Fragments, bits and pieces, confessions

[DieterM]

This is the latest post of my work-in progress novel.
If you want to read more, check out my Profile's Contact Info (don't want to infringe the Anti-Spam Forum Policy by sending a link in here)
I update nearly every day

> Sorry, but you'll have to cope with fragments. Small pieces of a life. My life.
It hasn't been a shattered life. That's not the reason. It just hasn't been a linear, clear story either. When you'll have put together all those pieces, a form will take shape. The form of my existence. My life story.
Life is a story. What you'll find here is but some kind of fiction. What you'll find here is but a different sort of real life. Some of the things I'm talking about have happened. Other things not. What difference does it make to you? None at all.
When I was a child I often imagined not to be real. I wasn't able to grip the sense of reality, the truely lived feeling and meaning of it. For a long time I believed that someone, somewhere, was just dreaming about me, dreaming my life. How could I've been sure whether I was wrong or right? Today I know there's some truth in my childhood beliefs. Today it's me. I am dreaming my own life.
Fragments of my life. Real ones, invented ones. What can you expect? In Austria I was born. Today I'm living in France. I've spent four years in Vienna. I've travelled quite a lot. I've been to Berlin and London and Budapest and Prague and Bratislava and Venise. I've seen bits and pieces of Greece, bits and pieces of Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Belgium. I've been to Morocco and Tunisia and Turkey. Oh, I almost forgot about Malta. Let me tell you this: forget about Malta, too. Unless you're very old, or very much in love with someone, this warning being worth what it's worth. Just one last thing: you know, when you're deeply in love with someone, you don't give a damn about where you are. That quite sums it up about Malta.
So it's fragments you'll get. Bits and pieces. 'Life is a mystery', Madonna said. Life is a puzzle, I'd add.
Nowadays they always talk about patchwork families.
I'll talk about my patchwork life. <

[Lumiere]

Some of the things I'm talking about have happened. Other things not. What difference does it make to you? None at all.

Today it's me. I am dreaming my own life.


These were my two favorite bits. I like it. You've got an interesting, unpredictable sort of style that intrigues.

[DieterM]

Why, thank you, your words go straight to my heart! I'll try to post more of my novel to this forum. For those who don't want to wait, no problem: you'll find my website in my Contact Infos.

Here we go then.

>My grandmother married in 1925, in the month of January. 'It's the frostiest winter since war is over', people said. 'You don't have a wedding in January', people said. 'Nobody marries in winter', people said.
My grandfather was a coalminer. His family had come from Bohemia in the 19th century. He lived in the village. He liked his drink. He was a Communist activist.
My grandmother had been hired as a milkmaid at the age of sixteen. She was living at a farm about three kilometres from the village. There was only one church, in the village centre.
January 1925. The village and its surroundings were hidden under a thick coat of snow. The day of the wedding dawned upon the country at last. Thick, greyish white clouds covered the sky. At noon, a blizzard broke out and made the last, vague silhouettes disappear behind a curtain of snowflakes. The last, hardy raven crossed the farmyard, looking for shelter. The wind was howling. The wood in the stove was cracking.
My grandmother had a frugal lunch with the farmer's family. A piece of rancid bread. A cup of substitute coffee because it was a special day. She cleaned up the kitchen. Then she took her best dress out of the drawer. She put on her new shoes. She had saved up quite a sum to buy them. She wrapped a shawl around her skinny shoulders. A scarf over her head. She put on her green winter coat. She didn't have gloves so she dug her hands deep in the pockets of her coat.
My grandfather didn't come to pick her up. He didn't even propose, he wouldn't even have thought he should. My grandmother walked the three kilometres to the village centre. All alone, in her new shoes, which were too thin for winter. She scarcely saw the trail leading from the farm to the road. She hardly saw the road. She made her way intuitively, plowing stoically and heroically through the snowstorm. After a few minutes she didn't feel her fingers anymore. She didn't feel her feet anymore.
There were very few people attending the wedding ceremony.
I remember my grandmother as a dignified and stern little woman. <

[DieterM]

Another snippet of what you can find on my blog where I publish my work-in-progress novel (more information in my profile's Contact Infos)

>I'm 37 years old. 38 in July. Eighteen years were spent in my village in the Alps. The following four years in Vienna. Since then, I've been living in Paris.
I talked to an older friend about my wish to write about me. To tell my life-story. He was incredulous.
'You're only 37!' he said, indignant. 'What do you think you have seen of life?' he said. 'What do you believe you have to tell?' he nearly shouted. 'Nothing! You have to know that! Nothing!'
All right. I didn't want to argue. Nothing, then.
I'm going to assemble nothings. Snippets and crumps of little nothings. I will tell you nothing. Nothings that make up my life.
'You think you've got an answer you need to tell,' my friend continued. 'Tell me then: have you found an answer? Have you? The right answer?'
But what if life's not about finding the right answers? What if life's about finding the right questions?
Anyway, I've got nothing to tell. He said so. I'll just fill these sentences, lines, paragraphs with that, then: nothing.
I don't want to find a meaning, a deeper sense. Sorry, but you'll have to find one for yourselves. If there is any, that is. You'll have to scrape the sentences, you'll have to clean the words, you'll have to undress the paragraphs. This is not so much about me, you know. It's not so much about my giving you meaning, sense, a revelation perhaps.
It's about you.
I'm solely assembling words.
You are the reader. <