Fear Before the March of Flames

My friend came to me visibly disturbed today. He was walking in circles in the living room, looking lost and unstable. The first thing he said upon seeing me was: "I'm still afraid that they will get us."
In the following hour I managed to understand: he's afraid to come to my house because of the fire that happened nearby not too long ago.
"On my way here I still felt like a culprit. I don't know how I managed to go by these few people I met on the way.

We didn't set that house on fire, it was burning without us. It would be stupid to prove it. I was constantly thinking about how we would be forced to prove it, and I felt the sickening fear from it, from the fact that it's impossible to tell people anything in such a nervous situation. I was just waiting to be accused by the mob law, because at least somebody would believe that obvious untruth.

We weren't even close when it started. We came there after the firefighters.
But I couldn't think of how I would prove it. I think, words would just stick in me, and everybody would see my guilt in this. It wouldn't be possible to change their mind. It's always impossible to change people's minds when they think they're smarter. That's what they'd think: we're trying to lie, but they're smarter and they caught the real arsonists.
But we just went there to see the fire like everybody else.
We were going home not watching anyone. It was easy to do.
It was much later that you told me only homeless lived there from time to time. Doesn't help now."

He let out a broken breath and finally took off the hat he was wearing the entire time.

Ich muß schon gestehen, das habt ihr gut gemacht

I didn't want to go to see the fire. They told me about it two or three times already, but I still didn't want to go there. It wasn't interesting to me to see the burning house; all of my interest was related to the question if smoke would reach my open window. However, it only mattered to me for a minute.

I have completely forgotten about that fire, in fact. But then I suddenly got up, told friend to put on a coat and made it for where I expected to see that burning house. I had to see that fire. I kept telling myself that this way I will no longer hear invitations to see it, but, in fact, I didn't go there because of that. I have no idea why.

We found the place by the crowd of onlookers. I don't remember what I've been thinking; I just stood in the distance and watched that house burn. No one panicked. The house was abandoned and only homeless sometimes spent time there. The firefighters had already arrived. The house had bad reputation, there were regular fires. And people stood there and watched the fire. And I stood there too; I have no idea what I was thinking at that time, I only know that large embers made me look at them and think about something. I remember that it wasn't me; I can't describe that person who watched the fire burn from my eyes and thought something. That person seemingly found that big fire charming. That person probably felt the heat from it too. And then it all ended. Not did the fire end, but it ceased to interest me.

"Let's go."

I said this and turned back. I already didn't know what did I find in this fire, I thought we should return home, I couldn't get why did I go there at all. Had to pass through the crowd of onlookers with their children again. I started from the question of one of the children, started and grinned, but grinned much later, when I had already long quickened my steps and was far away. He asked me:

"You set this fire?"

Wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen

We were going uphill. The track was thin and slippery. There was no use in opening the umbrella: the wind would either flip it over or take it away in a moment. Probably both. There's no use in having an umbrella with you when the weather is bad, I'm always thinking about dropping the habit of carrying it with me when the clouds are grey, but I still carry it around sometimes. Why sometimes, I always carry useless lumber, umbrella included.
We, two of us, were going uphill.

–One day this ascent will finish me. I have already went this path a million times, and hundreds of them were entirely made of thinking that I would die here from cold. Or hunger. But more often from cold. Or maybe both. All in all, I certainly feel that either cold or hunger, or both will kill me before I climb this mountain. I've felt it hundreds, no, thousands of hundreds of times. And I feel it right now.

I stopped to catch my breath for a second.

–Meanwhile this is all absurd. If only I told anyone about this mountain, they would probably imagine something truly epic, with snow, rocks, cliff and stuff like that. Nobody would think that this is merely a sidewalk. Just a sidewalk. Yes, with stream of cars flying on arm's length from us, but... how long is this track? About 200 meters? I don't know a bit about distances. A hundred miles if you ask me. Remember Holden? Was this bed ten miles on ten miles? I like his numerals.

However, as we were talking, we have long finished our fifty-mile-long ascent. Standing on the footsteps of my house, I have completely forgotten that I have just escaped a terrible death from cold and hunger.

Das Wörterbuch

I hate registering. I had never signed up for a blog before, but I already feel I hate it. I hate it when bloggers moan, too. Most of all I hate it when they hate something, and even more when they hate aloud.

Pity I can't write in German. It seems suitable for sad things.
You know, I always wanted to know this language. I even bought a book one time. You know, this tiny one, for complete beginners. About German. Some kind of dictionary. I used to go to book stores quite a lot in those days.

Most of all I liked the atmosphere there. It was not as cold and dark as outside, in the ever-saddening autumn. I was always fond of books. I wanted to have a library in my house, to make one spacious room a library. A library full of good books, good read books.
I've bought an e-book since then, and my dreams of library somehow vanished away.
That book about German is on the shelf now. I once read it a bit and put it there. Of course I hadn't learnt anything. I thought about starting anew many times, but never did.

A friend of mine saw it once and bought herself the same. She learnt that language at school, so I wondered why she'd need it. But she asked me to get her to that book store and show her where it is. And she bought it, and she was very fond of it.

And so it sits on her shelf as well.
Not opened once.