People: The Pocket General
Monday, June 05th, 2006 | Author: Axel
20 years old, short hair, jeans and sweatshirt. He is one of the first on the train and puts down his luggage on the seat beside him. He has chosen a seat with a table where he now puts down his laptop and connects earphones and the electric outlet. After powering up you can see a battleship, then he looks at a picture show with more ships, military jets and vehicles. When this becomes too boring he starts a game where he obviously is the driver of a tank shooting permanently at targets in a devastated landscape.
His luggage is a bag in military protective colours, he is a soldier in the federal army. And obviously he loves his profession.
Category: Front Garden | Comments off
It is a sort of peculiar feeling to go to hospital suddenly at the age of 54. The last time was when I was 13 or 14 to have my tonsils removed. I hardly am able to remember that occasion but I have a kind of positive remembrance as I was allowed to eat a lot of ice cream after the surgery. This time my feeling was completely different. I had fixed an appointment for detailed examinations to find out what was wrong with me. As soon as the doors had closed behind me, the apparatus started to work.
Waiting, examination, waiting. And suddenly you find yourself at a bedside, a bed with your name on it. You see 8, 9 or 10 doctors. You hardly have an imagination of their specialisation. And then you have an X-ray here and you are fumbled with there, you are not allowed to eat, they inject or pump liquids into your body.
And in the morning suddenly a lot of people in white lab coats enter your room and look at you and talk about what to do with you. They check you like a car or a computer in need of a repair. And then you are rolled to an examination in your bed, an examination you think is routine and everybody is wishing you “good luck” or “all the best”. And you think to yourself if you better had drawn your last will before. And then they tell you that it is best to remove a piece of your body. And you just want to have it done as soon as possible.And suddenly I feel a lot older.