"Wo waren Sie am 9. November 1989?"
© WO BIST DU JETZT by MARTIN WÆRN
Where were you when the peaceful revolution changed the world?
Were you on the barricades holding your neighbor, or did you hide in the comfort zone of just being you? Were your dogmas important enough to maintain your arms, or did you lower your weapons just for that night?
Where you a bystander? A tourist? Or where you busy making other plans? Where you even aware? And where have you been ever since?
“Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis, ist das sofort, unverzüglich.”
I remember the small TV-screen and the red phone beneath it. I remember I wanted to go. Right there, right then. The station, just minutes away. I could be there tomorrow? Or even tonight? I could be one of those. The last loving heroes of our time. I could leave and never come back.
At that moment. Hiding behind the illusion of who I thought I ought to be, I could have crossed that border. Immediately. Without delay. But I was too young, too scared, and too blinded by my own walls.
