Domestified... "People sometimes have a hard time saying what they really mean. Whatever they feel comes out of them in their behavior or through the art that they create" - Eng. Stein loved to say something deep. And if at the same time someone listened, it filled his heart with absolute joy. He missed his destiny it seemed. Here in Fossdorff he was "just an agronomer" as he used to put it. Usually after such statement someone would voice the long awaited words: "how can you say a thing like that Herr Engineer Stein ?!". He valued people who got upset in that manner. A well-hidden voice of ambition was reminding him from time to time that he really should be teaching philosophy at some respectable university. He truly saw no reason why he should not. He imagined sometimes how would it be: he would teach, and everyone would address him by Herr Professor Doctor Stein. Judging by the business card only, the title was not much longer than his current one, but what a difference in the social status! He did not bother to think about it every day. Afterall, at the age of forty-two, he felt young and everything was still before him.
He liked to talk with Klotz. They often stood leaning against the fence for hours, leading endless conversations in which they seemed to find solutions to many profound problems of the world. Actually it was hard to call them conversations, because Klotz limited himself to listening to Stein's monologues and only glanced intelligently from below his eyebrows. Sometimes he would respond with a single word just to communicate the fact that he was up to date with the discussed issue.
Klotz? Nobody in Fossdorff knew exactly why he moved there. May be he went through a nasty divorce, or he had some problems of other nature. It is also possible that he just wanted to escape from the massive urban environment of Berlin and hid himself in a small village taking a job of a music teacher. Who knows, may be he had something to hide or may be nothing at all. He never talked a lot, and that rare quality created an aura of mistery around him. Stein personally did not like him too much, but Klotz was the only man in the village whose eyes were not full of bottomless lack of comprehension in response to Stein's monologues.
They both valued these conferences held almost religiously at the fence at the end of the day.
It was getting late and the colors slowly gave way to various shades of sepia. The sun sunk below the tree line and what is usual in the late fall, the abrupt cold called for the end of the day.
The ritual handshake sealed the session and both men set home thinking about subjects to discuss at tomorrow's rise of thoughts.
What was typical for that time of the year, a flock of wild geese made itself noticeable by calling in their flight. It was getting late. The darkness was erasing the shapes of the trees and houses by blending them together. Only a few domestic geese remained visible by injuring the uniformly dark space with their whiteness.
At first the geese stood still, reaching their long necks towards the calling flock.
Suddenly as if on command they started calling back, running and unfolding their wings....
They were hopelessly calling to the wild geese flying above...
Their calls mixed with the calls from the sky and the heavy domestic geese were still running and flopping their wings....
Judging by the calls, the wild flock circled the field several times before it flew away....
The big white geese for a long time continued trying to gain momentum and to take off to follow their wild kin.
Finally they stopped.