Awake

[Saturday, 11/26/2022 10:30 AM] Daniel woke up laughing and immediately searched for a notepad on the floor to jot down his dream. His dreams always graciously demonstrated a wide range of locations and provided an incredible range of emotions: from love-longing to hysterical laughter. Emily, who kindly agreed to be called Mimi, ran up to the bed and placed her muzzle directly on the open pad. — Wait, girl, I won’t be a minute. — He patted her behind the ear, and Mimi obediently lay down next to him. That time it was something about a summer day in Oberammergau where the heat wave that gripped the whole of Europe was powerless against the mountain alpine air of this village. Daniel felt the pleasantly warm wind playing with the strands of his hair that had grown a little longer than usual and tried to focus on the details of the frescoes on the houses, but from Ettalerstrasse there was such a breathtaking view of Kofel that the creation of nature won this battle for his attention with an overwhelming advantage. For some reason, he was not startled when he heard a quiet voice — as if in this dream he knew that he was not alone there. He was not at all surprised either that the voice spoke to him in English — after a whole day of German, it felt simultaneously like a sip of cool Apfelschorle and a very pleasant touch to the back of his head, which was so tired from the constant search for words. However, there was also a real touch — very tangible and very familiar. — Hans will come join me, rejoices Lies. If he comes by way of Oberammergau or by way of Unterammergau, or if at all he comes, that is not sure! — the voice said with a laugh, stumbling just a little on the names of the two villages. — Do you think they know how ambiguous their most famous tongue twister is? — I seriously doubt it. Every old lady in furs and diamonds, every baker, and every child who has not even learned to walk quoted it to me with the most serious look, so… — And do you remember?.. — What? — What it sounds like in Deutsch. — Don’t tell me that you still get… — Daniel smiled and wanted to turn around, but arms embraced him, and a voice said somewhere against the back of his neck: — It’s your fault that your German pronunciation is the sexiest thing that exists on the planet. — I thought it was my hands. — Each of my organs of perception has its favorites. My auditory cells don’t care about your hands. — I’m insulted and offended! — No, you aren’t. — You’re right, I’m not. — Daniel turned his head slightly to the right and recited: — Heut' kommt der Hans zu mir, freut sich die Lies. Ob er aber über Oberammergau, oder aber über Unterammergau, oder aber überhaupt nicht kommt, das ist net g’wiß! — almost instantly it became clear that he made an impression not only on the ear. He raised one of the hands that were hugging him to his lips and kissed the ridge of knuckles, noting to himself that this hand no longer looked like it belonged to a skeleton. An old lady with a Gucci bag passed by huffing, but refrained from commenting. They waved at her in unison and said: — Grüß Gott! — she nodded in response and sped up down the street. All old ladies here were quite vivacious. — I, of course, can stand in the middle of this street for an eternity, courageously covering up your enthusiasm with either me or Hans… — I think his name was Jens. — Whose? — Aren’t you talking about the guy who showed us the way yesterday? — No. I didn’t even remember that he introduced himself. — Oh. — There was enough embarrassment in this short interjection to publish a couple of hefty tomes. — Come on, don’t. I’m glad you started paying attention to people. — You are? — there was no disbelief in what was being said, rather, disbelief in how lucky he was. — Of course. You were talking to him all by yourself while I was trying to figure out where South was. Why would one give people directions like that? He could have just pointed. “Four hundred meters south,” — he mocked Jens. — Probably he did it because he’s a military man, it might be their professional deformation. — He’s too talkative and not uptight enough for a military man. Why did he tell the first people he met that there is a NATO school here? — Perhaps because this is not classified information? And didn’t you disclose the details of investigations to me when you were a detective? Now, that totally was a violation of the rules! — You were fine — I had a crush on you, — Daniel was finally able to talk about his resignation from Chicago PD without this topic becoming a trigger and even joke about it. — Oh, is this officially considered a good excuse now? — Judging by the fact that I’m not in prison, but traveling with you around Europe, it counts exactly like one. — We’re so lucky. Don’t you think that Kofel looks like a Stone Age man wrapped in animal skin lying low and waiting for a saber-toothed tiger to drive him to a trap and inevitable death? — It seems to be a nearly perfect description. You only made a mistake in one tiny detail, it was not a saber-toothed tiger, but a mammoth. At this point, they started laughing uncontrollably, and Daniel woke up. He wrote down everything: the names of the street, mountain, and village, and sketched all he saw around him. The only thing missing was the name of the person he was talking to. Mimi followed on his heels as he was preparing to go out, only leaving him alone in the shower.