A City Of Summers Gone By.

Summer is over.

The winter winds roll off the the Bavarian Alps and circulate around Munich, a city of mixed emotions.

Oktoberfest is over; the first rolling rains of Autumn both sprinkled and splashed, washing a thin layer of vomit from the footpaths and train stations mercifully down the drain. Though not everywhere. The main stations of every major city suffer the same diseases. Congregations of true believers and mourners gather daily to mill about searching for money, love, drugs, fights and forgiveness.

They mourn their lives, their losses, their dreams and their lives. Their schizophrenic belief that it will all change, or it won't, holds steadfast in the forefront of their minds, and of course at the bottom of a bottle of brown. Nope, not this bottle... Maybe the next. Maybe the next.

The overground activities can be smelled underground. Thick. Acrid. Stale but fresh. The trains push through the tunnels like blood in veins, or like shit in the the gut. Either image works just as well. The ones soon to arrive blow my hair off my face and fill my nostrils with clean air, saving me from the wafting, effervescent scents of the transient gatherings and the parts of themselves they leave behind.

The hotels are painted in flashing blue of the involuntary taxis, off to catch another fare. Another lost soul, or another soul lost.

Cigarette butts gather near thresholds, just like their unloving parents who use the poor white stick for such selfishness. They suck out their guts then toss the heads on the floor, where the heads roll and gather like the seemingly soulless souls surrounding them.

By morning though they are gone. The mourning is over as the moonlight is lost. We wash our streets like we wash our tired faces. The city has its own make-up, which is applied daily before the fresh onslaught of modern life waits to trample the invincible pavement and tar, tiles and steps, tracks and trains and floors, walls and windows. A boxer who takes the mother of all beatings but will never go down.

Soon, the snow will come. A healthy looking thick, white blanket in which to hide the grime and muck beneath until the salters and melts come to reveal the true face, only to be washed again, and again, and again. Reapply the make-up, and the city's true face is never seen by those who love it most, like the parents of a troubled son.

Good riddance to the summer gone, and to hell with the winter to come. But the summer to come... that's the one which carries our dreams. Our salvation in the warmth of the light. Salvation at last.

Danedebeau