest possible size. He did spread out his arms very wide and started to stumble up the stairs with his wide-legged monkey-like steps. Now that guy obviously wanted to hug me.
»Hmm«, i thought, »either his friend told him that he could be lucky to be alive and walking upright, or he just realized that himself«. As he reached me, still smiling, we hugged heartly and he started to kiss me. Eeeeeeeeeeeek! »Don't want that!«, i thought, but he was a bit too close to change that without being rough. So i let it happen and showed him in sound and gesture, that i wasn't really into that kissing thing.
Now i knew, how Phoebe must have felt, saying »Thank you, thank you!« to him as he approached and clung to her, almost burying her and her guitar under his mighty body weight.
As i came back to Alice, she was packing up her things and actively talking to one last guy. So i decided to wait in some distance. As she saw me, she ran into me and we hugged. »Quite some rough streets around here,« i said. »Nothing i can't handle.« she replied and instantly went back to work.
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