She reached for a red apple and handed it to me. Her voice sounded a little rough, deep, but still soft. Once again, she had managed to surprise me. To captivate me. "Sarina." I cleared my throat. "If you need anything, feel free to ring the bell." She remained silent and continued to look at me calmly.
Marianne Kohnert, DPV - Hamburg On the first of April, an old woman moved into the flat next door.
In July, I can no longer see any light in her windows when I come home in the evening. I´m not surprised. On Sunday, I walked down the steep street to the old town centre in the blazing midday heat. It smelled sweetly of rubbish. Two pairs of women´s shoes lie on the cobblestones in front of me, one appears to be a pair of dancing shoes, the other a pair of running shoes, they lie there as if broken off in mid-motion, one in a run, the other in a dance. One of the running shoes has fallen over. I can see the woman lying in front of me with one leg unnaturally splayed out, dead. Petra Sitta, German Psychoanalytic Society (DPG); IPPF Freiburg On April 1st, a short, elderly woman moved into the apartment next door. It had stood empty for months, ever since the Hauser family had left. One of them has to go, my analytical colleague had once remarked to me. After a tragedy like that, one of the families must leave. I remembered it well, for the tragedy had taken place in April too— just a year earlier. My neighbor had wanted to go shopping but had no desire to take along her lively five- year-old son, Finn. So she asked around the neighborhood to see who might watch him for an hour. Anemone, already overwhelmed with her three sons, declined. But Heike, at home with her newborn twins and her own five-year-old, Tom, agreed—though with one condition: “I can’t keep an eye on Tom and Finn outdoors.” “But we’re big now!” the two best friends cried proudly. “We’re going sledding at the hill!” Incredibly, snow had fallen again in mid-April. A heavy, wet blanket that set children’s hearts racing with joy, while adults only sighed at the slush-filled streets and poor visibility. The sledding hill lay tucked away behind the playground in our little village, and children often played there unsupervised. Here, everyone knew everyone, and people looked out for one another. It was there, however, that the unthinkable happened—an accident no one would ever truly comprehend. Finn and Tom had been sledding, and then turned to building a snowman. How it unfolded, no one could later say. At some point Finn noticed Tom lying in the field. At first, he thought his friend was simply resting. But when he came closer, he found Tom
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