The Lost Son - Chapter 1

S. Döpke The lost son - Chapter 1

My name is Peter. But that’s almost all I can tell you about myself. I’m still glad that I still know my name. Just my forename, unfortunately. Everything else I’ve forgotten. My family name just as the names of my parents. But not only their names, but also their looks, their ages, their occupations and nearly everything else. The only thing I still know about them is that my mother loves me and my father is proud of me. Because this is what they have always told me in my dream, the dream I had had in the night before the horrible day when I forgot everything. Can you imagine what it is like to wake up on a day that could be a very beautiful day because the sky is blue and the sun is shining, not knowing who and where you are? Can you really? Hard to say if you have never experienced it on your own. But I don’t have to imagine it because I really experienced it, and in fact I’m still experiencing it, today, because after the day when I forgot everything my life has never been the same again. I only have to remember the morning when it began, when I was suddenly woken up by the loud Moo! of a cow. I opened my eyes in astonishment because that was really strange. I couldn’t remember any cows grazing next to our house, but when I looked around more precisely, I got the point very easily. The place where I was could impossibly be my home. Or have you ever heard about a child who is living in a boxboard that is only as big that it can lie in a hunched position?

No? Me neither. Not in this country! But where else was my home, and why wasn’t I there this morning? For some seconds I stayed lying there absolutely taken aback. Then I began to think about my situation and tried to recollect things from my former life. It didn’t matter what it was, if I just got one single memory back. I tried to remember the colour of our washbasin, the nose of my mother, the wallpapers of our living room and the taste of my last dinner. But at the end it was all for nothing. I could strain my attention as much as I could, but I couldn’t find one little memory. The only thing that stayed with me were the words of my parents: “I love you so much” and “I’m so proud of you.” And when I recalled them I also felt this warmth again. It was a warmth that was less reminiscent of the sun or a warm bath than a tenderly embracement. I tried to hold the warmth as long as I could because I was sure that sooner or later I would also remember the faces, the faces of the persons who embraced me and loved me and were proud of me, as long as I felt their warmth. But the warmth vanished and instead of it I felt the cool draught that came in to me through the little vents at the top edges of the boxboard. I gave up desperately. I have to find out where I am, was my next thought. Maybe somebody had just made a fool of me by taking me out of my bed at night and marooning me in a boxboard on the next pasture. With hands and feet I kicked against the walls that were intertwined just very loosely. One moment later I stood alfresco. It was still cool outside because it was an early morning, but the pearls of dew sitting in the grass were shining so wonderfully in the rising sunlight that I already knew it would be a warm and nice day. But suddenly I began to shiver. Even quite severely. But not because of the weather, the loud Moo! Sounding again into my ears was the real reason. Yes, this hadn’t been a dream, this

was reality. My modest housing really stood on a pasture that was populate by several dozens cows that now came closer in a leisurely walk to watch me with their big and curious eyes. Maybe they weren’t used to see children waking up on their pasture in the early morning, and I wasn’t used to stand in a big herd of cows, either, and I din’t feel the need to become acquainted with them at all. What a luck that they almost all neared me from the same side so that I wasn‘t already surrounded by them! Without reflecting if those black-white animals were my friends or my enemies I began to ran. I ran as fast as I could, I staggered when I stumbled over a molehill but I recovered my legs, immediately. And finally I made my last big jump and clutched a mossy und slippery wooden fence. Only then I had the courage to look back and saw the cows not running after me like the clappers. After some steps they had stopped and now they were gazing after me with amazed eyes. Maybe they were aggrieved and assumed me to be impolite because I had run away such panicky although they had just wanted to wish me good morning. But however I heaved a sigh of relief and hopped the fence with my first leg. I’m still lucky that they’re just cows, I thought. If they were bulls the whole situation could be much more… Suddenly I felt such a cold shiver running down my back that I almost fell back on the pasture. Because when I thought about the thing with the cows and the bulls I suddenly noticed that I didn’t really know my own gender myself. For God’s sake! Can something like that really be true? Can it really be true that you know so few things about yourself, not even if you are a boy or a girl? Shivering and completely being a nervous wreck I slipped down to the other side of the fence. Well, the thing with boy or girl can be found out with a very easy handgrip. And I remembered my name being Peter. And a

girl could never be called Peter. That would sound really stupid. But what was it about with all the other things? My hair? Was it blond or dark? And my eyes? Were they green, blue or brown? Were my cheeks red or pale? Were my teeth healthy or decayed? Was I a beautiful or an ugly child? I tried to remember again, but it was absolutely without sense. Can you imagine how you would feel in such a situation? If you didn’t know anything at all about yourself. Not your age, not your shoe size, not your surname, no, not even the look of your own face? Beyond the fence there was a narrow track and beyond the track there was an old landmark where I had a seat. First I had to take a deep breath to overcome the first shock, afterwards I wondered what to do next. I have to find out the place of my home, I thought. But before I have to find out who I am and how I look like. But I can hardly find it out without the help of another person. That’s why I have to take a walk, in the hope that I’ll find a settlement that is inhabited by nice and helpful people. If I am lucky I will still be close to my parental home and maybe I will even meet an old acquaintance who recognises me and will show me the way to my home. I checked the track both ways but I couldn’t remember having been in this area, before. But I didn’t matter about it. In the country there are lots of tracks which almost all look the same. You don’t have to remember everyone. But if I follow it and find a familiar village or a farm, I will probably get back my memories, I hoped. But before I started my walk I first had to check out my clothes. I wore brown leather hiking boots. That’s good if I have to take a long walk, I thought, becoming a little more buoyant, although I hoped that the way to the next house - hopefully my house - wouldn’t be too long. Around my legs I wore brown trousers that looked a bit old and washed-out. I examined my trouser pockets for a photo, a

piece of paper or anything else that could help me to find out who I was. But the pockets were completely empty. Above my trousers I wore a grey cardigan that was hiding a striped shirt. Now, I knew exactly what I wore, but my face, the most important thing of all, I still didn’t know. I put my hand under my shirt and noticed that I was really thin because I could feel the ribs very well. Immediately my stomach started to protest. Yes, it was right, it was the ideal time for a little breakfast, but unfortunately I didn’t have a backpack including victuals. Well, so I had to go from door to door like a tramp to beg me something. Hurry! I didn’t want to loose anymore time and started to go. The cows on their pasture followed me, but soon they approached the fence that edged their pasture and they didn’t have another choice then stopping and gazing wistfully after me. At that point I was out of a limb. The sun rose higher in the sky and shined visibly warmer on me and the whole world around. The colourful flowers on the meadows opened up their blooms and everywhere around me I saw birds that sat on the branches of the trees or flew around while they were singing their happy songs. A little bit I had the feeling that they were singing them just for me and delirious with joy my heart made a little jump. Of course this had been a disgusting day! To wake up in a boxboard on a pasture without a memory is a shock that you don’t experience ever day. But now, when I saw the nature waking up around me, and when everything became so warm green and wonderful, I couldn’t have a heavy heart anymore. I felt that everything would end well - oh, no, I knewit! Leaping for joy I sometimes turned my head right, another time left. I saw meadows with grass and flowers and I knew that they were meadows. But I didn’t know these meadows. I tried to remember some other ones but my recall failed. Afterwards I crossed a little, shady wood with many firs, but with leaf trees, too. They were still rather bald and just had

some very tiny leaves, but some days later they would get a really thick and green coat, I knew. But how did I know it? I had never seen these trees before and I couldn’t remember any other ones, either, but nevertheless I knew they were trees and they were bald in the winter, but got knew leaves when springtime arrived. I stopped going. That was really astonishing. Everything around me was so familiar, but on the other hand so unknown, too. Among the shadows of the trees my happiness became smaller. Slowly I plodded around and considered why I could call all the things by their names although it seemed that I had never seen them in my life before. But I realized it didn’t make any sense because I could only get the answer if I found other people. So I should look for them as fast as possible! I began to run again, but not because of happiness, I really was in a hurry! I hoped to find a creek, a pond or at least a little puddle on my way because I wanted to mirror my face before I met the first person. But I had bad luck. In the days befor not much rain seemed to have fallen. While I was rushing my ears heard the thuds of my boots, my eyes watched the long track in front of them, with my nose I inhaled the intensive odour of the wood, and with my mouth I began to gasp because all this running made me more and more dizzy. Yes, my sense organs really did a good job and I hoped the face to which they belonged looked as handsomely. I approached the edge of the woods and in front of my eyes there was a landscape with meadows and some little hills. On the left and on the right of the track fruit trees were growing. And suddenly I also discovered the thing for what I had looked for such a long time: A human being! Immediately my grief and my sorrows were away as if they had never existed. Hooray, I wasn’t the only person left on this planet! There were still other ones, adults, who I could ask for help. And just a few hundred metres away there was such an

adult. It was a man who was sitting on a stone and eating a sandwich while he happily watched the landscape around. Behind him, on a pasture, there were many white and some black sheep and in front of his feet there were lying two black dogs which were sometimes fed with some pieces of bread. It must be a shepherd, I thought when I came closer. I thought, he was about forty years old, wore green clothes and brown gumboots and had a reddened face and brown, unkempt hair. He wasn’t beautiful but it didn’t matter for me. I would have been satisfied if he had just helped me and maybe gave me a piece of his sandwich,. Quickly I ran square to him and stopped abruptly when his dogs noticed me before he did. They jumped up like crazy, barked at me and showed me their pointed teeth. Luckily they were tethered at a fencepost. Did they both want to lacerate me? Startled by the noise of his dogs the shepherd looked around for me, too, and immediately his satisfied face turned into a real grimace. “Um… hello…”, I stumbled a bit shy because I hadn’t expected such an unfriendly welcoming. “What are you doing here?” the man asked with his harsh and not very friendly voice. “Children like you have to be at school at this time, normally!” “Good morning” I greeted him again cause I knew some adults don’t like it when you just say “Hello” or “Hi”. But the man didn’t get friendlier at all. “Do you want to pass? Okay, I’ll hold back the dogs.” He bored his fingers between the dog’s necks and their collars. The man looked strong, but the dogs were too, and so he had to spend lots of power to keep them under control. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled furiously. “Get your ass in gear and take a hike! Don’t you see you’re driving the dogs completely crazy?”

“I’m really sorry”, I answered without taking a step forward. “I don’t want that. But please, Sir, can you tell me where I am? I got lost in the woods and now I‘m looking for the way home.” The man took his hands back and the dogs made such big jumps that they almost choked themselves with their own collars. Frightened I backed away some steps from them. The man first watched his squashed fingers than he took a look at me. “How should I know how you’ll come home!” he roared at me. “I don’t even know you. And anyhow children don’t have a place in the woods in the morning. So, hurry up to find the way to school so that you’ll learn something and can pay my pension someday!” I was very disappointed because the man didn’t want to help me at all. But it isn’t that bad, I comforted myself. There are more, much nicer people in this world, that I can still ask for help. Eagerly I moved my feet without leaving my standpoint because I din’t have the courage to ask the man for holding the dogs back a second time. And I also didn’t want to go the whole way back. The man read my mind, stood up and cursed me as if I had asked him for something special. But he took the dog leads, opened the gate of the fence and kicked them in. The dogs forgot about me, immediately, and began zestfully to herd the sheep. “Go spit in your socks!” the man roared at me. “Get out of my sight, you ugly brat!” I was shocked. What did he call me? An ugly brat? I hoped he had just said it because he was so angry with me. I wanted to be anything but ugly. But I didn’t have the time to think about it more precisely because the man looked at me with sparks spraying eyes and I didn’t want to irritate him any longer. But I stopped a very last time when I saw the food parcel lying next to him on the stone. I watched it with shining eyes. My mouth was watering.

“What did I say?” the man asked when I stopped. “I’m ravenously hungry”, I explained. “If you give me just a very little peace of bread I’ll soon be…” “My dogs are ravenously hungry, too!” the man answered with a voice that sounded as if it was making massive, frightening waves. “And if you don’t leave us alone, immediately, I’ll know a little insolent child they’ll have for breakfast. Luca, Bronco, heel!” He made a shrill whistle and the dogs forgot about the sheep. Wild and panting they approached the fence, again. And then I began to ran! I ran so fast that the little stones under my feet made grinding sounds and my excited heart was in danger to explode. I didn’t stopped before I had the feeling I could disgorge my lung every second. I turned around and expected to be attacked by two dark, growling shadows that would drag me to the ground where they would lacerate my face. But the track behind me was empty and looked as idyllically as ever. The shepherd hadn’t set the dogs on me. He had just wanted to scare me, that mean jackass. Why had he become so unfriendly although I had just asked him a harmful question? But such mean persons exist. You shouldn’t worry about them because you can’t change them. With the next person I’ll have more luck, I comforted myself. Suddenly there was a little bend in front of me. Behind it I went downhill into a little valley. On my right I saw the red roof of a big farmhouse and my mood became better. It was a really beautiful farm in a beautiful landscape! If it isn’t accidentally the house of the stupid shepherd, I’ll surely meet only gentle people, there, I thought, and decided to enter the farm.