11/5

11/5

Martin Kettemann


USD 27,99

Format: 13.5 x 21.5
Number of Pages: 342
ISBN: 978-3-99064-200-9
Release Date: 25.05.2018
Middle-aged, single, and living in Germany, Thomas is unhappy with his love life.When Elisa, his chatroom friend in North Carolina, comes into his life, it seems that she might be his soulmate. Until he sees a scary side of her that he cannot understand.
Sunday Morning
July 27, 2014

“I am sorry; we had a nice evening. But it makes no sense that we see each other again.”
“Why?”
I am sitting in front of the computer at my parents’ house. I see the cloudy sky through the window, and it is humid. I have a can of green jasmine tea on the computer table and, I rub over my unshaven face. I didn’t expect to get a response from this woman I met the other night. So, I have been almost a bit surprised that she writes, “I am sorry …” It is just normal and what I learned over the last years. If I am investing a lot of time in writing emails and messages on dating sites I could meet here and there a woman for something to drink, maybe even for a whole afternoon or evening. But it seldom happens that a woman contacts me again or even wants see me again. It’s about the same if I would apply for a new job. The talks are nice, but because of so many applicants, they can chose you only if you are absolutely perfect for this job. At least companies are decent enough to write after it that they are not interested in you. But these women on the dating sites are just jumping to their next dates. Though I don’t mind, it is always frustrating.

I sip on my cup of tea, sign out and login to Facebook. Ah, there is a message from Ana! She asks how I am doing and writes that a trip to Hong Kong at the end of September wouldn’t be too bad. The rain season would be hopefully over, and she wouldn’t be too busy at that time.
I don’t know why, but for me it is always easier to get in connection with people who are living far away. It is kind of strange. More than once, I had the luck to meet people on pen pal sites, became friends with them and after some time, I met them where they live. And all these contacts were women. Of course, it was almost never about getting into a relationship with them, but they were interested in me. This is different to all the ladies around here. My most far away connections were to Americans. It was probably because of my passion for travelling there. I didn’t have any similar good experiences in other countries. But Ana is from the other side of the world. She is a Filipina who is working and living in the former colony of the UK. Hong Kong always interested me, and I wanted go there already three years ago. This was also the only trip I cancelled in my life. Shortly before my planned departure date in March 2011 happened the nuclear accident in Fukushima. The news was terrible in those days and the media excluded nothing. But there was also another reason that made it easier for me to cancel that trip. To the same time when the nuclear disaster started in Japan, I met a girl online who later became my first girlfriend. I’m sure that this would never have happened if I would had been in Hong Kong. Only because she had the same time off as me and I cancelled my trip, she could have visited me for a whole week from Munich. Without this time range, it would not have ended as it did, an eight month, long-distance relationship. Maybe it would have been better never to start this relationship, but I didn’t know. Veronika wasn’t that kind of girl who I would fall in love easily with after an afternoon together. It was the intensive exchange by phone calls, emails and messages for about two weeks before she came here and I saw her for the first time. She opened up her heart to me, and she didn’t hide her sad and dark past. But it was more, I was about to have my first chance in 37 years to get a girlfriend. On that Friday at the end of March 2011 as she came here, I thought in the f irst hours that this couldn’t go into anything. But her sureness about me and the big desire on each side made it happen that we ended up in a relationship.
I’m still staring at the message from Ana. It could be really cool to make my long-distance trip to Hong Kong this fall, I think. There is still something in me that doesn’t want to push the idea away of flying to America once again. But I don’t know where to go there. I can’t visit someone of my old friends there, and there isn’t any new pal at a new place I could visit. Time is also running away because my vacation time is planned from the last days of September. About Hong Kong, I am very excited, but what I know is that it would be hard to find an affordable place to stay. I know that Ana wouldn’t be able to help me much with this. As she said, she lives in a f lat of a big apartment building with the family for whom she is working. Thousands of Filipinas and girls from other poor Asian countries are working in Hong Kong for Chinese families. They clean their rooms, cook for them, watch the children or care for their pets. She told me that many of her friends are treated badly, but she is doing well and this Chinese couple doesn’t have any small kids. There is just a cat she has to look for. The only thing I find odd is that the room of the cat is bigger than hers.
I know if I want go there, I have to check hotels and flights soon.


Saturday Afternoon
August 16, 2014

“Hi Ana! I have booked the flights! ?”
“Wonderful, Thomas! When you will be here?”
“I will leave Germany on September 29 and will be in Hong Kong one day later. I still need an accommodation there. Do you know any inexpensive places to stay?”
“Mmmh … there is one on Chatham Road, but you have to look on their internet site. How long do you plan to stay here?”
“My flight is going back on October 11. I want check the Airbnb site. I’m sure that these private places are cheaper.”
“You will have enough time here to see a lot. As you know, I usually only have off on Sundays, but if you would find a place to stay close to my neighborhood, we can meet in the evenings and on October 2 and 3 I have off because of Chinese holidays here. I don’t know anything about Airbnb, but you are the traveller. ?”
“Well, I have booked twice with Airbnb. My first time was in Boston two years ago. The hosts, three Korean girls, were nice, but the place was small and kind of dirty. I had good experiences in Ireland this June. At least the first place in Dublin was wonderful. A teacher, from Canada, was the host, and she cared a lot about me.”
“She cared about you?”
“Yes. She took me from the airport, gave me advice about what to do in Dublin, dropped me off one day in the city and even baked a cake on my birthday there. ? But it was not only this, I had also some nice conversations with her about spirituality. Since her husband died, she into Buddhism and meditation. She recommended that I go to a meditation group in Dublin one evening there.”
“I wish you could stay at my place. Do you know what you want see here?”
“I still haven’t any plans. Of course, I would like to go up to the Peak, go in the center of Kowloon, try some typical Chinese food, maybe go on a hike on one of those green islands there … and maybe go to a fortune teller. ?”
“You can do all this and much more because you have a lot of time. I will ask my female boss for a place we can go to eat and where they have menus in English. There are a lot of fortune tellers are Hong Kong, but I have to look where the good ones are. Have you ever been to a fortune teller before?”
“No. I’m just curious, and I read in my travel book that it is very popular to go to one in Hong Kong. And you know I’m always curious.”
“It’s late here; I have to go to bed.”
“Ok, have a good night and you will hear from me when I find a place to stay. Have a good night Ana!”
“Thank you, have a good afternoon Thomas. See U!”

I often spend too much time in front of the computer. I am already in the middle of the afternoon now. But on this afternoon, I make something that makes sense. It was about my Hong Kong trip. Instantly, I go on different hotel searching sites. But even hotels on big roads or in bad locations are hard to get under 100 euros per night. Also, the hotels on Chatham Road are on this price level. I noticed this before that Hong Kong is even more expensive than New York City where I was a couple of years ago. I login to Airbnb, and I saw quickly that it gives places to stay where it is cheaper. I find out that the difficulty will be to find a room with good ratings, and it should also be close to Ana’s place in Tsim Sha Tsui. At the main site, I see a lovely place on Lamma Island. Why not book in two places? First Tsim Sha Tsui and then Lamma? I am getting excited about this idea. Usually, I need a lot of time and ask other people what they think, but on this afternoon I’m fast and book seven nights in the city center and four nights on Lamma Island! I am just not sure if this place in the center is close enough to Ana. The rating seems to be very good, and the price is about 36 euros. On Lamma Island, I get it for 25 euros.
I know that Ana is sleeping there now, but I write the news in a message on Facebook.
I check my emails. There is the f light info, the Airbnb confirmations and two other emails. One is from Susan. She is one of my American friends. She belongs to those sort of pals that I met in the past. To be exact, I met her in Missouri 11 months ago. I booked that trip last minute too. I was writing with her for just about two months. The email contact to her was very different than all the other pals before. With most, it was like an email friendship. But with her, I was fast in a kind of pre-relationship. It was new and exciting, but also a bit strange because this happened just through emails. She was nice and friendly, and we shared emotional things. Also about things you usually talk about with people you know only in person. Weird that she sounded in many ways very dissimilar to me. She lives separated from her husband, has a daughter, smokes, is a night person and is addicted to getting new tattoos. I don’t know, but maybe this different life made me fascinated with her. The big disappointment came as I arrived there. Already after the first hour there, she told me at a dinner that she would feel suddenly so empty. I told myself before this trip that I don’t have to expect anything. But after such an intensive email conversation, anything in me hoped for more. Fortunately, I was only in Missouri for five days, and ten days in Las Vegas were following.
After a few weeks at home again, I comprehended that it made no sense, and we switched quickly to a friendship level. I am still in contact and sending her emails, postcards from trips and sometimes packages on birthdays and Christmas for her and her daughter. Now we are on the same level as I am with my other US friends. But with her, I am almost daily in conversation. With some old friends, there isn’t that intensive connection anymore.
The other email is from Elisabeth, a brand new pen pal from North Carolina. Because of my Hong Kong plans, my many other pen pals and also because it is frustrating sometimes to invest so much time in making friends or whatever through in the internet, I’m not too excited about a new pal. But it is already her sixth email in just a week. I have a quick feeling to see who is friendly, who is interested in me and also what kind of contact can lead into anything or not. It is too early to say anything about Elisabeth, or Elisa as she likes to be called. But single, no kids and open to talk about different subjects makes her curious to me. Further, she writes that she would be a highly sensitive person too. It is nice that there is no need to explain that a highly sensitive person doesn’t mean to be sensitive in a general way, that highly sensitive means to have a wider perspective as others and that the stimulation from the environment can be overwhelming. She doesn’t have my green tea passion, but she is interested in the teas I drink and much more.
I write both women back and decide then for a small tour with my bicycle out to the fields. I need some movement and fresh air after this whole afternoon inside.


5 Days Later

Ana indicates in her messages that the place I booked in Kowloon wouldn’t be so great. Not because of the location, but because it would be a bit away from where she lives and she would have to find out how to get there by bus. I notice that it is not easy to reach from the airport or to get to the subway to get around in the city, or MTR as is it called in Hong Kong. Damn! Why didn’t I research enough before I made the booking. I check my bookings on Airbnb again and see that the cancel fee isn’t too high if I don’t wait too long with it. But before I do this, I had to find a better place. There were several accommodations in busy Tsim Sha Tsui. They were all good to reach by MTR. I look again for the ratings, and they were not as good as the place I booked. Plus, they were more expensive. I selected the best and sent the address in a message to Ana.
Besides these Hong Kong plans, it is an usual work evening. A groundhog evening and also the whole day was a groundhog day. I often felt like the main role in this popular movie from the ‘80s. I couldn’t get out of the things in my life. There are always these worries and problems from my parents, especially from my mom. She has one health issue after another, and she always makes the close people around her responsible for anything in her life. The people who care the most about her, but mainly my dad. I am wondering about his strength. He works so much, has endless patience with his wife and cares intensively about her and his family. But these worries have left their mark on him. He had more serious health issues in the last years than my mom, from cancer to heart problems recently. The only thing that makes him happy is to see his grandchildren, my brother’s kids, and going on trips. Also, this becomes more difficult with my mom, but as soon they were away they were both enjoying it. My relationship with my parents is good and strong, but not always healthy. I probably would need more distance, as a highly sensitive person, I was too concerned about anything with them.
And there is my job. I am at same company since I left school many years ago. There were good and bad phases, it depends on what I’m doing and especially who I am working with. It is not what I dreamed to do as a kid. But these last five years until summer 2014, I had a kind of comfortable workplace. I did well with my coworkers in something like an internal call center. I’m absolutely not a phone talker, but I always like to be in contact with other people and help them. But three weeks ago, I got told that starting in September I would have to work in the investment group of the department. I was not happy about this news, but it is something I can’t do anything about. I just hope for the best and know that I will make my job as good as possible. I don’t love my job, but I appreciate it. I get my money every month for not doing anything too hard, and the big benefit is my many vacation days every year. These vacation days are needed for my trips. My only passion I have, except for the green tea. In the last years, I mostly travelled alone. I found out that it was more uncomplicated as any arrangement with my friend Michael. When we were younger, he only needed me on trips to do things that he wanted, and it always seemed that he never heard the word ‘compromise’ in his life. He has stolen my only passion during some trips, and I showed myself and others in the past 10 years that I am doing pretty good alone.
Also a part of my groundhog life is writing with these many women in the internet over the years. I almost could call it a hobby. Or maybe addiction fits even better. It is sometimes frustrating and boring, but also hopeful and exciting at the same time. Though I am spending too much time in front of computers, it is often also my only hope to change anything and meet new people.
In these days, I wouldn’t need to chat on my typical internet sites because my Hong Kong trip is coming soon, and Elisa started to keep me busy with her writing. Her emails got longer and more intensive in the last days. It is nice, but I don’t want overvalue it yet. People who are writing so much need attention, and they are sensitive. About this I am sure. As soon somebody is interested in me in this way, hope starts in me if I want it or not. But I know that the contact with Elisa is too new to say anything. She didn’t travel much in her life. As a young adult, she travelled once with her school class to Germany. This was her only official pleasure trip abroad, and she didn’t travel much in the United States either. Overall, almost any trip to another place had been to do with a movement to another place to live. She lived once in England and once in Ecuador. She indicated that it had to do with a guy, and it didn’t go well. Elisa wrote that she couldn’t imagine travelling like I was doing. She would be afraid, and as a highly sensitive person, she wouldn’t be able to deal with the crowds at some places. With this, she is referring to my Hong Kong plans. I know that this is untypical for a highly sensitive person, but I have this sensation-seeker gene in me. I need distraction from my groundhog days at home. When I am on my trips far away from home, in another country and culture, I feel excitement and often more happiness than at home. I need these “sensations” to break out at least a couple of times every year. Also when I don’t know from what I have to escape.

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