the high seat.

The son goes ahead, goes to the café, goes in. We both wait until the peson who is just finishing their purchase finishes, exchanges pleasantries.
She leaves the cafe.

Order a coffee and a croissant, then wait for the son to order his desires. There is a lot of choice in the  display, it is early in the day yet and the wares have not been sold out yet.
The son picks a  cake named after a monk's hat and a milky coffee.
Sit down with the croissant at the one free table, beside a couple at t he next table. The little café only has two tables and and a sort of a high table fixed to the wall, with high chairs in front of it.
Whilst waiting for the coffee to be made in the machine, a young couple comes in with their son. The woman looks around the corner, and her face falls in dissapointment when she sees that all the spaces are occupied. Her son is delighted. He climbs up onto one of the high chairs and puts the little colouring book that he has with him onto the high table. There are only two seats at this high table, he tells his father to sit down on the space next to him. The father inquires as to where the young man expects his mother to sit, and the young man says that she may stand.

This causes laughter in the café.

Later on, when the older couple have left, move over into their seats, so that the mother and the father may sit down together and the son continue to occupy his high seat.

science fiction

Friday, the twenty ninth of Novemier 2019

at the traffic lights, look up through the glass

roof of the small car. There is a street lamp

up There, just like a chandelier, three arms

from a central pole holding three lamps

It looks like some kind of spacecraft imagined

in the sixties, the lights glowing in the dark,

the supporting pole vanishing into the

dark.

There is light rain, this gives the whole

scene a grainy, hazy, appearance. There is a red traffic light at the bottom of the vista.

The light turns green.

Look down at the road, press the acceler­ator down and the small car moves

off into the dark of the country road.

The radio plays classical music.

Drive on, a car pulls out from the left.

Suddenly, it is just there.

Brake hard, feel the anti blocking system

grate under the right foot. Slowly, the

car ahead pulls away.

Carry on behind that car now, there

is music from the radio and the

windscreen wiper moves back and

forth.

Nothing happened.

the cat, the news and the son

Thursday, 28th November, 2019

The cat reached up and dug its claws into the cloth of the trousers. Both front paws, the rear paws remain on the ground. She looks up.-take the laptop off the knees and put it

onto the desktop. The cat realeases its claws

and jumps down to the floor again, and walks other to the door. She looks back over her

shoulder.

All dear, all understood. get up and open The door. Then return to the desk.

Read about the new president of the European Commission, And then, read about the president of the USA. Two figures, quite different.

Then there are the British to read about as

well.

The son has risen, he comes in, asks whether or not a cup of coffee would be nice. Point to the cup on thetable, now half empty and three quarter cold.. He nods, understanding that nothing is needed.

Hear him work away in the kitchen, making a coffee for himself.

Later, he comes in for a chat. There is nothing much happening in the school now, quite different to last week. It is quieter now in Germany in the month leading up to Christmas.

cafe noises

Bleak bare and wet the flagstones before the floor to cieling windows in the institutes cafe. The old cafeteria is closed now, it is just a dreary concrete building now. Sturdents from the engineering department still pass by, but only because this is a short cut to the new refectory building.
The cafe is filled with the mumble of student scientists voices,

there is the sound of

the cafe proprietors voice, loud,

entertaining his customers, the rumble

of the coffee grinder, the sound of the

coffee being knocked out of the sieves

The sounds of a working cafe.

It has just passed twelve, and The amount of people outside has increased.

Many are dressed in anoraks with

their heads up against the very light rain.

Wednesday is a sad day in the centre of the week, and the grey cloudy weather today does not help.

the cousin's cat

The calm is holding, there is no agitation today

Read the news on the computer. see that the

cousins cat has died, old age and euthanasia.

After a cupu of coffee leave the house The car,

parked where it was left yesterday, small

and black, the front wheels on the white line

demarcating the" no parking" zone.

It was the last free spot last night, and now most of

the other cars have gone.

Decide to drive slowly and steadily today. Not

ever faster than ninety kilometres in the hour.

set the device on the car, it just cruises along

behind a truck. Listen to the radio, ignore the

rest of the traffic, but for the truck ahead. It

comes closer, then it goes away again.

This goes on for some time.All the while somebody is playing

Mendelsohn piano pieces on the radio.

Then a light to the rear of the truck blinks,

an indicator. It slows, comes closer, then it

leaves the motorway. Roll on at the same

speed think that this will save fuel. The time

wasted is a matter of-few minutes at the most.

And then upon arrival at the campus. park

the car underneath the bare tree at the back

entrance. It is light now, it is eight in the

morning

washing

Monday, 25th.

Make coffee, the shower was taken last night.

So clean today, despite a lack of refreshing

water, The cat is about, purring. Then

she starts to lick the leather of the shoes, maybe

there is salt, maybe sweat.

Her tongue makes

a loud rasping noise on the leather, she seems

quite engrossed in what she is doing.

She likes to lick worn shoes.

The son stops to watch, he finds this amusing

In the bathroom, there is the washing machine

It is full of clothes, wet, all washed. Because

the attic is unlit, it was not possible to hang

the clothes there last night, so wait untill

first light at seven in the morning.

Take the grey box, plastic container, and

empty the few unwashed clothes out of it.

Fill the plastic box with the spin dried

clothes, all damp, and take them upstairs.

The small windows in the attic let

in a dim light, enough to see the washing

lines by. Throw over the clothing, just thr0w

it over the lines, no clothes pegs, there is no

wind up here. The damp clothing

-- smells of

conditioner not a really pleasant scent.

When the hanging is over, hurry out,

down the stairs, rush to the car, go to work.

Fresh cold air.

Awaken to the cold and damp air in the room , the windows are closed, keeping the remainder of the warmth and the damp in the room. Open the windows? Why bother, there will be no more than rage from the wife. Fresh cold air is anathema, it is cold, and does not suit the sense of insulated misery that is so popular here.
The son plays the piano, he sits down to practice at intervals, he has a small performance coming up some time inside the next week or two. His play is improving, but he will never be a master. But it is a nice ability to have, the money on the teacher is well spent.

It is Sunday, and everything is running slowly.
That is the way it should be, on a Sunday.
Tomorrow will be a work day.

There are small things to be done today, but there is the intention to go out for a walk.
Fresh cold air.

der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland

Read an article in the morning after having woken up slowly on this Saturday. There is no sound but for the activity of the cat, her purring; and the ticking of the clocks, all their sounds support the silence. Make coffee, the family is still sleeping. They were watching shows on television last night.

Read articles on the computer, there is a nice one from the Guardian newspaper illustrating clever social science linking the fear of death to illogical decision making at the electoral urn. It is well written, it refers to the long dead Max Weber, the sociologist who formalised so many ideas, putting so much rubbish circulating the human mind into a receptacle designed for such ordure.

Any perceived attack on the structures put in place in our minds to secure us a position beyond death is an attack on our substance, existence, on the human belief that we have found a place beyond death itself. This easily manipulated fear of the unconditional and total end of personal existence lets persons be moved to attack the perceived attackers, self defence the motivation for dehumanising these carriers of thoughts supplying an alternative method for attaining the same objective. This diffuse fear of the end allows control, control over those who are scared, control by focusing the blame for fear upon those who use the alternative routes to the same end.

They are still asleep.
Decide to make another cup.
There are cars on the cobbles outside.
The clock is ticking, the hands are moving in silence.
And the writer of these notes feels that he has understood another thing.

mail

Friday 22nd of November, 2019

The the trackage from the desk in the office

at work.

The package was prepared yesterday.

And down to the car, parked by the tree. It is

nine in the morning, and the post office

will open at nine. So

there you are!

Leave the pebble parking space behind,

and follow the roads through the campus.

The underground railway has just arrived.

there are hundreds of young students

They

are

crossing the

road between the station and

the department of Engineering. There must

be a lecture starting there shortly.

Wait, as they all ctoss the road. There are

more and more, this may take a while.

They

cross the road like sheep do, carrying

on in their herd regardless of what may

be going on around them.

Wait untill there is a gap in the stream

of people, and cross the pedestrian

crossing. Drive on, stop turn to the

right, and onto the main road. Turn

left, and after a roundabout, enter

the

village of Garching.

Arrive at the place were the post office

was the last time, see that the buildings

are deserted, cold and empty.

Turn the car on the empty parking lot 

and leave, and at a junction some

way farther on ask a passerby as to where the post office had gone To. He

smiled and said that it had moved to

a space between a supermarket and

petrol station, three hundred metres on, on the left hand side of the road.

There is a parking spot free right in

front of the low building. Park the car, realise too late that this is the entrance to the yard

belonging to the post office, the yard where all

the delivery bicycles are kept.

Never mind.

go in to the new building with the small

but valuable

package in hand. After a

short wait, the woman behind the counter

scans The barcodes on the package. The printer prints out a reciept.
Thank you.
And back to the car.

A young woman with a pram waits until the car has gone on.

A waiting car rushes in to fill the vacated

spot,

Return to the tree in the pebble parking place

Return to work.

wait

Thursday, 21st of November, 2019

They have finished the road works

the munich side of the Autobahn, and,

even though anyone drives more quickly,

the traffic is not moving faster. It makes

no difference, the journey is the same length

and it takes

the same time.

The radio had sent a report on what

sounds like a most excentric Russian

composer. She would have been a hundred

years old today. Her music was most

difficult

and strange to listen to.

The parking place by the tree, today it is

free. Place the little car on the earthen

hummock beside  the tree, and leave it

there.

The pendulum is swaying back and

forth in the stairwell, the measuring device.

in thepedestal below the bob sending it's data on to a computer for recording and analysis. The small magnetic impulse keeps it swaying. The office is dark and the computer is displaying  a demanding message, it needs a number, a number from any other device. At this point, realise that the 

mobile iphone is at home in the

cupboard' in the hallway, still connected to

the loading bay, charging its batteries.

The computer will have to wait, wait until later.

So will these notes, they are transported

to the world wide web via the telephone,

so that Portugal, and the Ukraine,

France the USA and the Netherlands

will have to wait until then, until

this evening.

long snouted long dog

Wednesday, the twentieth of November, two

thousand and nineteen.

awake, get up, put the clothes on. Just like

that. Then, go to the bathroom and have

a piss. That is part of what bathrooms

are for. Wash the hands, and the face,

afterwards. Proceed onto brushing the

teeth, remove the taste of sleep from the

mouth.

The kitchen, cold coffee machine. Turn

the small silver device on, take the sieve

out, dump the coffee grounds. Down the

sink with them, off to the rats and the

sewage plant .

Make a cup, hear the son's alarm clocks

sound. Clear the table. The brother is

upstairs, in the new bedrooms, he will

be down later on. Maybe it will be

necessary to fetch him. He has a big

dog with him, the big dog is interested

in the cat, and the cat is suspicious of

the dog.

go to the stairwell. The brother and his

dog are just coming down the stairs

The dog is a long snouted long dog.

She looks up with big imploring eyes.

.

Later on, in the living room, the dog gets

its bone, and, whilst the dog chews,

make a cup of coffee for the brother

Talk business and talk affairs for

an hour, eat bread and cheese,

chew bone (the dog) and say good

morning to the freshly-risen son.

and, at eight inthe morning,

leave the house, the dog on lead.

stop at a park, dog is stuck for

a while. The brother takes a plastic

bag, and cleans the warm mess away,

stop at a municipal litter bin on

the way, and deposit bag and contents

there.

There is the small black car, this is

where the ways part.

Back to the motorway, back to routine

. pedestal below the bat sending its

data onto a computer, for recording and

analysis. A small magnetic impulse

keeps it swinging.

The office is dark and The computer is

displaying.-demanding message. it

needs a number, r number from any

other device. At this point, realise that the

cut

The traffic at eight in the morning in Landshut is bad, there are many who are late for work and looking for places to park their cars, the people are agressive, stop and go and suddenly change lane.
Then, the bridge over the railway lines, the left turn and the silence and desolation of the narrow suburban streets, modern suburban housing developments, kilometre upon kilometre of multi storey new buildings interspersed with smaller houses in older styles. There is even the occasional farmhouse, left over from another era.
Stop in front of the bank in Altdorf, the parking spots here are wide, big enough for a small agricultural vehicle.
The house in which the barber works is a modern building, ostentatious, but with signs of bad architecture everywhere. The steps are too steep, the entrance ways too tight. It is strange how the rigorous economy shows.
The hairdressers salon is large and spacious enough, register my arrival at the till, a woman with a sharp voice directs me to a clothes hanger for the clothes and then to a seat.
Wait.
Watch the young hairdresser cut a mans hair who was there earlier. They both are talking about cars, and the various times one should change into the individual gears for an optimal driving experience. It is all in a strong bavarian dialect, hard to follow the high tech conversation.
Sit and wait.
Look at a magazine.
It is nothing but celebrities grinning at the camera, doing photo shoots, celebrating their own fame.
They are not good pictures, they are probably cheap.
Put the magazine away.
The hairdresser changes from her Bavarian to a high german accent. Sit down, as invited, have a cape put on to protect the clothing, and then go over to a wash basin.
She washes the head, cleans the grey hair she is about to cut.
She speaks of the last place she worked for.
She was not happy there.
All the while, cutting hair, shortening, trimming, improving.




At the end, a mirror, see that she has done the back in a close to military style.
Oh well, nothing to be undone now.

Leave a tip.
Leave the place.
It is cold and foggy outside today.

And the back of the head feels the cold more.


Look forward, the brother will be arriving this afternoon.

fail

The date on the computer says today at eight, the memory says today at eight thirty and the watch says seven twenty.

A typical mistake, and now things are later than they should be, later than planned, it is time to go, hurry, for the people at the technical inspection place will not wait.

Hurry out, ask the son to get the small trailer ready, go downstairs, opem the entrance doors to the house wide, grab the trailer and wheel it out into the alley. Put it down, and start to hurry off to get the car. Then-

realise that that car needs a different key to unlock and start it. Hurry back upstairs again, take the correct key from the knob that it hangs upon and rush downstairs again. 

Go down the alley, mind the schoolchildren on their bicycles ! and around the corner to the car. It is the bigger silvery car, the one that has the trailer hitch. Back it out of it's residents only parking spot and drive to the end of the street, do a U-turn in front of the Jesuit church and return to the alley. Install the trailer hitch and- Say goodbye to the son on his way to school- then take the car to the end of the alley, take a left into the New Town street and on to the traffic lights.

Hurry all the way through the town, cursing the traffic lights on the way, annoyance at the other drivers, cross the bridges, turn right after the last one and then it is only a short way.

Arrive ten minutes early.

Wait for the safety engineers office to open.

Pay the fee.

Drive the car into the shop, the one with all the instruments for checking things on motor vehicles.

Press the stop light when demanded.

It does not work.

There is a fuse blown in the car.

The stop lights on the car do not work either.

Test failed.

Come back inside two weeks,

after the item has been repaired.

So return home.

The wife has just got up.

Tell her.

Then off to work.

lies

Morpheus, son of Hypnos, is that the god of sleep; sent his dreams in a curious package assuming an old brother speaking to his siblings and their images as children. A confusion, strange to awaken to in a no longer early Sunday morning.
The wife asleep, the cat awake, the cat needing to go out, let it out of the bedroom.
Hear the cat flap flap as the cat leaves for the balcony and her tray.
Select fresh clothes from the wardrobe, then go out to the kitchen and start the coffee machine.
Stand around, wait for it to warm.
The son comes in from his bedroom, and he gives his father a hug. The son is fifteen years old, it will not take long and he will no longer hug his father, things change fast at that age.


The coffee is dark brown and creamy-topped, a good thing to start the day with. Read the news, and be surprised at the people's ability to believe lies. For if there are two contradicting views of the same event, one speaker must know that his words are not truthful, and are thus no viable alternative.

toll

Went to bed late, then up early, rushed around town, said not many words and collapsed at midday.

Into bed, never cared, took the clothes off whilst asleep, fumbled the night clothes on out of habit and slept on until four, heard voices in the room next door.

Now it is six, the day is done, a full day of collapse, this is the first day of the rest of the weekend.

There had been plans to do things, but self-indulgence and sleep have their own importance and take their own toll.

Six, a day spent asleep, this should not happen to often.

The town outside is utterly silent.

And but for the ticks and clacks from the clocks, so is the flat.

No idea of what is going on.

And still tired.

frustration

Try again, try the adapter on the computer, the one that will conver USB in old RS 232 signals, and accept the answers to return to the USB host. The machine gongs, wait for the timeout, nothing happens. Then there is a message saying something has not worked. The driver has a small yellow triangle next to it. Ths probabley means something bad.

Read about peoöle's experiences with this adapter. ther is an issue, a problem. Older adapters are built dirrerently, and will not work with the new operating system. This is interesting.

So upstairs, and beg the electronics engineer for a new adapter from their store. He is a friendly man. All is well.

Back at the system, nothing works, no changes, the adapter is not recognised. So with some inept fiddling about, install a driver from a tiny cd that was with the new adapter. Now the yellow triangle is gone, but the machine still does not work. The measuring machine from thel last years of the previous century. Change the baud rate in the driver, matich it with the machine. Nothing.

Repeat. Nothing. Repeat Nothing. Repeat, and all of a sudden the machinene works as if nothing had happened.

That was a whole mornings work today.

mega and tera

Thursday, 14th of November, 2019

Leave the car

space. mderthetaeeonthepafbkparfy

Walk for the damp and frosted gras, take

a short cut to the path leading to the entrance of

the building. Put the black chip underneath the

beige box on The wall, let it sound a heap,

see that there are forty four hours that may be

taken free.

Go to the mens around the corner beside

the left, and when finished there, go back

and leave the building again Return to the

path, and go on to the small open shed

where the waste electronics are kept There

is an old server there, a computer That is

no longer required. But the son waited it,

after all, it is a huge machine with four

processors and eight cares, many terabyte

of memory angel gigabytes of other Thing.

numbers-Take

A store of meaningful

it out of the bar in which it has been placed

and carry it back to the tiny ear, open

the near flap and put the big cold machine

in behind The seats. It has been saved

from the official recycled, it will be a

nice toy for the son, he can make his

films for school with those machines.

And then, return to the foyer, climb the

stairs around the pendulum.

.

a world without IT

In the basement of the building built in the fifties sit at the screen of a computer checking for the last entries. It is a machine that will be shut down shortly, reconfigured. Just make sure that there has been no data stored there which will be needed at some other time,
There is a knock on tjhe door, the young trainee technician comes in, he goes over to the other computer, the one that has recieved a new system, and starts to make adjustments. He speaks a barely comprehensible dialect, but it does not matter. The computers understand him, and he gets along with them.
Systems start, all of the users are installed, it all goes quite quickly.
Install the system, need a password.
The password is forgotten.
No matter, get a new one.
The system is downloaded, the parameters installed from the net.
The system is the same again, just the computers operating system is changed
Watch the young mans fingers fly over the keys, he is speaking to the computer, it is an extension of himself, he is faster than needs to be.

It is a reminder, that though those who experienced the origins of computers as adults may know about certain things, may have had certain skills, it is never like those who never knew a world without IT

cardiac

Tuesday, 12th of November 2019

>

Late again today, late because of late starting,

and then even later because of the traffic.

Is it true that the traffic will move faster if every

one drives steadily and slowly? People do

not drive steadily and slowly, they drive like

egomaniacs. Fish in a shoal do not

compete with each other, neither do a flock of

birds do this. Think of it, a flock of competing

starlings, it just would not work.

Arrive late, the usual parking spot under the

'tree' is taken. Find another, next to a fence.

Hope that nobody else will park their car so

as to make movement and leaving difficult this

evening. But who cares, that will be a problem

for this evening.

go into the building, clock in, climb the

stairs around the pendulum.

There is now a sense of exhaustion, an

inability to concentrate, a sense of tiredms

There are no fixed jobs to be done today, just

diverse maintenance. There is nothing but an

all pervading sense of tiredness. Sit down

before the screen., first read the letters, then the

whole lot goes fuzzy, blurrs and darkens.

Shake, wake, try to concentrate. It seems to

be a day of slowing, even a slight fear of

cessation, of death that no-one has said

is in any way imminent. But the fear

is there, after the pains in the chest, the same

this morning as those proven unfounded

months ago. The pain today will have the

same diffuse cause as those others, it is

not a sign of oncoming cardiac arrest.

To prove this, another cup of coffee would

be in order.

Check up on the printing machines in the

basement, make a few adjustments. Return

to the computer in the office, start a tutorial

to explain modern technology to this old

guy. On the way up from the basement say

hello to the Polish colleague in her room in

the basement. She is looking at things on her

computer, she is good natured, she talks

about the colleague who fell ill at a young

age. He had a heart attack, he is enjoying

his recovery in a clinic by a lake.

.

Doing the tutorials, realise that the new

technology in the 3d programme will

work well together with another program

enabling a new depiction of various

models.

Think about this, a short while.

It is eleven O'cklock, Time for a break,Time

to go to the cafe with the man with the

breaking voice.

get

bare next week

Monday, 11th of November 2019

It is late today, on the way to work. More

traffic, sudden blockages

. Realise that the car in the left lane up ahead is just standing

there no lights

on.

Swerve.

Avoid.

And, drive on carefully.

The small black car is not fast, but even

impacts at low speeds are sore.

Move on through the traffic, shunt on through

past the traffic lights. And-at last the tree

on the pebble parking place, the short walk

between the buildings, the clock-in clock

and the stair around the round stairwell

with the swaying pendulum in the centre.

It is cold in the office, the heating was down

over the weekend.

The computer, switched off

and inanimate. Turn the knobs, press the

button, a gonging sound, and the machine

works again.

See the news, see all the

old pictures on the screen.

later on, as the cleaning man arrives,

leave. Ask the man to lock the door when he

is finished, it is eleven in the morning,

most of Fridays pictures have been

processed, it is time for a break.

The cleaning man was the first person

with whom a word was spoken today.

The man in the cafe at the Institute for

advanced studies is just opening his shop,

his machine is barely warm. He has a

habit of letting his

voice glide off into a

falsetto, high pitched, slightly grating.

But he makes good coffee, and his panini

are great.

The Trees on the one side are bare

today, and along the avenue past the

Department of Engineering the poplars

took like yellow flames along the side of

the footpath.

They will all be bare of leaves next week

! 

lithp

the dizzy laziness left over after a weeks weak work will not let go despite all of the intentions to get things done on a Sunday, there is just a tough heap of horrible chores that need doing the projects just have to rest.
The important things will remain undone, and all those silly things, cleaning and ironing and what have you get done.Even the time to write these notes has to be stolen from other things that should be done, wiping floors and doors , stupid chores.

The days of servants are gone, you have to be your own servant.
Self service.
Modern.
There is a fallacy in that  thought thomewear.

who cares?

awake in the night there is a crash. The cat tried to jump on top of the secretary and knocked things down onto the writing surface.
Things like the laptop.
There was a crash in the night that awakened
The wife cursed over the disturbance.


Be happy that the laptop was closed, no more than a few dents in the upper surface. These did not affect the function at all, it just does not look as good as it used to.
It is not the cat's fault, it did not do it in order to harm.
It is annoying, just the same.

Clear the things up a bit and go back to bed.

Who cares?

fuse

after the long drift drafting down the motorway, trying for a smooth journey without any competition or disturbance
just words
the car is too small to compete, a good thing or a nuisance depending on your viewpoint
no stop, other than at two traffic lights
stop in the pebble parking spot
same spot beside the tree
parking backwards made sense yesterday
do it again today
check in, beep
go to the loo
go up the stairs


All is dark, the lights are off, press the hallway switch, they will not go on.
A small fat electrician rushes down the hall consulting his watch, shouting loudly to some invisible other electrician. The man leaves the hallway for a stairwell, then he is gone only his voice remains. Then another one rushes along the corridor elsewhere, all agitated.

There are electricians everywhere, but there is no light.
Open the door to the office.
Dark.

Hear a frantic electrician rush by outside.
Over the last seventy years, the wiring diagrams for the house have not been revised.
The electricians have no plan, and the blown fuses are everywhere in countless fuse boxes scattered throughout the building.
And they all blow, not just one or two.

short

a day of nothing, nothing of great interest, and like always, no novelty.
the drift on the motorway slow movement, the arrival in the pebbled parking spot, park backwards for the first time today, thus enabling easy leaving in the evening.
no capitals, nothing to remark on the pendulum doing it's back and forth thing, just make it to the lavatory in work on time.

there is a change of clothing in the cupboard, that is good for emergencys, it will calm the thoughts of disaster down.

small letters
small very small indeed.
so that is that and hard to read

drift

The quiet sound of the hiss in the back of the head sounds silently now not to be heard over the noise of the engine and the fan of the heater inside the small black car.
The knob on the rod that also controls the windshield wipers is pressed down, the car rolls at a rock steady speed along the black tarred headlamp lit road, other cars way ahead.
It is like silence, but there is noise. Twin red lights on the back of the vehicle in front seem to slowly move apart, it is just the vehicle coming slowly closer.
Twist the knob down
Slow
But not slow enough, so another twist.
Then the brake.
A red light at some road repairs, a small traffic stoppage, it would not be necessary at this early hour, not really, but they left it on. Slow, slower, green, fast faster and then cruise again.
Cruise control.

fallen golden leaves

The coffee made fresh from a monstrous machine in the service area of the café in the ground floor of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the university campus of the Munich Technical University is fantastic. The barristo person with the self confident act knows how to make his coffee, pouring the milk with care to produce patterns on the surface of the drinks for those that take milk in their coffee. He puts on a high squeaky voice, perhaps he wants to make people laugh.
Nobody seems to be laughing at this.

The large cup of black, non milk, coffee in hand find the way to one of the high round  tables with high stools before them. Put down the full cup with care, but still a small amount of coffee swills over the rim into the saucer. Look out at the trees, the near ones are bare branches now, a few of the ones farther back still have a thin scattering of golden leaves on their lower branches. Look around , the walls of the café are glass, there is a view over all of the modern buildings of the campus, there where sunflowers used to grow twenty years ago.
This space is all grey stone, concrete, asphalt and glass now. It is so civilized, still think back over the fields with the thousands of yellow sunflowers that the farmers used to grow there. They grew them for their oil, probably.

The coffee man from the café approaches, a plate with the now-hot panini that had been ordered with the coffee in his hands. He puts it down on the round table beside the sloppy saucer and says "Los Paninos".
So say gracias in reply, even while thinking that it should be grazie for a panino. Obrigado would be nice, what is the Portuguese equivalent of a panino?


Read the account of Daedalus in the round tower, with Mulligan, the Englishman and the milk delivery. All the hundreds of references hidden in the text, the description of slights, the purchase of milk and the necessary ventilation after the preparation of breakfast.
Read for fifteen minutes, doubling back, rereading, trying to make a picture of what was being described.

Look up, there is a quiet spoken young woman with long red hear, a gentle pale face and a grey duffel jacket at one of the tables with her back to the window. It fits the reading material, and John Hinde would have loved it had there been a pile of turf in the background. Gaelic would suit her, but she is so quiet no sound of her voice comes across to the table.

Finish the coffee, stack the paninio plate and the coffee saucer, put the serviette into the empty cup and take the whole lot back to the used crockery stand. Walk out through the cafe, go down the stairwell and leave by the little side door there. Think of the mornings difficulties with the computer, and then there is the woman from the information techology department. Say the greetings, talk about the systems, and continue the walk through the grounds of the university.
There is the noise of a petrol engine driven portable blower in the background, a gardener is blowing the fallen golden leaves into a heap for disposal.

forget

put more coffe into the coffemaker, force it into the little sieve, press it down hard today. Today there is a need for more cafein, sleep was bad, and only slept well in the hour before five, thenit was time to get up.

The coffee is good, and strong. Then, go in to wake the son up. Yesterday, he had asked to be woken at six, and it is five to six now. He grunts, agrees, and sleeps on. Remove his bedclothes, and ask him if it is cold now. He agrees, tell him that the bedclothes are over a chair on the other side of the room. He may collect them, and wake up on the way.

Back in the kitchen, butter a slice of bread. The son comes out of his room, says thank you for the waking, gives a hug for the morning, says see you later.

He will probably go back to bed.

With all the too and fro, and the small change in the routine, forget to take the pills.

Later on, at work, the head starts to buzz, the blood rushes in the ears.

It will have all calmed down by tomorrow, but the day is a disaster.

Black Wash

Wake early, stressed and uncomfortable, feel guilty becasuse of things that need to be done, feel annoyance at things that were not done.

And after having gone to the bathroom, and petted the cat, go to the kitchen. The cat's plate is filthy, there are the dried remains of tinned cat food stuck to it. Take it, and go to the sink, fill it with water to let the dried revolting stuff soak. The cat is fawning around, probably looking hopeful under her fur.
Go to the cupboard in the hallway, and find a chipped side plate there, one that will do for the cat, but should really have been thrown out some time ago. Back in the kitchen, open the refrigerator and take out the tin of cat food. The cat, hearing the sound of the tin, and the fork therein clattering, commences to make sounds of excitement. Empty the half-full tin onto the plate, scrape the sticky remains out with a fork. The sound of the fork on the tin drives the cat's excitement. Put the plate down, then there is silence but for the cat slobbering over it's breakfast.

Make a cup of coffee using the small expresso machine. The sound of the coffee grinder wakes up the son, he comes out and hugs his father, a hug only ever exchanged in private, he never allows his friends to see that he has a close relationship with his father. His friends are probably cool that way too, they all want to show off their independence or something.

Finish the coffee, and then take the plastic box full of dirty clothes from it's place beside the bed and carry it into the bathroom to the washing machine. The drum is still full of yesterday's washing, the wife has forgotten to take it out. Go to the corridor, take up the basket of damp washing that has been there since yesterday and add the washing from the machine to it. Then seperate the black dirty clothing from the pale  and coloured things untill the plastic box is empty, two heaps of clothing on the floor. Put the pale things back into the  box, and fill the machine with the black things. Charge the machine with washing powder and press the buttons.
The black wash commences.
Take the basket full of damp clothing upstairs to the attic, the clothes lines there are all full of dried clothing. Fill a basket with dry clothing, then hang the damp clothing over the lines.
And when this is done, take down the remainder of the dried clothing and fill the second basket. It is cold in the attic, take the two baskets down, leave them in the bedroom at the foot of the bed, the one that the wife is still sleeping in.
Breakfast has already been prepared by the son, make yet another cup of coffee and sit down at the table with him and talk. It is a pleasant conversation, only the two, father and son.
Sunday morning, time to catch up.

damp

It is cold now, it is cold at night.  The blanket is too skimpy, it was plenty in summer and, now that winter is here, it is insufficient.
The feet are warm, the socks were left on. It was a learnt from the night before, freezing feet are bad for sleep. The son comes into the bedroom, he brings coffee for the wife. Get up, there is no wish for coffee in bed, and make a coffee.
Extra strong.

Sit at the table wearing a dressing gown and read the news. There is nothing new happening, all of the world's disasters are just proceeding. As they do. America has changed from a well spoken villain
to a bad mannered lout. Britain remains what it ever was, a snobbish spoilt brat. And Ireland cannot cop with a nouveau riche existence,
Germany is realising that people will not be car mad for ever, there are other things in life.

The son wishes to go to the café.
Say later.
Go to the bedroom, put on day clothes.

It is raining outside, the café is full, the air inside is warm and water-laden, damp and stuffy.
Drink a cup of their second rate overpriced coffee.

And then a saturday walk through the damp little town.

3, a mistake

wake, get up, why did the alarm not sound?
It is All Saints Day, but that should not affect the alarm. Go to the bathroom, there is no understanding for all of this. It is dark outside, and cold. Today is the day that the old staircase is to be removed from the house, the house that is due to be demolished.
Go straight into the kitchen, turn on the coffee maker.
Make a cup of coffee, return to the bedroom.
Glance at the watch, but not properly.
Put on some working clothes.
Look at the news on the computer.

Later on, look over the offers for products on the computer.

Take the pills that the doctor had prescribed, one for the heart, one for the kidneys

Then look at the date.
See that it is three in the morning.

Why, it is no wonder.
So tired,
and now a cup of coffee drunk
But it would be better to go back to bed anyhow.
For a few more hours.