"When the child was a child, it walked with its arms swinging." "It wanted the stream to be a river, the river a torrent, and this puddle to be the sea." "When the child was a child, it didn't know it was a child." "Everything was full of life, and all life was one." "When the child was a child, it had no opinion about anything, no habits." "It often sat cross-legged, took off running, had a cowlick in its hair, and didn't make faces when photographed." "Look." "The delight of lifting one's head out here in the open, of seeing the colors in all men's eyes, enlightened by the sun." "At last mad, no longer alone." "At last mad, at last redeemed." "At last mad, at last at peace." "At last a fool." "At last an inner light." "We're there already." "It's 9:00 a.m." "...ran up to him and hugged him." "There's a little house with two floors and a terrace, and we go swimming every day." "The man who lives there is called Peter." "That's a nice picture." "Nothing good on TV." "You stumble over your colors, and you're never punctual." "How will I get a refrigerator and washing machine in here?" "I'll have to think of something." "Still smells the same, only dustier." "She collected everything." "Trading stamps, postcards." "Even tickets." "She never threw anything away." "She just couldn't." "Mother - she never was my mother." "My father - my father was my father." "She's dead." "No tears, no grief." "Maybe later." "God, I feel old!" "My sister's coming." "I have to get out of here." "You can't catch me!" "She doesn't love you." "Never did." "And you're faking it too." "Be glad they forgot about you." "You're finally free." ""I want to die and live forever," she said." "QUIET!" "My God, what will become of that boy?" "Music's all he's got in his head." "No, I can't take this anymore." "What more does he want?" "I already bought him a guitar." "Now he wants drums too?" "That would cost a fortune." "I'm getting fed up." "Is he ever gonna come to his senses?" "I've had it." "This can't go on." "This really has to stop." "I can't go along with this anymore." "No wonder." "He only learned rock 'n' roll." "Maybe he'll get a grip on himself one day." "One can only hope." "When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions:" "Why am I me and why not you?" "Why am I here and why not there?" "When did time begin, and where does space end?" "Isn't life under the sun just a dream?" "Isn't what I see and hear and smell just an illusion of a world in front of the world?" "Does evil actually exist, and people who are really evil?" "How can it be that this "me" that I am wasn't "me" before I existed, and that someday this "me" that I am will no longer be "me"?" "The child needs oxygen." "I have to breathe deeply." " If I could only suffer in her place." " It hurts." " It'll be over soon." " It's almost over." "Little thing, I can't wait to see you." "I wonder what you look like." "It's almost over." "You bastard!" "Women will be the end of you." "Blackie, I think I'm lost." "We wanted to go to the cemetery, like we used to." "Well?" "Sunrise, 7:22 a.m. Sunset, 4:28 p.m." "Moonrise, 7:04 p.m. Moonset..." "Water level of the Havel and the Spree..." "Twenty years ago today, a Soviet jet fighter crashed into the lake in Spandau." "Fifty years ago " " The Olympic Games!" "A Frenchman flew over the city in a hot-air balloon 200 years ago." "Like those refugees recently..." "And today... on the Lilienthaler Chaussee, a man slowed down and looked over his shoulder into space." "And a man who wanted to end it all today put a different collector's stamp on each farewell letter." "Then he spoke English with an American soldier for the first time since his schooldays - and quite fluently." "Just before dashing his head against the wall, a prisoner said, "Now!"" "And a subway conductor, instead of calling out the station's name, suddenly shouted "Tierra del Fuego."" "Nice." "And an old man read to a child from The Odyssey, and the young listener stopped blinking completely." "And what do you have to report?" "A woman in the rain who folded up her umbrella and let herself get drenched." "A schoolboy describing to his teacher how a fern grew out of the earth, and the astonished teacher." "A blind woman who sensed my presence and groped at her watch." "It's wonderful to live as spirit and testify for all eternity to only what is spiritual in people's minds." "But sometimes I get fed up with this spiritual existence." "I don't want to always hover above." "I'd rather feel a weight within casting off this boundless freedom and tying me to the earth." "At every step, every gust of wind," "I'd like to be able to say, "Now..."" "and "now" and "now."" "No longer "forever" and "for eternity."" "To take the empty seat at a card game and be greeted by the others, even if just with a nod." "Every time we've gotten involved, it's been a pretense." "Throwing a hip out wrestling with one of them - pretense." "Catching a fish - pretense." "Sitting at tables, drinking and eating - pretense." "Having lambs roasted and wine served by the tents in the desert - all pretense." "I don't have to father a child or plant a tree, but it would be nice to come home after a long day and feed the cat like Philip Marlowe... or to have a fever, or get your fingers black from the newspaper." "To be excited not just by the mind, but by a meal... the curve of a neck... an ear." "To lie!" "Through one's teeth!" "To feel your bones as you walk along." "For once just to guess instead of always knowing." "To be able to say "Ah!" and "Oh!" and "Ouch!"... instead of "Yes" and "Amen."" "To get enthused about evil for once, draw all the demons out of passers-by and drive them off, once and for all." "To be a savage." "Or to feel what it's like to take your shoes off under the table... and wiggle your toes, barefoot, like this." "Keep to yourself." "Let things happen." "Always remain serious." "We can only be savages to the extent we remain absolutely serious." "Do no more than look, gather, testify, verify, preserve." "Remain spirit." "Keep the distance." "Keep the word." "Look, a convertible." "You don't buy a car like that." "You steal it." "Or it's stolen from you." " Just think:" "We put the top down and leave the smog behind." "In a pimpmobile." "In a pimpmobile." "Speak to me, O Muse, of the storyteller driven to the ends of the earth, both infant and ancient, and through him reveal Everyman." "Those who once listened to me over time became my readers instead." "They no longer sit in a circle but apart, each oblivious to the other." "I'm an old man with a broken voice, but the story still rises from the depths, and the mouth, slightly open, repeats it, as powerful as it is effortless." "A liturgy in which no one needs to be initiated into the meaning of the words and sentences." "Maybe she doesn't have money to see another doctor, which wouldn't be a bad idea." "I haven't seen her in four years." "She's been sick the last two." "When will you pray with your own words, and not for eternal life?" "And then these young girls make eyes at men..." "Why am I even alive?" "How will I pay for it all on my little pension?" "You're lost." "This could go on a long time." "Disowned by your parents, betrayed by your wife." "Your friend's off in another city." "Your children only remember your speech defect." "You feel like slapping yourself when you look in the mirror." "What's that?" "Something's happening." "I'm still here!" "If I just want it bad enough." "I just have to want it." "Then I can get back on my feet." "I let myself go." "I can pull myself up again." "Of course!" "Mother was right..." "Hey, it's two marks." "No, it's a beer top." "Nonsense." "Let's pull it up." "It's just 10 pfennigs." "Wanna Bet?" "Was great last night." "It wasn't even on last night." "Then a few days ago, or a month ago." "I'm all alone In my own little zone" "Three would be fun" "But I'm just one" "Five years ago." "And they lived happily ever after." "Marion, not like that!" "Mon dieu!" "What's that supposed to be?" "Less effort, more swing!" "What are you doing?" "Don't dangle - fly!" "You're an angel." "For heaven's sake!" "Damn it!" "I can't fly with these things." "Yes, you can." "It's easier with wings than without." "Well, not with these chicken feathers." " What did she say?" " The chicken wings bother her." "You can do it!" "Just imagine you're a dove." "Think of a seagull!" "And you're a bunch of birdbrains!" "What are you playing?" "Sounds like a firemen's ball." "That's enough." "Concentrate, Marion." " "For many, barnyard hens..." - "...are mankind's greatest friends."" "Marion, make an effort." "Make an effort?" "Of course I'm making an effort." "What do you think I'm doing up here?" "I'd have fallen on your heads long ago if I wasn't." "Listen everybody." "Hold everything." "We can't pay the rent or electricity." "We're broke." "Tomorrow morning we pack up everything and put the trailers in winter storage." "The sheriff came by." "That's it for the circus this year." "I'm sorry." "So it's over." "Not even a season." "Once again, no time to really get anywhere." "My circus dreams - just memories ten years from now." "Tonight's the last time I'll do my good old number." "It's a full moon too," ""and the trapeze artist breaks her neck."" "Be quiet!" "I never imagined it like this, our farewell to the circus." "On the last night no one shows up, you play like fools, and I fly around the ring like a dumb chicken." "And then I'm a waitress again." "Merde." "It's embarrassing to talk about myself... at times like this, like now." "Time heals all, but what if time itself is the disease?" "Sometimes it's like you have to bend to go on living." "To live... one look is enough." "The circus..." "I'll miss it." "It's funny." "I don't feel a thing." "It's all over, and I don't feel a thing." "An angel's passing by!" "Marion!" "Another fallen angel." "As if pain had no past." "All the people I've met who'll live on in my head." "It always stops just when it's starting." "It was too good to be true." "Out in the big city at last, to find out who I am, who I've become." "Most of the time, I'm too aware to be sad." "I waited an eternity for someone to say a loving word to me." "Then I went abroad." "Someone who'd say, "I love you so much today."" "That would be so wonderful." "I look up and the world emerges before my eyes and fills my heart." "As a child," "I wanted to live on an island." "A woman alone, gloriously alone." "Yes... that's it." "Empty." "Incompatible." "Emptiness, fear, fear, fear... fear." "Like a little animal lost in the woods." "Who are you?" "I don't know anymore." "But I do know I'll never become a trapeze artist." "One of those unexpected decisions you hold on to." "Don't cry!" "No way!" "Crying is out of the question." "These things happen." "It's just how it is." "Things don't always turn out the way you'd like." "So empty..." "Don't think about anything." "Just be." "Berlin." "I'm a foreigner here, and yet it's all so familiar." "In any case, you can't get lost." "You always end up at the Wall." "I wait for my photo at a photo booth, and out comes someone else's face." "That could be the beginning of a story." "Faces..." "I'd like to see faces." "Maybe I'll find a waitressing job." "This evening frightens me." "It's silly." "Anxiety makes me sick, because only part of me worries." "The other part doesn't believe it." "How should I live?" "Maybe that's not the question." "How should I think?" "I know so little." "Maybe because I'm too curious." "Often my thoughts are all wrong, because it's like I'm talking to someone else at the same time." "Behind closed eyes... close your eyes once more." "Then even the stones come alive." "To be close to the colors." "The colors." "Neon lights in the evening sky... the red-and-yellow train." "I just have to be ready, and every man in the world will look at me." "Longing... longing for a wave of love to swell up in me." "That's what makes me so clumsy:" "The lack of pleasure." "A desire to love..." "The desire to love!" "Stop staring." "Haven't you ever seen anyone croak?" "I stink of gasoline." " I can't just fade away." " It was all so clear." "How they all stand there, staring at me." "I should have told her yesterday that I was sorry." "I can't just - I've still got so much to do!" "As I came up the mountain out of the misty valley into the sun... the fire on the cattle range... the potatoes in the ashes... the boathouse floating far out on the lake..." "The Southern Cross." "The Far East." "High up north." "The Wild West." "Great Bear Lake." "Tristan da Cunha Island." "The Mississippi Delta." "Stromboli." "The old houses of Charlottenburg." "Albert Camus." "The morning light." "The eyes of a child." "Swimming by the waterfall." "The spots from the first drops of rain." "The sun." "Bread and wine." "Hopscotch." "Easter Sunday." "Veins of leaves." "The billowing grass." "The colors of stones." "The pebbles in the streambed." "The white tablecloth outdoors." "The dream about the house inside the house." "The person asleep in the next room." "The peace and quiet of Sunday." "The horizon." "The light from the room in the garden." "The night flight." "Riding a bicycle with no hands." "The beautiful stranger." "My father." "My mother." "My wife." "My child." "The world seems to be sinking into dusk, but I tell my tales, as in the beginning, in my sing-song voice, which sustains me, saved by the very tale from present troubles and protected for the future." "No more roaming back and forth through the centuries as in the past." "Now I can only think from one day to the next." "My heroes are no longer warriors and kings, but the things of peace, one just as good as the next." "The drying onions as good as the tree trunk that crosses the marsh." "But no one has thus far succeeded in singing an epic of peace." "What is it about peace that its inspiration is not enduring?" "Why is its story so hard to tell?" "Must I give up now?" "If I do give up, mankind will lose its storyteller." "And once mankind loses its storyteller... it will also lose its childhood." "I can't find Potsdamer Platz." "Here?" "This can't be it." "Potsdamer Platz is where the Café Josti used to be." "In the afternoon I'd go there to chat and have a coffee... and to watch the crowd after I'd had my cigar at Löhse and Wolff, a famous tobacconist, right around here." "So this can't be the Potsdamer Platz." "And there's no one around that you could ask." "It was a lively place." "Streetcars, horse-drawn omnibuses, and two automobiles:" "Mine and the chocolate shop's." "The Wertheim department store was here too." "And then suddenly the flags appeared." "The whole square was covered with them." "And people weren't friendly anymore, and the police weren't either." "I will not give up until I find Potsdamer Platz." "Where are my heroes?" "Where are you, my children?" "Where are my own, the dimwitted ones, the primordial ones?" "Tell me, O Muse, of that poor immortal singer, who, abandoned by his mortal audience, lost his voice." "He who went from being the angel of storytelling became an organ grinder, ignored or mocked, out on the threshold of no-man's-land." "Twenty marks, 40 marks, 80 marks." "In a week I could have 500, and it's off to the south." "It was a crazy idea to stand here." "Too much traffic." "That asshole's circled the block three times." "I want to get out of here." "If anyone recognizes me, I'll be expelled." "Man, I could use Klaus right now." "He'd really give me a boost." "He was so good." "Too good." "That's why he's dead." "Are there still borders?" "More than ever." "Every street has its own border line." "Between the lots is a strip of no-man's-land disguised by a hedge or a ditch." "Would-be visitors encounter barricades or are hit by laser beams." "The trout in the water are really electric eels." "Every proprietor, or even tenant, sticks his nameplate on the door like a coat of arms and studies the morning paper as if he were a world leader." "The German people are divided into as many states as there are individuals, and these small states are mobile." "Each person carries his own state around with him and demands a toll when another wants to enter in the form of a fly in amber or a fat-bellied bottle." "And that's just at the border." "To reach further inside any state requires the right passwords." "Today's German soul can only be conquered and governed by him who arrives at each small state with the right password." "Fortunately no one can do that now, so each man ventures beyond his borders and hoists his solitary flag everywhere." "Even his children shake their rattles and trail their filth around them in circles." "It will never change." "The badges reflect best." "Those guys knew a thing or two about style." " Could I have a light?" " My pleasure." "Thank you." "The one thing I will miss from the outside, from the realm of light, is the sparrows." "Money buys happiness." "How to live?" "It's all a fraud, just like The Man with the Golden Helmet." "You're not natives." "You're a fugitive, and you, and you, and you're still wet from swimming the Baltic Sea." "I've been sitting here since this morning." "I'm so cold and bored." "The wind in your face, the first snow in the air, the water running in the gutters, and the balcony with the beautiful stranger." "They're for real." "At least they look it." "They could be the real thing." "Some stole food from the dogs in the camps." "That would take the grin off your face." "Well, it ain't too late..." "The Frenchman." "I met him on the street." ""Berlin won't come back," Constant told me." "The building was half gone." "Some of it still stood, but for how long?" "I can still see that woman standing up there in the ruins... shaking out the bedcovers." "When was that?" "May or June of '45." "Does he know what he's doing?" "He seems to." "I'd like to see it." "Maybe he'll give it to me." "Come, I'll show you something else." "When the child was a child, it gagged on spinach, peas, rice pudding, and steamed cauliflower." "Now it eats all of that, and not just because it has to." "When the child was a child, it woke up once in a strange bed, now over and over again." "It saw many beautiful people, while today that's a stroke of luck." "It could imagine paradise very clearly, now it can only guess at it." "It couldn't even imagine nothingness, now it shudders at the idea." "When the child was a child, it played with enthusiasm." "Now it can only muster it up when it's about work." "Do you recall our first visit here?" "History had not yet begun." "We let mornings and evenings go by and just waited." "It took a long time for the river to find its bed and the stagnant water to flow." "Valley of the primeval river." "I still remember how one day... the glacier calved, and the icebergs drifted to the north." "A tree floated by, still green, with an empty bird's nest." "For innumerable years, only fish had leapt." "Then came the moment when the swarm of bees drowned." "Some time later, two stags fought on the bank here." "Then came the cloud of flies, and the antlers floating like branches down the river." "The only thing that grew was grass - over the carcasses of wild cats, wild boar and buffalo." "Remember how one morning, out of the savannah, his forehead smeared with grass, the biped appeared, our long-awaited likeness?" "Its first word was a shout." "Was it "Ah" or "Oh," or merely a groan?" "We were at last able to laugh, for the first time." "And from this man's shout and that of his followers, we learned to speak." "A long story." "Sun, lightning, and thunder in the sky, and on Earth, the campfires, the leaping about, the dancing in a circle, cave drawings, and writing." "Then one of them suddenly broke out of the circle and ran straight ahead." "As long as he ran straight ahead - perhaps swerving now and then from sheer joy - he seemed free, and again we could laugh with him." "But suddenly he started running zigzag, and stones began to fly." "With his flight began another story - the story of war, and it's still going on." "But the story of the grass, the sun, the leaping and shouting - that's still going on as well." "Remember how a highway was built here one day?" "Later it witnessed Napoleon's retreat... and still later it was paved over." "Today it's covered with grass, sunk like a Roman road... tank tracks included." "But we weren't here to see that." "There's always been too few of us." " And you really want to " " Yes." "Invent a story for myself." "I want to transform what my timeless downward look has taught me and learn to bear a harsh sight, a brusque shout, a sour smell." "I've been on the outside long enough, absent long enough." "I've stood outside the world long enough." "I want to enter into the History of the World, or even just hold an apple in my hand." "Look." "See those feathers on the water?" "Vanished already." "See those tire marks on the asphalt, and now the cigarette butt rolling along." "Look how the prehistoric river has dried up, and only today's rain puddles quiver." "Enough of the world behind the world!" "Only the Roman roads still lead into the open." "Only the most ancient traces lead anywhere." "Where is the top of the pass here?" "Even the plains, even Berlin, has its hidden passes." "And it's only there that my country, the land of storytelling, begins." "Why doesn't everyone see from earliest childhood the passes, portals and crevices down on the earth and up in the sky?" "If everyone saw them, history would continue without killing and war." "This time I'm actually doing it." "Funny I'm so calm." "Why red socks with black shoes?" "Too stupid." "It's foggy and cold." "I put on a sweater, afraid of the cold." "This is a good jacket." "A bargain." "Just the pocket's torn." "She gave it to me." "Why's there gravel on this roof?" "So it doesn't fly away?" "How silly." "I'd like to fly sometime." "The plane circles over Berlin..." "until it crashes." "It's cold." "I've always had warm hands - a good sign." "It's crackling under my feet." "What time is it?" "The sun's already setting." "Now I know where west is..." "So I always headed east on the subway to go home." "I'd buy 10 tickets and save one mark." "The sun's at my back, and the star's on my left." "That's good:" "Sun and star." "She had little feet, always hopping from one to the other." "She was so cute when she danced." "We were all alone." "Has she already got my letter?" "I hope she hasn't read it yet." "Berlin means nothing to me." "Havel?" "Is that a river or a lake?" "Is that my district over there?" "In the east?" "The east is really everywhere." "Strange people." "They keep shouting..." "I don't care." "All these thoughts..." "I'd rather not think anymore." "Here I go." "But why?" "Leave me alone, shithead!" "Mama!" "I'll never make it tonight." "No trapeze on full-moon nights." "Not the last time, the very last time." "I have to wake up from this dream." "The circus is over." "All over." "Once again night falls inside my head." "Fear... fear of death." "Why not die?" "Sometimes beauty is the only thing that matters." "To look in the mirror is to watch yourself think." "So what are you thinking?" "I think I still have the right to be afraid, but not to talk about it." "You haven't gone blind yet." "Your heart is still beating." "And now you're crying." "You'd like to cry like a very sad little girl." "Do you know why you're crying?" "For whom?" "Not for me." "I don't know anymore." "I'd like to know." "I know nothing." "I'm a little bit afraid." "It's gone already." "All gone." "It'll come back." "It doesn't matter." "Just to be able to say, like this very moment..." ""I'm happy."" "I have a story!" "And I'll go on having one." "What am I doing this moment?" "Gazing ahead and floating into orbit." "There it is again, my feeling of well-being... as if inside my body a hand was gently closing." "When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions:" "Why am I me and why not you?" "Why am I here and why not there?" "When did time begin, and where does space end?" "Isn't life under the sun just a dream?" " Isn't that Columbo?" " Don't think so." "Not with that shabby coat." "He wouldn't be out here in this muck." " Well?" " I'm going to "take the plunge."" "An old human expression I've just come to understand today." ""Now or never." Time to ford the river." "But there is no other bank." "There's only the river." "Onward into the ford of time, the ford of death!" "Let's climb down from this watchtower of the never-born." "To watch is not to look down from above, but at eye level." "First I'll take a bath." "Then I'll get a shave, from a Turkish barber, if possible, who'll also massage me down to the fingertips." "Then I'll buy a newspaper and read it from headlines to horoscope." "On my first day, I'll let everyone wait on me." "If someone wants something, he can ask the next guy." "If someone trips over my legs, he'll apologize profusely." "I'll be jostled around, and I'll jostle them back." "I'll get a table in a packed restaurant." "The mayor's own car will stop and give me a lift." "I'll be familiar to everyone and suspect to no one." "I won't say a word, but I'll understand every language." "That will be my first day." "And none of it will be true." "I'll take her in my arms... and she'll take me in hers." " I think he's drunk." " Yeah." "Let's go." "It has a taste." "Now I'm starting to understand." " Is that red?" " Yes." "Did you hurt yourself?" " Good day today?" " It's okay." " And the pipes?" " They're yellow." "Yellow." "What about him?" " He's grey-blue." " Grey-blue." "That one?" " Purple." " That one?" " Orange." "Ochre." " Ochre or orange?" " Ochre." "Yellow, red..." "That one?" " It's green." " And that above the eye?" " That's blue." " Is it very cold today?" " It'll pass." "I'd love a cup of coffee." " You have any money?" " Yes... no." "I'm glad it's a good day." "Beautiful!" " Coffee." " Cream and sugar?" "Black." "When the child was a child, it lived on apples and bread, and that was enough, and it's still that way." "When the child was a child, berries filled its hand as only berries do, and it's still the same today." "Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw, and they still do now." "Atop every mountain it longed for a higher mountain... and in every city it longed for a larger city... and it still does." "It reached up into the treetop for cherries as excitedly as it still does today." "It was shy around strangers, and it still is." "It waited for the first snow, and it still waits that way." "When the child was a child, it hurled a stick at a tree like a lance, and it still quivers there today." "How do I get to the Akazienstrasse?" "Go up Potsdamer to Kleistpark, then right at Grunewald past Gleditsch." "Be sure you don't turn right at Goltzstrasse." "Then turn left, and there you are." "This entrance is for the crew." "Extras enter around the corner." " Extra." " Yeah, right." "Everyone wants autographs." "Lousy cop." "Marion, don't worry." "Things will work out." "I'll send you postcards of the Eiffel Tower." "See you next season." "Don't forget the Alekan Circus." "Bye, Archie." "See you next year." "Bye, Marion." "Lots of love." "Want a care package?" "What would you like?" "Some Camembert?" "Lots of love!" " Bye, Chico." " Lots of love!" "I couldn't say who I am." "I don't have the slightest idea." "I have no roots, no story, no country, and I like it that way." "I'm here." "I'm free." "I can imagine anything." "Everything's possible." "I only have to lift my eyes, and once again I become the world." "Now, on this very spot... a feeling of happiness that I could keep forever." " What are you doing?" " Sitting here." " Are you sad?" " No." " Are you sick?" " Yes." " What's wrong?" " I'm missing something." "Ah, I see." "A double knot is the only way to keep it tied." " Missing something... food maybe." " Or something to drink." "She isn't gone, Cassiel." "I know it." "I'll find her again." "Something will happen tonight, and it'll be valid forever." "She'll teach me everything." "There are other suns besides the one up in the sky, Cassiel." "In deepest night, spring will begin today." "Other wings will grow in place of the old ones, wings that will at last astound me." "It must finally become serious." "I've often been alone, but I've never lived alone." "When I was with someone, I was often happy, but at the same time it all seemed left to chance." "These people were my parents, but it could have been others." "Why was the brown-eyed boy my brother and not that green-eyed boy at the train station?" "The taxi driver's daughter was my friend, but I could just as well have put my arm around a horse's neck." "I was with a man, and I was in love... and I could just as well have left him there and gone off with the stranger we crossed paths with in the street." "Look at me or don't." "Give me your hand or don't." "No, don't give me your hand, and don't look at me." "I think it's a new moon tonight." "No night is more peaceful." "No bloodshed in all the city." "I never toyed with anyone, yet I never opened my eyes and thought," ""Now it's serious."" "At last it's becoming serious." "So I've grown older." "Was I the only one who wasn't serious?" "Is it our times that aren't serious?" "I've never been lonely, whether alone or with someone else." "But I would have liked to be lonesome." "Lonesomeness means I'm whole at last." "Now I can say it, for tonight I'm lonesome at last." "I must put an end to coincidence." "The new moon of decision." "I don't know if there's such a thing as destiny, but there is such a thing as deciding." "Decide!" "You and I are now time itself." "Not only the whole city, the whole world is taking part right now in our decision." "We're more than just the two of us now." "We embody something." "We are sitting in the People's Square... and the whole place is full of people with the same dream as ours." "We're defining the game for everybody." "I'm ready." "Now it's your turn." "You hold the game in your hand." "It's now... or never." "You need me." "You will need me." "There is no greater story than ours, that of man and woman." "It will be a story of giants... invisible... transferable." "A story of new ancestors." "Look - my eyes." "They are the image of necessity... of the future of everyone in the square." "Last night..." "I dreamed of a stranger... of my man." "Only with him could I be lonesome... open up to him... wholly open, wholly for him... welcome him wholly into me... surround him with the labyrinth of shared bliss." "I know... it's you." "Something happened." "It's still going on." "It binds me." "It was true in the night, and it's true now, during the day." "Even more so." "Who was who?" "I was inside her, and she was all around me." "Who in the world can claim that he was ever truly together with another being?" "I am together." "No mortal child was conceived, only an immortal shared image." "I learned to be amazed last night." "She came to take me home, and I found home." "It happened once." ""Once upon a time," and so it will be." "The image that we created will be with me when I die." "I will have lived within it." "Only my amazement at the two of us, my amazement at man and woman, has turned me into a human being." "I... know... now... what... no... angel... knows." "Tell me of the men, women, and children who will look for me - me, their storyteller, their bard, their choirmaster - because they need me more than anything in the world." "We have embarked."