Mikosch Fridays for Frida

An old woman, a broken world and a new spark of hope
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7534-6813-6
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 120 Seiten

"Fridays for Frida" is a story about responsibility, joy and change; about the destruction of nature and the power of those who have the courage to see things for what they are. With each day, more people find that courage - first they worry, then they hope and finally they act. Frida is one of them.

Claus Mikosch is a writer and documentary filmmaker, who lives in Germany and Spain. He's the author of the bestselling series 'The Little Buddha'. More info @ www.clausmikosch.com

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mikosch, Claus

Leseproben

2. Looking Away

The next morning, the wind had dropped and it had stopped raining. Here and there, a few rays of sunlight even managed to find small gaps to shine through a blanket of clouds. Frida decided to have breakfast on the balcony. It wasn’t all that big, but there was enough space for a foldaway table and two wooden chairs. One chair would have been enough as she rarely had visitors, but Frida enjoyed the empty chair’s company. Sometimes she’d imagine her husband sitting next to her and looking up at the sky with her. He had passed away a long time ago, but she would have loved to have spent a little time on the balcony with him.

After breakfast she lingered for a little while longer, sipped a second cup of tea and embraced the warm sun on her skin. She thought back to some of the beautiful moments she had experienced with her husband, a nostalgic smile on her face. Their exciting trip to Nepal – how long ago had it been? Twenty years, a little more perhaps. The many winter nights spent in front of the open fire, telling each other stories. Or the time they had planted an apple tree in a wild garden and promised one another everlasting love – it had been so long ago, and yet it felt like yesterday. She missed him.

The church bells rang in the distance. It was ten o’clock. Frida got up, cleared the table and disappeared into the bathroom to get ready. She planned on finally going to visit her former colleague again. They had taught at the same school and had stayed in touch after retiring. But while Frida was still capable of living independently at her old age, her colleague had been less fortunate.

A quarter of an hour later, Frida closed her apartment door behind her and took the elevator down to the ground floor. She was going to have to hurry a little to reach the bus stop in time. Number 19 arrived two minutes late as usual and stopped directly in front of her. Frida got on, bought her ticket and found a free seat behind the driver’s cabin. She now had eight stops to look out of the window, observe the town passing by, and prepare herself for what was to come.

At first she had gone to see her colleague every week, but her visits had lessened over time. Sometimes she even caught herself wishing she no longer had to visit, but this feeling was always followed by a guilty conscience, and she’d always end up making her way back to see her. It was the least she could do, but often it was frustrating because her old friend had already checked out into another world a while ago.

The bus came to a halt with a quiet squeak and Frida got off. After a short walk she reached her destination: the old people’s home. She entered the two-storey building through a glass sliding door, passed the doorman and paused in the entry hall for a moment. A few residents rode around in their wheelchairs, some stood in small groups chatting away, and two tables were taken up by card games. If it hadn’t been for the white-clad nurses and carers, the scene could have been mistaken for a regular senior’s meet-up at a nice bar. Some of the residents were younger than Frida, so she didn’t attract any attention in this unimposing environment. But unfortunately, it would have been fruitless to look for her former colleague here. She took the elevator to the first floor. Another doorman, then a locked door. Frida pressed the buzzer and moments later a nurse opened it for her.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning, Frida,” the young woman returned her greeting in a friendly tone.

“And, how is she doing?”

“Oh, she’s had better days. You know how it is, the seasonal changes are always hard on her.”

They walked along the hallway side by side. Even though she had been here many times before, Frida still couldn’t get used to the oppressive atmosphere on the first floor. Everything seemed gloomy, the sound of strange people echoed through the halls and the inescapable, appalling scent of decay was in the air. The strategically placed air fresheners stood no chance against it. Lifeless figures sat in front of some of the rooms, as if someone had positioned them there to star in their own cabinet of horrors. Breakfast flakes spilled out of the mouth of an emaciated old man, while his fat neighbour engaged in a lively conversation with a cactus. Compared to this place the cemetery seemed heavenly, in every sense of the word.

“Did you hear about the fires in the Amazon?” the nurse asked her.

“Yes,” Frida replied. “There’s just no end to the bad news.”

“No, unfortunately not.”

“Sometimes it really scares me to see what’s happening to the world.”

“I get that. It scares me too.”

They silently glanced at each other for a moment, then said their goodbyes. Frida knocked on the open door of room 27. She entered without waiting for an answer. No one was going to answer anyway.

Frida’s old friend had been living in the senior centre’s nursing ward for several years. She suffered from severe Parkinson’s, and could neither walk nor sit. Frida couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her anywhere other than in that bed. She smiled at her, and was met with a confused look.

Her former colleague mumbled a few incomprehensive words, then fixed her eyes on the ceiling. Frida sat on a chair next to her bed and started sharing the latest news from her life – knowing full well that her old friend wasn’t going to register much more than the cactus had of the fat woman’s monologue. She told her about the last warm summer evenings, the storm and a nice movie she had recently seen.

While she spoke in a gentle tone, there was a knock at the door and a doctor entered. He greeted them both and went about listening to his patient’s heart and lungs. Frida wasn’t familiar with this doctor. She had heard he was from Spain. Most of the centre’s staff came from different countries. The nurse she had spoken to on arriving was from Ethiopia; other nurses and carers were from Hungary, Greece and Syria. And the lovely cook who had been working there from the beginning was from India. Frida couldn’t understand why so many people would want to see all borders closed, and all foreigners chased out of the country. It was wonderful to have people from different parts of the world gathered here. She couldn’t care less about what someone looked like or where they came from. What mattered were their actions. The staff at the old people’s home were all taking care of her bedridden colleague – why should people like this be kicked out of the country?

The doctor reached for the patient report at the foot of the bed and skimmed it. Frida let her eyes wander around the room and finally rested them on the TV. The sound was muted but the images loudly flickered across the screen. They were the same as on every other channel: refugee boats, floods and wild fires.

“Terrible, isn’t it?” she said to the doctor, pointing at the screen.

The doctor turned for a split second, shook his head and went back to the patient report.

“I try to avoid the news,” he said in an indifferent tone. “I see enough sorrow at work every day, I don’t need more to depress me.”

Frida glanced at the patient, who still lay staring at the ceiling, motionless.

“Yes, I understand,” she said, “but surely you still follow what’s going on in the world. Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Why should I be afraid of something I can’t change anyway?”

“Do you really think there’s nothing you can do?”

After all, he was a doctor, she thought, not just an old lady.

He shook his head once more and put the clipboard with the report back into its place. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Frida.

“The only people who can change anything are the ones at the top: the politicians, the wealthy, maybe even God. But me? No, I can’t save the world. And that’s why it’s better to just ignore all the drama. Or are you determined to be unhappy?”

He winked at her and got up.

“She’s doing well considering the circumstances. No need for you to worry,” he said, leaving the room and Frida behind with the muted television and her half-dead former colleague.

She pondered on the doctor’s words for quite a while longer. Perhaps he was right, perhaps only the powerful were capable of creating real change. And if that really were the case, the doctor was doing the only sensible thing by looking the other way and trying to be happy.

But Frida was not ready to accept that nothing could be done. Because there was always something to be done, even if it were something small. She wasn’t sure where to start, what her first steps might be. And even if she did something – could an old, retired woman really make a meaningful contribution towards the betterment of the world? There was only one thing she knew for certain: as attractive as it often was to look the other way, it had never made anything better.

Thoughtfully, she looked over to her old colleague, then out of the window and up at the sky, catching the hectic movements on the television screen in the corner of her eye. She agreed with the doctor on one point: constantly being bombarded with these countless catastrophes wasn’t going to help anyone. If anything, it only led to depression and when...