Kurzgeschichten (Englisch)

Jene zwei zusammenhängenden Kurzgeschichten hätten auch zwei Kapitel eines Buches werden können. Das ganze entstand während meiner Zeit in England und spielt in der neuheidnischen/esoterischen Subkultur Deutschlands. Hauptsächlich geht es hier um zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen. Wenn man das Leben mit einer gewissen Distanz betrachtet, so scheint es mir, bekommt fast alles was wir tun und sagen eine (vielleicht unfreiwillige) komische Note- sei dies unser theatralischer Wunsch, doch endlich aus dem Fenster springen zu können, weil die Dinge nicht so gut laufen, oder sei es das Durchleben unserer Ehescheidung.

Hier natürlich das Obligatorische: Alle Personen und Handlungen der Geschichten sind frei erfunden. Vergleiche und Ähnlichkeiten mit lebenden Personen sind rein zufällig. Die Orte allerdings existieren tatsächlich.

2. When Even Love Spells Fail

The Witch Who Wanted to Jump

Somewhere in the centre of western Germany, between Düsseldorf, Dormagen and Bergisch-Gladbach, there exists a small village called Zons. If you have not got a car, as is the case with most of my friends, you have to rely on public transport to get there, taking a train from Düsseldorf in the direction of Bergisch-Gladbach, getting out at a small station called Nievenheim and then hoping for a bus to come...or you ask my friend Karin to fetch you in her little red car. I have made quite a lot of use of her little car, I must admit.

Zons is a very lovely place, particularly if you have an interest in medieval monuments: the village is still surrounded by a rather impressive medieval wall and a moat which once must have been filled with water to keep enemies at bay. An old windmill is built into the wall and can be visited. One of the village-pubs offers a kind of medieval meal, unaware of the fact that potatoes were an unknown vegetable at this period of time.

But besides that, there is not much going on in Zons. People mostly hide themselves in their little, ancient houses or sit in one of the cafés and cake shops. In her prime, Karin could spend an entire afternoon at a café, reading whilst her dogs snored and sat at her feet.

Zons is at the river Rhein and if you are a dog-owner, you might want to go to the river which is only a stone's throw from here. If you leave the village and cross a levee, you can watch heavy ships plying up and down the Rhein and pick up pebbles, but I would not advise you to go swimming there... unless you are fond of chemicals. Maybe you find it odd to hear about a levee, but the Rhein floods a great deal of surrounding land very regularly due to its now artificial and straightened riverbank.

Karin confessed that in her youth they had whole parties at the riverbank, lighting a fire at night, roasting potatoes and so on.

Karin, the friend of mine who lives in Zons, is a witch and learned about witchcraft from an English friend, I believe.

Modern witchcraft developed in Britain, anyway, with the help of some famous personalities like Aleister Crowley, Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders and so on. It is a combination of two things: the use of magic and pagan worship. This is all you need to know at the moment .

Needless to say that it is regarded as a kind of subculture. But even subcultures need to be organised, and so you will find institutions like “The Pagan Federation” and you will find witches gathering together in so called covens. Only few funny individuals work alone and those who are organised still differ in their beliefs and aims immensely. It is chaotic and you cannot say you know every witch when you have only met one.

Many of Germany's modern witches are more or less influenced by Britain's magicians and it only happened recently that the Germans split up with the “Pagan Federation” ( I dare say they felt kind of colonised ) to found an organisation on their own.

Karin has founded her own coven and teaches new witches whatever she thinks there is to teach... healing powers of herbs and stuff like that. She tells her girls about the German witch-hunt, too, and this is really interesting because, compared to the English witch-hunt, it was much more violent and was done with more pleasure in torture and burning. I wonder if Karin believes there is a connection between witches of medieval times and modern ones. I wonder, too, if she thinks those burned witches were Pagans or Satanists or just innocent women.

But the person who knows Karin probably better than me is Luisa, who is a magician, and she has told me some interesting stories about her own magic, Karin's coven and their adventures.

Luisa is one of those people who prefer to work on their own, and better it is for her, too. She is a very interesting woman with a strong personality and equally strong views on a whole range of subjects. But this is not to everyone's taste, as you might guess, and so other people either adore her or can't stand her.

Luisa and Karin met through a New-Age magazine and have been friends ever since. At this time Karin had already gathered a number of girls around her and Luisa had already explored the world of magic to an extent that lies beyond Karin’s teaching abilities. This means whenever Luisa visited the coven in Zons, it was as a guest invited to a party and nothing more.

Thinking about their relation Luisa recounted some facts that she looked upon as “problems” which would prevent her from ever working successfully in Karin’s coven.

She told me, for example, that one afternoon they talked about a healing spell which was cast for a friend, and they ended up arguing about which colour the candles ought to have. Karin insisted the right colour was green, Luisa favoured blue instead. They stared at each other in a manner that only wizards possess until finally they condescended to explain their reasons.

Luisa understands green to be a colour symbolising nature, all growing things and success in business which might even be used for money-spells. Karin thought that was fine then, because health is a natural thing and they wanted it to increase.

But Luisa explained that green was a far too materialistic colour for this purpose and ,anyway, is associated with the planet Venus and Venus, as everybody knows, has no association with health matters at all. But the colour blue is related to Jupiter and that again is linked to healing. So they ought to use a blue candle, for Heaven’s sake, and blue is a very calming colour, too, which might give some extra comfort to the patient.

You and I might already guess that this argument led to nowhere. Karin still uses her green candles and Luisa her blue ones, and it works fine for both. I just wanted to point out what small, simple things some magicians already differ in.

Another example Luisa likes to dwell on, is the following: Once she was invited to one of these seasonal festivals, it was Samhain I now remember, and it was just towards the end of their ritual, the magic circle still closed, when Karin suddenly remembered something she had forgotten in another room and - went out of the circle. WENT OUT OF THE CIRCLE!

And then she came back as if nothing had happened and they went on with their duty until they finally opened the circle as it ought to be done and said farewell to the spirits. Even today Luisa still shakes her little head in disbelief.

What is wrong with that, you might wonder, and how right you are; it is all my fault if you cannot follow Luisa’s fury , because I tend to forget that you probably don’t know anything about magic.

If you build a circle and hold a ritual in it, you are not allowed to step over its lines until the ritual is finished. For one reason the circle gives you safety against all kinds of energies and beings which might wait outside during your performance... and who knows what kind of things are waiting there.

For another reason you are summoning energy during your ritual which you try to increase until finally you cast your spell, so that disturbing the circle goes hand in hand with the complete loss of all energy inside it.

A third reason might be that it is insulting to the spirits you work with to leave your place of work and worship without even the slightest sign of respect towards them. Hence Karin had destroyed their ritual completely and was not even aware of it.

How did those two remain friends, you wonder. I can only say that Luisa has a very strong instinct about when to shut up and when to cry out. The very same instinct tells her if a person is telling lies and , when she is in a dark alley, if she is about to be attacked and whether it is time to run for it.

I personally think she must have inherited this gift from our forefathers... the early cavemen needed these instincts to survive, I bet. Of course Luisa, as a normal human being, tends to ignore her instincts to a certain extent and that has made her life very interesting indeed. In this case it enables her to stay Karin’s friend in spite of her actions.

Luisa has got contact with a lot of people, anyway, and because like attracts like, most of them have to do with magic. Inevitable as it is, most of these witches and magicians who are Luisa’s friends are known to other friends, too. So if you insult one of them, you might end up loosing three at the same time.

But let us talk about the coven members for a while. Besides Karin there is Sabine, a woman in her twenties who studies to be an Egyptologist in Heidelberg, and Miriam, who works for a big industrial company as a kind of business woman. There is Belinda, a woman between thirty and forty, who studies part-time and does administrative jobs on top of it, and an ancient woman called Natalie, who is that ancient that she hardly ever can attend - but she is loved by all of them.

Belinda and Luisa met, not knowing that they are both friends of Karin, and found out that they don't get on with each other. Well, more or less Belinda found out about that , because she is very fond of astrology and did Luisa’s birth chart- and this showed clearly that they would be arguing for the rest of their entire lives. Believing in her own prediction, those two tried to avoid each other whenever possible. Well, the fact is, that they are both very strong minded... if Belinda attended a coven meeting, it would be to lead the ritual. Luisa quite enjoyed her rituals, because they are strong and well structured, but nevertheless there existed a kind of icy wall between them. And I think by now they have lost contact completely.

There is another member, that Luisa introduced to the coven, and her name is Christine. Her current profession can only be guessed at, because she is constantly in two minds about every step she takes.

It did her good to get pushed into a group of like minded people.

As Luisa always says, a great number of witches are actually looking for company, and if it fitted into their lives, they’d easily swap witchcraft for golfing or table tennis etc., as long as only they are not forced to be alone at home, and as long as they have a group to catch them when they fall.

Christine for instance once enjoyed the company of protestant church members and scouts immensely. But she lost her father when she was very young and never really learned to cope with it. She constantly wondered why god, who she learned is a loving god, allowed him to die, and with such doubts in her mind she started to look out for other beliefs to adopt.

She ended up with witchcraft. But witchcraft, with its pagan worship and its belief in a female deity, made her even more conscious of the lack of a father in her life. In a way she wanted to believe in the Christian god, who is the father of everybody, but then again she could not bring herself to embrace this religion fully. What then happened was a never ceasing fight of witchcraft and Christianity, so that Christine might feel a mighty witch one week, and a sinful Christian who visited a church the other week.

Luisa confessed that she thought Christine to be attracted by the magic side of witchcraft, because she wanted to get some control over her life. And that’s what you think as a beginner, I bet, that magic gives you control about everything and everybody. It did not work out and so Luisa often found herself in the situation of answering her telephone, Christine on the other end, depressed, about to jump out of the window ( one of her favourite sayings) and in every way miserable.

One afternoon she phoned to complain about her poor A-level in chemistry. Well, she had cast a spell for herself to get good results and in the end the exam was absolutely disappointing.

“So,” said Christine “, magic does not work. I just can’t believe in it anymore. “

“Excuse me, but you cannot expect to do a ritual and then twiddle your thumbs. Magic does not work that way. All you do is calling energy, and you have to give it some direction! Have you learned for your exam at all?”

“Of course I have learned for my exam!” snapped Christine. “But that’s not what I did the ritual for, anyway. I wanted to overcome my anxiety, but as soon as I entered the room and faced the teachers my mind went blank. I have told you before, magic does not work for me. All that ever worked was a stupid love-spell, but even that turned sour when the guy started to pester me.”

“ Right,” said Luisa “,that’s a different thing altogether. What you intended to do was a change of your personality. See, anxiety is a very strong part of your character and you hoped to solve the problem with just one tiny spell! May I remind you that to change one’s habits is the most important part of a magicians life- but also the one which takes longest?”

“Yes, you are maybe right there.”

“Maybe! See, if you have so many doubts in magic, I cannot understand why you still fancy being a witch. Be a Christian instead, then you can pray at least. Magic is not for people full of doubts and stupidity. You must know what you want and believe in yourself- and you must know the best way to achieve your aim.”

“But witchcraft is the only religion I like... I think, even if I forgot about the magic, I would still like all these seasonal festivals and the poetry and the decoration...”

However, Christine did not give up witchcraft, though Luisa secretly thought it might help her if she did. You have to understand that magic has a strong influence on your body and mind- it tends to increase things, good ones as well as more negative ones . Many famous magicians have therefore warned not to start magic when there are psychological problems. If you have a nice little depression, magic can easily turn it into a complete nervous breakdown... And Christine knew she had problems. One day she was flying high, the other day fallen to pieces. It was her remark that in those bad days she’d see spiders on the wall that don’t exist, which made Luisa think she had better give it all up for good.

As time went by, Christine started to study at university and on top of that started to do a course in ritual magic. Luisa approved of that, because this magic-course forced her to meditate regularly about her life and to delve in her past. At first it seemed like Christine really was making some progress : instead of dwelling on the outer appearance of her belief, she actually gained some knowledge (of the Kabala for instance). She made herself a ritual robe, too.

But after a few month, out of the blue, she dropped it all- and I really mean all. She stopped going to university and she put her magic book into a drawer. Asked what was the problem she claimed neither her course of study nor ritual magic were the kind of thing that brought her happiness. For the rest of the academic year she then stayed at home watching TV. She did not want to visit Karin anymore, either. She needed somebody to teach her, she said, and in Karin’s coven there was nothing happening.

Well, as the months passed by Luisa moved away and so did finally Christine. The latter ended up in a small town to train as a kind of pharmacist’s helper, flat and college sponsored by her mother.

The next piece of information Luisa got, was that in this town there existed an elderly witch giving lessons (which had to be paid for!) and that Christine went there and gained happiness.

Or at least what she called happiness. Luisa thought secretly that Christine was being stupid, paying for things she had learned already, wasting her mother’s money and being lulled to sleep (mentally she meant) by a woman who probably knew only too well that Christine would look up to her as a kind of mother substitute. But of course Luisa kept quiet about this.

One day Christine visited Luisa in her new home which at that stage was very poorly furnished. Luisa had just started a new job and found it hard to find time for decorating the flat. Maybe she would not stay there altogether very long, things were more temporarily planned, and this was fine for Luisa as long as she had her work and a filled fridge.

She did warn Christine, I have to say that, before she invited her over, because Luisa knew that her friend had had quite a different upbringing ...no, it is not for me to say she was spoiled-Luisa would have said that. Honestly, only very few parents allow their children to start one training after the other and happily go on paying for all their expenses. Luisa was used to working for her aims in life- and Christine not at all.

However, Christine said -more or less- that there was no need to warn her, because she knew by now that Luisa’s circumstances were always very humble. She was very confident about the journey, too, and assured Luisa she’d find her way around in case she had to work.

But the actual stay was nothing like that! From day one Christine pulled a face and moaned permanently. She found the carpet funny, she found the heating funny and not sufficient, she didn’t like the food, she found the double bed too small for both of them, she didn’t like the bathroom and she would not spend a penny on food or anything else. (She would not help to wash the dishes, either.)

And most of all she missed her TV, because Luisa had not yet bothered to buy one. Well, if you think about it, a washing machine is more important... for some of us at least.

Okay, Christine had changed for the better. She had a new hair-cut and funky clothes, so that it was obvious that she cared for herself and wanted to improve herself. On the other hand Luisa felt insulted by her behaviour and thought she had not only become self-assured, but indeed a very nasty snob. Some of her visit’s highlights included her saying she felt sorry for Luisa: because she had such a stupid job which did not give her a chance of improvement. Luisa was flabbergasted, thinking that she at least did work- and her visitor never had. What did she know about paying bills or being bullied by colleagues? Did she know how hard it is to go through three years of training and how good it feels when finally one gets a qualification and earns one’s own money? Even her journey had been paid by “Mama”!

Another thing you should never ask Luisa about is the party she gave for Christine during her stay there. Everybody was happy and enjoyed the evening- the only person who didn’t was of course Christine. She made excuses to go to bed early and next morning she claimed it was unfriendly to invite friends she didn’t know and to whom she had nothing to say. At New Year’s Eve then she got depressed again, this time because Luisa didn’t give a party!

“If I had known you wouldn’t be celebrating, I would have gone home a day earlier!” she cried.

And her mother had not even phoned to wish her a happy New Year. Well, why should a magician and witch celebrate New Year at all, when Samhain is already the beginning of the new year? Why should Luisa give a party, when Christine already hated the recent one? Is it only me, or do you agree with me that this girl thought of herself as the centre of the world?

Christine left ,as she had stupidly planned in all her faked confidence, on a Monday when Luisa had to go to work again. Needless to say , this person had not yet managed to find her way around and had to rely on one of Luisa’s friends to take her to the nearest station. Luisa’s goodbye was not very warm and indeed , if there had been a train, she would have kicked her out at New Year’s Eve itself.

So time went by and Christine kept silent for a while. But then after a few months she phoned out of courtesy to say how happy she was with Elke. Who the hell is Elke? Luisa wondered.

Oh, that is the witch living in her town, she explained to Luisa, and now she is part of a coven of thirteen members and she is really enjoying herself. Yeah, sometimes they’d dance around in circles and would invent new magic chants to well-known folk music. (How interesting). Recently they had celebrated outdoors and were approached by a man with dog, asking what on earth they were doing. And Christine felt so proud when Elke explained they were witches and wanted to do a ritual - but alone, please...

Poor man, Luisa thought. His surprise is understandable.. how often do you see a bunch of women out in the dark, standing round in circles and singing? If they had been naked, Luisa asked, thinking about the habits of some coven....

No, no, they hadn’t been naked!

Well, that would have been the final straw anyway, Luisa thought. The poor fellow would have died of a sudden heart attack. The town must be full of rumours now, anyway, about the funny witches doing spells at night.

Luisa does not want magicians to hide for eternity in their broom-closets, but then again she has some strong ideas about what is the wrong way of propaganda- and behaving funny in public is one of these wrong ways, she thinks.

However, Elke had started to be Christine’s therapist , too. How she managed that, we can only guess at. Luisa was told that she had worked as a teacher... and whether teachers make good therapists I don’t know. But you know what these people are like... they read a bit about witchcraft, a bit about herbs and crystal healing and then they feel ready to heal the world.

And Christine was besotted by Elke, it seemed.

“Oh, you can see that she is a pagan when you visit her! All these beautiful things everywhere!!!”

(There we go again. We do not mind what the religion is like, as long as there is enough interesting decoration on the outside...)

“At the moment I am just happy and feel powerful. That’s what witchcraft is about: having power!!”

(No, it’s not. At least it isn‘t if you are a real practitioner.)

But Luisa kept quiet again and waited -maybe a bit nasty that was- until Christine came down to earth again...if you understand that picture.

And sure enough she came down to earth. I actually dare say Christine is one of these manic-depressive people whose happiness and confidence you ‘d better doubt all the time- because they themselves don’t realise it’s all a show and an illusion. Real confidence, and Luisa shares my opinion there, can only be gained by working on one’s personality... facing one’s faults, changing habits, changing patterns of thinking.

And actually, a normal confident and optimistic person would never talk about “ having power” ... because if we face reality we clearly see that life isn’t made that way. It’s the plan of the great architect that we have to lose from time to time.

Be that as it may, Christine phoned again and beat about the bush for a while. No, she didn’t want to talk about her problem. She actually just had phoned Karin. (Karin? The witch whose coven in her eyes had nothing to teach???)

She just wanted to say hello. Oh, well, there was nothing to tell her besides she was considering giving up her training and then to do something else. It’s no fun anymore... well, no she didn’t want to talk about it. But she had already messed up two work placements and there was only one chance left for her to get it right-or she could pack her bags and go home.

Yeah, why not go home. All she wanted at the moment, she told poor Luisa, was to find a man and have children. What had happened during her work placements? Well, nothing. After five days she just couldn’t cope anymore. She had a breakdown and cried. Why her life had to be such a misery she didn’t know. If only she had enough courage to jump out of the window!

What about Elke? She was unfortunately on holiday... (Aha!)

Well, as you can imagine Luisa was sorely fed up. She was tired of hearing Christine lamenting only because her beloved friend Elke had gone on holiday for a week. Didn’t that girl realise what a fool she was making of herself? This time Luisa tried to say a word or two and moreover sent a letter a couple of days later, saying she hoped Christine hadn’t jumped yet.

She never got an answer to that letter. Christine didn’t send a card to Luisa’s birthday in March, either. That’s why Luisa deliberately ignored her birthday in November. And didn’t phone at Christmas... or any other day. Later she learned that Christine was still alive and had actually visited Karin again. “Good,” Luisa thought “, that somebody else has to play “dustbin” for a change.”

I still can vividly remember Luisa sitting in my living-room in a very gloomy mood telling this story.

You have to understand that Luisa is the master of doom and gloom, anyway. A nice enough woman on the outside, there is some nastiness and harshness hidden in her soul. She is strict with herself and equally strict with others and if her good manners didn’t prevent it, who knows what actions she’d be capable of. I personally imagine her turning the dagger twice or more times in the wound after having stabbed somebody.

“Modern witches,” so judged Luisa “, seem to be psychotic! I am disgusted to see how many weak individuals turn to the craft and dabble with it, trying to find an entry back into a lost wonderland.

I am not surprised that they are laughed at. I am not even surprised somebody tried to burn them earlier on!!”

She took a sip of her cup of tea. In the meanwhile I tried to convince myself she only had said the latter due to her bad mood and because of a theatrical effect she hoped to cause.

“If they like fancy clothes and need the feeling of being special, why not join an amateur theatre-group or the like? But instead they run around and play the mighty witch to confuse those who are even more of a dreamer than they are.”

“But,” I said “you are a magician yourself!”

“That’s something different!” and so saying she gave me a very sinister look. “I am honest to myself and to others- that’s the difference. I know what I can and can’t do.”

And then we came to talk of Karin ...

When Even Love Spells Fail...

Luisa had always looked upon Karin as a very jolly and sociable woman who had friends everywhere. Married and owner of a house, she was sensible and had no worries.

Karin liked to collect things. She had a magic room full of books, swords, candles and the like. Some things she brought back from holidays in England and France. Looking at her library, you would have to assume she knew everything there is to be known about magic and occultism !

Karin liked to invite people and she liked to have a feast with delicious food, too. To cut a long story short: she enjoyed life. On top of that she led her own coven and read the tarot cards.

Well, I already mentioned that Luisa moved away and she and Karin saw each other only seldom from then on. Actually, Luisa concentrated happily on other things for a while to broaden her horizons.

While Luisa slept noisily in her bed one night, far away from her friend and dreaming, her little black mobile phone started beeping frantically.

A bit angry about having left it switched on and a bit puzzled about who was sending messages in the early morning, she had a look at the display.

The message read the following: “My husband has left me. Karin”.

That was the first message she had ever received from Karin and it was so uncanny that Luisa pinched herself twice before going to sleep again.

The next morning the message was still there.

Going to work Luisa thought about what could be done. For the time being she sent her some nice words and gave her a call in the evening. But in Luisa’s head there was something going on, because Karin’s message arrived only two days before she was about to go on holiday. Luisa wanted to visit southern France.

You have to understand that Luisa has a strange way of thinking. Mainly it consists of “ought to be done” and “better not done” and so she cannot be counted one of those who enjoy life, but better one of those who live according to certain rules. I know that sounds very dull.

Anyway, some time later the grumpy and gloomy Luisa could be found at the train station phoning Karin. The message was the following:” I have sold my tickets and come to stay with you for two weeks. Put the kettle on!”

Luisa already looked forward to her cup of tea, but secretly prepared herself to face two weeks of crying, listening and comforting. And she needed all her strength.

Karin could not drive her little red car to fetch Luisa, because she had to take several tranquillisers a day. Therefore one of her neighbours awaited Luisa at the village station. So in the end she didn’t even have to knock Karin’s door- the latter awaited her already waving and standing in the front garden.

Well, at the beginning it was hard to broach the subject they were both ruminating on. So Luisa had a look around and found that everything looked normal apart from the fact that the husband was missing. The dogs and cats were there, all the books were there, the car and even his computer. It seemed he had just gone for a walk...

But there was a new picture on the wall in the dining room. Maybe a souvenir from their holiday... but better not mention that.

The house looked a bit dusty , too. Well, if you have a breakdown you are probably not in the mood for cleaning. Luisa then found out that Karin was in no mood for anything. She wouldn’t even cook for herself. You and I might think that tranquillisers are not healthy on an empty stomach- so did Luisa.

She therefore sneaked into the kitchen and inspected the fridge for something she could make a meal of. There were bits of everything in the fridge, but some of them Luisa preferred to dump in the bin. She ended up with some cheese, a few sad looking vegetables, an egg, milk and a handful of noodles she had found in a cupboard. Somehow she managed to make something nice out of it and then, while they were shovelling it in, Luisa began to probe Karin carefully.

Well, Karin and her husband had visited some friends and at the end of the evening he said that she had to go home alone. He’d stay there. And he didn’t want to come back.

Luisa asked whether they had had an argument

No, they hadn’t.

If he had another woman.

No, he hadn’t.

If he already had a flat and so on.

No, he hadn’t.

Karin thought it all came out of the blue! They had been on holiday some weeks ago and he had bought her a picture and they had so much fun. And then, that evening at their friends, he would just dump her in front of everybody and say their marriage was a lie and that he couldn’t go on like that.

“Oi,” thought Luisa “,it sounds like a midlife crisis!”

“It seems like he’s possessed by a demon!” Karin said.

But her speech was interrupted by ten minutes of crying and because Luisa isn’t the emotional type unless it involves shouting and slapping faces, she just held Karin in her arms and said nothing.

Finally Karin confessed that Sabine had stayed with her before she arrived and even had shared her bed so that she would find some sleep. She said she didn’t know how she would stand it all alone in that house now that her husband had left. And then, while Karin was weeping again, but this time out of thankfulness, Luisa thought there was a lot she’d do , but certainly not share her bed.

Well, some days went by and you will already have guessed that it was inevitable for Karin and her husband to meet again in order to sort some financial things out.

But Karin, as a typical witch, had made up her mind to use this chance for some magical action. Luisa could not quite understand why. Who wanted to have such a coward of a husband back?

What was the point of trying to force him back via magic, especially a magic that requires a lot of strength and repeated action ... and in the end you will always know you ended up with a kind of slave and not a person that really loves you. And even more important- what had happened to Karin’s inner pride? A witch does not cry after men and surely does not get pushed around by men!

Grumpy Luisa thought about a money spell in Karen´s favour to make sure she would get the most out of her divorce. She dwelt for a moment on a spell of impotence, too. But the thing with Karin was, that she believed her husband to be influenced by others in his decision and she was convinced he loved her. So she wanted him back.

Before the day of their meeting Karin decided to bake some of her husband’s favourite biscuits. You might think that was a very charming idea. But when Luisa came down into the kitchen, Karin said “Bring me a needle!”

“A needle?” she asked. And then she suddenly comprehended what her friend was up to and thought “Yuk!!”.

She watched Karin pricking her finger and letting several drops of blood drip into the dough. Luisa was somehow fascinated.

“Deepest Middle Ages...” she thought. She remembered a medieval spell. “ Take a whole nutmeg and swallow it. When it exits your body after several days, grind it to powder and mix it into the desired person’s food...”

Well, a few drops of blood are at least more civilised than that spell.

When Karin saw Luisa staring at the dough, she made a comment, but all that Luisa replied was something like “I don’t eat that!”.

You see, witches are nice persons, but in general it is a good idea always to bring you own food... just in case they are in love with you. “What are you going to do when he’s not touching them at all?” Luisa asked while Karin put the tray of biscuits into the oven.

“We’ll see....”

Their big day arrived and Karin had decided to dress very smartly, especially to show him that she was not neglecting herself only because he had left her. She put on a very short, sexy red dress that Luisa had never seen before and looked at her reflection in the bed-room mirror. She searched for her red high heeled shoes, too, while Luisa was looking at her in astonishment.

“Do you think that’s the right method of trying to impress him?” she asked.

“Why? He has always liked that dress...”

“But.. it’s probably very obvious what you are up to. Anyway, it probably is more of a shock to him when you just ignore him and behave as if nothing had happened.”

“Probably...” she said, repeating the word that had become Luisa’s favourite word during the recent days. Well, what else can you say if you try to make suggestions? Luisa is not the type for “perhaps”.

Luisa likes looking around in other peoples’ rooms, though it’s normally the living-room and library. “Wow!” she said. “That’s nice lingerie. Are you still wearing that??”

She pulled a set of purple underwear out of the cupboard.

“Oh! I wore that during may hippie time. “ Karin said and added her husband found it too provocative.

“Shame.”

But her friend was searching for something else now and finally carried a small wooden box to the bed.

“I am looking for my chain.”

Luisa’s eyes brightened up at the sight of jewellery. Silver bangles, rings with gem-stones, some amulets, golden chains... anything was crammed into that box. A paradise for Luisa, who has the same habit of collecting sparkling things as does a magpie.

“Oh,” she crowed “, that’s Tibetan!”

It was a kind of amulet with a snow lion on it.

“And you can put poison into it!” she exclaimed on discovering that it was a very tiny round-shaped flask.

“You can keep that if you want.”

“Cool! Thanks!”

And then Karin discovered her chain in the very bottom of the box.

Karin’s little red car drove swiftly around the corners until it finally arrived at a block of flats. Luisa opened her eyes and stopped praying when she felt the engine had stopped. Of course Karin had not taken her tranquillisers , but nevertheless she felt driving with her friend was a bit of a risk.

Luisa followed her slowly up the stairs and put on an a poker face, not knowing how to behave in that situation. But as soon as they entered the door of their friends, she was greeted by Karin’s husband with a smile and a kiss on her cheek. In due course her face became even more like a mask- because one just does not kiss Luisa! And she didn’t really want to be friendly to someone who had hurt her dear friend so badly!

They all set down and had coffee and cake and a talk, but somehow Luisa must have had a kind of shock, because she cannot recall what was said. She remembers only vaguely that Karin was stupid enough to ask her husband to come back.

And he did not touch the biscuits. Instead Luisa watched Karin’s female friend nibbling one and in due course her stomach decided that she was not really feeling hungry.

Karin’s husband was calm and quiet. From his point of view there was nothing to say and Luisa thought that she wouldn’t discuss private matters either -with three other people in the same room.

She concentrated on her cup of coffee and sighed secretly as Karin started crying again. She heard her talking about fairness and unfairness... and Luisa thought that was pointless.

“In war and in love everything is allowed,” she remembered. He had decided to walk out of this relationship and Luisa thought there was nothing else to do. He started this dirty business and

if it was for Luisa, he could go on with his business for the rest of his meaningless, loveless and calculated existence.

But she would give him something to remember her... she would have been at the solicitors already.. she would have sold the car and the house and would know exactly what was in his little filthy bank account. She would have set him a date to fetch his stupid computer and books and half rotten jeans from her house and then made sure she never had to see him again.

She would order the solicitor to write him letters and she would refuse to talk to him on the phone ever again. She would have given his pets away that he loved so much but that he had left behind so that Karin had all the work...Ha!

She wouldn’t beg him to come back! He had left over night and he had not even a flat! He had not planned anything yet and Luisa would make sure he wouldn’t come very far anyway. Coward!

What’s the point of sitting here sobbing on other people’s settee? He’s enjoying that! Luisa would ask him to say which furniture he wanted to keep and then sell the rest of it and then she would spend the money immediately . ..

“Luisa?” a voice said.

Luisa looked at her empty cup and put it on the table.

“Eh.. thanks for the coffee. See you again,” she muttered and shook hands with everybody. She squeezed herself catlike through the half open door and breathed in with relief.

“He hasn’t eaten the biscuits.” She remarked while they were driving home.

“And why should he,” she thought “, knowing his wife is a witch.”

“I know.” replied Karin.

The very next day another friend of Karin’s arrived and drove them to the next best solicitor. Luisa saw her going into the office and coming out again in distress.

“He says he can’t do anything for me as long as I don’t know about my husbands financial matters.”

“What do you want to tell me, Karin? You don’t want to say you don’t know anything, do you?”

“Err.. no.”

“You’ve got a house, for god’s sake! How much is paid off the house already?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you know how much he’s earning a month?” asked Luisa who could not hide the impatience in her voice.

“No.”

“You said he’s got money in his account for your pension! How much?”

“I DON’T KNOW!!”

“BRILLIANT!”

Luisa couldn’t believe it. Her friend had put her own life completely into her husband’s hands and it seemed that she wasn’t even able to tell her the most simple things.

For a moment she thought she knew why he had escaped this marriage. “Marriage,” Luisa thought “,means shared responsibility. He has done all the work. She has lived like a child lives with its parents.”

The afternoon they spent relaxing and Luisa was bored and tired. She wasn’t in the mood for anything and Karin had gone upstairs.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was Christine who at that time still was Luisa’s friend and had heard the bad news. After a long talk she decided to come for a visit (and this decision came hesitantly because she didn’t want to cause additional trouble).

Luisa jumped up the stairs in good spirits and shouted “Karin! We have to drive to the station tomorrow. Christine is coming!”

“How nice!” said Karin, sitting in her magic room. She held a small box in her hands.

“What’s that?” asked Luisa.

The label on the box said “witches mirror”.

“I bought it last month. It’s a bit better than my crystal ball.” She unwrapped a little round plate which was completely black.

“You have to hold it in the right angle, so that you see a triangle of reflected light in the middle of the mirror. Then you stare into that triangle.”

Luisa had heard a lot about magic mirrors. Some people say pictures appear inside the mirror, whereas others argue, that it only is a question of concentration and the pictures appear actually in the wicht’s own mind- staring into the mirror only leads her into a trancelike state.

Luisa herself had actually learned that an ordinary mirror can do the trick, but because she is as psychic as a brick, she only saw her own face changing shape again and again, but she never managed to have a look on future events.

Karin set back in her chair and held the mirror in front of herself. She stared into it motionlessly. Luisa, who set in an armchair in a somewhat curled up position, went quiet and craned her neck to see if something was going to happen. A minute had passed when Luisa suddenly became aware of a misty blue light which floated between the mirror and Karin’s face.

“Fascinating,” she thought. “I bet the actual pictures manifest for Karin in this fog.”

“Maybe,” she added as a kind of afterthought “, our mind works a bit like a overhead projector.” She imagined Karin seeing the flat they had visited yesterday and her husband walking around in it.

“What can you see?” she whispered.

“ I can see my husband ... walking around restlessly, “ her friend whispered back.

Luisa was not surprised. It had happened before that she saw pictures in her mind which actually belonged to other people.

She had once watched over Christine while she was in a half trance and she could tell what her friend had seen even before she opened her mouth to speak. It must be one of these gifts of our early ancestors and I personally think it is a kind of telepathy which in Luisa’s case is limited on pictures only.

Karin lowered her hands and sighed. “We’d better think about what we do tomorrow..” she murmured, wrapped her mirror and put the box back onto the bookshelf. Luisa followed her lazily, not without looking at the rear of the little box.

“Ha! Glastonbury!” she said in a rather satisfied voice.

Tomorrow came rather quickly and when Luisa awoke she felt as tired as she did the night before. Grumpy Luisa is not much of a morning person, anyway, and if I might mention it, you’d better leave her alone in the early hours of the day. She wouldn’t talk to you, let’s put it that way.

But when she had had a shower and went downstairs, Karin was still in bed, so she opened the backdoor into the garden and relaxed with a cup of tea. It was half an hour later when Karin arrived in her morning gown, already in a hurry because she had to be at the station for eleven o’clock. And she had not yet had breakfast and she needed a bath and the dogs needed a walk...

“The cats are in the garden. I’ve fed them.” That was Luisa’s only comment and she shook her little head, wondering when this lady would ever manage to organise her life. When the sweet smell of lavender spread itself downstairs, Luisa knew she was having her bath. The dogs looked rather disturbed and disappeared into the back garden. “I don’t want to be the gardener...” she thought and laughed. One of them came back and wanted to be fussed over.

Then a slam near the front door told her that the postman had been around and she found out he had delivered some bills.

“Now, that lot has to wait a bit for their money..” she mumbled.

At quarter to eleven Karin had had her breakfast but had vanished again upstairs and Luisa washed the dishes.

“Karin, we have to go now!!” Luisa shouted . She found her on the phone with Belinda.

“I shall tell you that you are a super girl!” Karin said and Luisa thanked Belinda a lot but tipped with her index finger frantically on her watch to make Karin understand that they were in a hurry.

Luisa finally managed to drag her friend into the car and they drove so fast, the wheels hardly touched the road. But fate was on their side and the train was running late.

Luisa used the spare minutes to smoke a cigarette, much to Karin’s annoyance who had grown out off such habits since her time as a hippie. And , so I was told in confidence, many witches have a kind of health tick which extends from vegetarian food to cotton clothes but funny as it is does not hinder them to drink vine and mead till they have a glassy look in their eyes. However, Luisa decided to take no notice.

Christine arrived and went quiet as she had to listen to the latest developments while they were driving home. She didn’t become much bubblier when they had dinner and Luisa got the feeling that Christine was not really emotionally touched by Karin’s fate. Or probably she tried to avoid any involvement in the argument. She was sorry for Karin having to leave the house though, to that she had been invited so many times to celebrate with the coven.

In the late afternoon they decided to take the dogs for a walk and crossed strawberry and potato fields. Tails wagging the beasts ran around and searched for things to pick up and carry around in their snouts. When it became a nuisance they luckily entered a little forest and the three friends tried to find a path that would lead them through it and out again.

They were not very successful. Christine walked in front of Luisa and Karin and looked like a lost deer. Suddenly, it almost gave them a heart attack in all this silence, a branch above them cracked and fell almost on Christine’s head, ready to split her skull in half. They just stared and couldn’t believe their luck. One step more and it had hit their friend.

Fed up with that forest they walked back on the same path they had come from and started to walk home. In a distance somebody was flying a kite and they admired its movements. Actually, they

were moving straight towards the child and its kite with Luisa, who was in a somewhat grumpy mood, being ahead of her friends and not paying any notice to anything.

All of a sudden Luisa heard a whistling noise she had never heard before and saw a shadow growing on the very pavement she stared at.

BANG!!

There was not even one centimetre of space between Luisa’s foot and the kite. She slowly turned her head, to make sure it would not fall off, I guess, and fixed her eyes with a gaze of disbelief and ill wishes on the child and its father.

The latter rose his arm and shouted something apologetic, but Luisa was furious and cried “I hope you have a good insurance !! Just in case somebody gets murdered, you know!”.

Meanwhile Karin and Christine had arrived at the scene and dragged Luisa with them who was still complaining about children not being properly supervised and was wishing that brute a good hiding so that he couldn’t sit on his bum for the next four weeks .

“What are you telling me to shut up for!! I could be dead now!” she complained and got her arm out of Karin’s grip who tried to calm her down.

“Even the elements have formed a complot against me..” Karin lamented who understood the branch and kite attack to be something aimed at herself.

“Why doesn’t anything hit you then?!” was Luisa’s gloomy comment.

On that evening Luisa decided it was time to take some action and the number of three witches seemed ideal.

“We are going to hold a ritual.” Luisa announced and searched Karin’s magic room for useful materials.

Today Luisa admits this probably was a bad idea, because you should not work with people who take tranquillisers ...

However, she got hold of three white candles, sage incense and salt .

When it was dark, the three met downstairs in the living-room, Karin looking curious and Christine rather indifferent.

Luisa only had a rough idea about what she wanted to do.

“Right,” she said. “ This is going to be a banishing ritual. To make one thing clear from the very start: I don’t want anybody talking about private matters or making stupid comments while we are working. I want you to concentrate on the things that we want to ban from Karin’s life and on nothing else.

Karin, I want you to visualise your anger and the things you fear might happen in the future and I want you to connect all these things with the white candle you are holding. Everyone of us will hold such a candle while we are walking widdershins .

I will start to chant spontaneously and it would be nice if you could join in. Don’t let the energy run low! I want us to blow out the candles simultaneously while the energy level is still high and throw them into a pot which I am now going to get out of the kitchen.”

With these words she vanished into the kitchen and Karin and Christine looked sheepishly at each other. This probably had been the biggest sermon any witch had ever held in this living-room before.

Luisa returned with a big pot full of water and, to tell a secret, she felt a bit nervous about the chanting part. Luisa has a big talent for poetry, but then again she usually has time to sit for hours in front of her desk , chewing on a pen.

“Oh my god!” she thought and then remembered that she wasn’t very religious.

“Ok, we are cleaning the circle first. Here is some salt water... Christine, can you do that?”

So Christine started to sprinkle salt water in the four directions and built the circle with a silent invocation.

Luisa started to light the sage in an incense burner.

“Oh, I hope the fire alarm doesn’t ..” began Karin. “Silence!” snapped Luisa. If she hated one thing about Karin, then it was her habit to talk and talk and talk- even in the most unsuitable moments.

“The circle is cast? Brilliant! Let’s light the candles. You are first, Karin.” When each of them held a candle, Luisa walked up to build the head of the their procession and started walking in a slow pace. You could have heard a needle drop to the floor in the tense silence. Luisa concentrated her inner eye on Karin and started to chant :

“ May the hatred that we suffer be carried away by the force of wind...”

“Oh, good idea, “Luisa thought. “Let’s do it by using the four elements.”

“May the memories be buried in the darkness of mother earth..”

“May the waters of life wash our tears away ...”

“ May the burden that we carry melt away by the force of fire...”

“Come on girls,” Luisa thought in a corner of her head. “Don’t let me down now.”

“May everything turn out fine for those in love..” she heard Karin say.

“Oh no, Karin! What the heck is she doing? She is making wishes- for me!” Luisa suddenly realised. Well, Luisa was unhappy in love at that time, but she couldn’t think about anything that was more out of place than good wishes for herself when that ritual was meant to banish something from Karin’s life. “She is ruining the ritual.” she thought in despair.

“May our sorrows fade away ..” it came out of Christine’s direction.

“May those who harm us be trapped by their own stupidity... “ Luisa chanted a bit louder than usually to make Karin get the message.

“May there be trust and understanding in our love life...”

“What love life are you talking about woman!” it screamed in Luisa’s head. “ You are facing a divorce and this stupid ritual is for you!”

Luisa felt her body getting hot with anger. But she felt something else, too. Outside the circle, there was something building up... she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it their frustration that kind of materialised? Or was it... a being? A ghost?

“Oh my god!” she thought again. She left the chanting up to Christine and Karin and concentrated.

Whatever it was, it grew stronger and Luisa could almost feel it physically. She wondered whether her friends had noticed, too. She wondered, whether she could handle such a thing... or such a being. And she felt the doubt in her mind ... and then she was convinced she couldn’t...

She started listening to Karin’s chants again.

“I want to hit her!” she screamed silently . “I just want to turn round now, while still walking, and hit that stupid woman! I want to hit some sense into her empty stupid head! Stupid- stupid- stupid!”

The desire to hit Karin almost overwhelmed her. Her right hand, holding the candle, trembled suspiciously. With the last spark of common sense she turned to face the altar, which made Karin bump into her back, and threw her candle in the pot, screaming “Go away! Don’t turn to me! I ban you for eternity!”

This was so spontaneous that her friends needed half a minute before they did the same and I doubt that any of them noticed the face Luisa put on- her eyes could have killed you. “Open the circle carefully. The banishing of all elements has to be correct!”

Turning to Karin she said “Those candles have to be buried, but far away from your house.” But indeed she could not have cared less whether Karin was listening or not. She felt loathing against her inside.

Maybe she had already spent too much time with her, always listening and comforting, dealing with her mood swings ..

Maybe it was time for her to go back home. Luisa dropped into an armchair, but she could not calm down. The aggression inside herself hardly could be suppressed and she had a burning sensation all over her face. How she wished she could hit out on something or somebody!

But then again she tried to find out about that presence she had felt during the ritual. Was it still there? Darkness surrounded Karin’s house. As Luisa tried to look into the garden through the terrace door, she could only see a blackness that seemed to swallow all and everything. It was silent.

Her friends re- entered the living room and sat down on the sofa, not saying a word. Luisa kept quiet and stared at her reflection in the door’s glass pane. She looked edgy... a sharp outline, a small bundle of energy, sparkling eyes, her fist ready to strike out.

She returned to her armchair and in an attempt to burry her emotions, she looked very tense.

“Are you all right?” said Karin in what Luisa thought was a candyfloss- voice.

“Yes! I’m fine!” But Luisa’s voice was harder than usual and sounded like the strike of a whip- and she had just told a lie. If Karin had noticed it, she was playing it down brilliantly...

“What a nice, powerful ritual that was! I think you are a very good witch. I am not surprised that you and Belinda can’t get on with each other- you are both so very strong personalities..”

Luisa only rose an eyebrow.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” asked Karin now in a quite upset voice.

“Nothing. I feel just a bit aggressive. That’s all.”

“I feel sad...” whispered Christine .

“Really? Well, I am feeling very happy after this ritual!” stated Karin and looked at her friends in disbelief, but with a faked smile.

“What a smiling bundle of candyfloss...”Luisa thought. She imagined a huge mountain of fluffy sweet pink stuff and compared it with Karin.

“I think the ritual was faulty. “ she commented.

“Really? Why? It was brilliant.”

Luisa sighed. She hated telling people her emotions, but this time, it seemed, she had no other chance to get rid of her frustration. And to get rid of the candyfloss’ stupid smile.

“Listen,” she began. “ I told you at the beginning that I want you to concentrate on your situation- and ONLY your situation! Do you think I have not noticed that you were making wishes for my love life?! First of all there was NO place whatsoever for wishes in this ritual and SECONDLY I don’t know where you got the bloody idea from to do anything magical about my personal circumstances. I HAVEN’T asked you to do anything and certainly don’t require any help!”

“But I only want the best for you! I know that you need some help- I am not the only person who is unhappy. And I don’t want to be egotistic.” Karin explained with another stupid smile.

“You are certainly not egotistic by doing something useful for yourself for a change! And THANK YOU so very much, but what you think is the best for me, is probably NOT MY IDEA of the best!

To put it into plain English, if the person I love cannot make a commitment and cannot decide what he wants, then CERTAINLY I don’t need a stupid ritual to put it right, I rather send him back to where he came from!”

Karin’s chin dropped.

Luisa slowly realised that she had shouted and not spoken. Then she got aware of what she had said. Yes, that was the matter with this woman. She was like candyfloss, always sweet. And she wasn’t realistic. She wasn’t edgy. She hated things were changing, she hated the fact that love was not something heavenly eternal, but a thing that was faulty and changeable and needed to be worked at.

She was sticky like candyfloss, she didn’t want to let go, even if the whole situation she was in was totally rotten.

“At least you could argue back,” she thought. “ don’t look at me that stupidly ... I swear I know why he has left you... is there any passion in your soul? Can you shout and scream and throw things?!! My god, you are so pathetic! “

“Please don’t argue,” said Christine meekly after something that seemed like hours to Luisa.

In reality, it had only been half a minute. “Well, “ said Luisa. “ at least you are feeling happy. I suppose that was all we were aiming at.”

While Luisa was talking about Karin I had half a smile on my face. This woman could talk herself into a state of rage about other people’s stupidity. I gave her another cup of tea as she finished.

She took a sip and said, looking across to me over the rim of her cup “Of course you know what happened to poor old Karin! “

I nodded. But that was a different story again!