A interview
The window to the yard
Sounds of chirping birdsong in the morning sounded through the half-open window. Sounds that could only be heard to this extent in spring and summer. Not infrequently the single flapping of the wings could be perceived by the masses of flocks of birds and a surrealism of the rhythmic or nonrhythmic course of the path could be sensed. The early rays of the sun cast a small bright shadow against the wall of the slightly descending plaster. A wall that had personality. The only one! The one that told a story. Tales of different epochs and different actions. Did they lock him in this hole. A fortress with this strict social control. The social violence of a routine.
„Breakfast for you,“; it sounded with a hard and indifferent voice, comparable to a purpose-oriented dog who was given something to eat. Heideberg sat down on the floor, with his back to the slightly collapsing wall.
‚Leprosy‘; went through his head! Crumbling of the inner and outer facade of the long creeping, unstable, collapsing organism, the restoration of which would cost a lot of money. The meal consisted of lukewarm coffee and it was black. ‚An unusual luxury! The new one must have worked in a café before.‘; Heideberg thought. Two slices of bread and sausage were served. He began to think medieval with the years, so he used ancient words and books helped him.
While he was preparing the bread, he looked out of the tilted window, which was provided with a lattice. A window that was too high up to look at. To enjoy the view from the sky, he had to stand on a chair. Thoughts of a bird kept in a cage, who sought to preserve his will to live through acrobatics, went through his mind.
The view to the blue boundless sky was restricted. Depending on the weather, it was possible to perceive individual color nuances, which piled up to enormous stormy precipitation and pelted down.
The steel girders between the window held the hole. This morning was quiet, the sun tried to throw through the opening to shine. The window lured, freedom cried. After years of acceptance in captivity, his wings were trimmed and the imagination was strengthened to another place. The term time was perceived in other dimensions, even other essential characteristics, became a product of antagonism. Earlier nullities became importance and then importance became nullity. It remained the name, a number with a related document history. The name which was given to him from birth on and later on hung on the bell shield and now showed his identity with the number 263. A number that referred to his file that he couldn’t store properly in the system. A deletion of previous transactions became his undoing. His records of strangers, neighbors, friends and data sources became a burden to him. The Civil Code requires thirty years of documentation of information.
Bleak and cold was the wall in the crammed cube, the numbers of which could only be guessed by people, the rooms living in them. Russian roulette and dying was often the result. Dying in the name of deprivation of liberty. Social control and its limitation of development.
His memories have remained.
Memories of love affairs of women, bewitchment on both sides at the time. Not infrequently, he invited her.
He enjoyed watching these creatures through the window. Frequently head cinema-like role plays came into his head and gave him an erection.
Women and life were open to him and he rarely questioned it. The window was a symbol of observation for him and invited him to exist.Today not only coffee was the icing on the cake of the day, there was also the visit of a volunteer student who agreed to come every week.
A change from the daily routine. It was a program by a visiting professor. The following academics should get a different point of view about the background of the inmates and their daily routine. Prejudices should therefore be dismantled!
„How long have you been in prison?“
„See those drawings on the wall? They’re for a year.“
She looked stunned, not knowing if she was irritated by the number of pictures or the artwork. „Why are they always the same drawings?“
„Every year I make an improvement to make the drawing more detailed and beautiful, but somehow I don’t want to succeed.“
She looked more closely at the pictures and remained silent. „What’s going on in her head?“; Heideberg asked himself as he looked at her.
„Does this drawing have a special meaning? It’s surreal,“; the student replied.
„Abstract’s more like it, isn’t it?“; discomfort was written all over her face.
„It’s supposed to be a view of the courtyard.“
„Do you have a view of the courtyard?“
„If by this they mean the one eighty high window, then it’s probably not. That’s why it’s abstract, surreal, whatever.“
„What does this view of the farm mean to you?“
„It means first and foremost having an outlook in several stories. Not just one. Look, if you look out the window, you never look into space. You always see something. Be it even a wall. A view to the farm can mean much more. It is the art of imagination and actual existence. The observer can form an imagination by what he sees. He can give them back too. Nevertheless, important factors such as emotionality and personal experience play an important role.“
Amazed at what he just said: „Yes, I know what you mean,“; said the student.
„Yes, you’re not stupid! I myself have also studied and read, even though the genre has changed in recent years.“
He took a break to see if she reacted to it and before she came to inquire about the degree course he studied, he talked further. He didn’t want to talk about his academic past.
„The view of the courtyard symbolizes life in a staked out degree. Just in jail! The imagination goes through you much more than reality does.“
„What are these fantasies?“
„Life in prison is one-sided. Of course, through fantasies one begins to think in other places and to build up another reality. It’s a little like putting together your own television program. From children’s shows to porn shows an interesting mix. Sometimes I would like to be an ultimate superhero who satisfies a hot woman with the strength of a man and goes through numerous Kamasutra positions with her until she screams through ectase. You’re alone here, there’s nothing to blame.“
„Did you have any idea of a view of the courtyard before your time in prison? I mean, it seems very important to you.“
„I had no imagination, I had real stories in front of my window. After work, I would often stand there and just look out the window. I lived in a penthouse and always had a good view. If, for example, there was a small party in an apartment where there were many women, I liked to look at it. Sometimes one woman was more beautiful than the other, why do you need a TV, you have your own little live show right in front of the window. That must sound like a tightener to you, but I can say that I didn’t look out the window all the time. I had a life. I was free and the boundlessness was certain. The images were imprinted on my brain, my lust rises into me and when I close my eyes I can still see everything in front of me.“
„They’re different pictures! Of course you have favorites. These are mostly pictures of women. Women who were beautiful. A woman who looked at herself in her red-black negligee in front of her mirror, sometimes she was also naked. She had a dream figure, but she wasn’t happy with it. She stood in front of the mirror and searched for missing fat pads. Some days I would have liked to have gone over to her and whispered quietly in her ear: ‚You, you are beautiful, you have a dream figure! Let’s go something and make love.‘ I don’t think she would have liked that. But she probably would have been a little flattered. Another image burned itself, from a love couple, into the brain, both very aesthetically. Sometimes you could watch them having sex, both tried different Kamasutra positions, which were really enriching for their own love life. On some days there were fierce disputes in which objects sometimes flew through the air. I really thought that they were killing each other and I was often standing there with the telephone and about to call the police. But every time they made up just before the death blow. They seemed to have a love-hate relationship.“
„You seem to have seen and observed a lot. What did you find so fascinating about it?“
„It wasn’t much, even if it sounds like it. I’ve lived in this apartment for five years, you can see a lot about it. I found it fascinating or interesting that each window told a different story or action. You can compare this with another TV channel or it with a different cell in jail. Everyone has a different narrative, be it in the form, the expression, the past. It is an individuality that can be observed and the view of a world that emerges from a naturalness or the personal fiction that a slim woman finds herself fat, for example. All this reflects the world, which is staged by the media or through which comes about together. It shows risk and hope, similar to a Filipino mythology. Do you know these?“;
He didn’t wait for her to answer. „The Aswang phenomenon is a complexity of many different fields. It begins with the human being’s own psyche, which further leads to interactions with each other; this means that historical factors play an essential role, which can be attributed to cultural interference and personal oppression. Despite the many setbacks that a person makes or has experienced, this can be understood as a concept of globalization, since the person is no longer alone with his or her own culture, there is an exchange, a transparency. Which also triggers dangers, for example, finding one’s own balance is made more difficult. The more impressions, so it is harder to solve the problem. The proverb „many ruin the porridge“; is not in the vernacular for nothing. Nevertheless, faith also distinguishes man. There’s hope associated with that.
Hope for peace of mind. The hope of freedom. The hope for beauty. The hope of a husband and so on and so forth.“
„This is an exciting presentation, thank you very much,“; said the student.
There was a knock, „Time’s up!“; whispered the guard.The day was coming to an end, the daylight was ten minutes to feel. A good day! Darkness spread. He saw the stars in isolated cases, for a complete star image he lacked the vastness of the view.
‚Tomorrow it will be time again to devote yourself to drawing. Two small strokes that make the detail stand out even more,‘; he thought. Heideberg had paid a lot of attention to structure and details in his former life and he still felt an urge for it. Small cattle sucks, too. As a former top manager, he knew what he was talking about. He was at the mercy of capitalism and his thoughts still revolved around economy, and profit. Only that he began to think about the real risks over time. Now he looked at the courtyard with an intensified double-edged view.
The night dawned, he stood on the chair waiting for a bag of pills to be fished down by inmate number 157. The prison was, in his opinion, just a small system of the big picture. With many stories, interactions and yes it was a life that reflected a reality.
This is a document from me, on a theme „Window to the courtyard“ based on a film from the 80s and was once sent in for a writing competition.