I was staying in a room in a building resembling a college dormitory located in West Berlin. I had been in Berlin a couple weeks and was only going to stay there about a week longer before I went back to Ohio to visit my father and my mother, who were the only ones who knew where I was at the present. The phone rang, I picked it up and a man from the front desk said a telegram was there for me.
I immediately feared the worst. Maybe someone had died. Maybe even my mother had died. I raced from the room and ran down one flight of stairs, almost falling, to the front lobby. The man who had called me hadn't even had time to hang up the phone when I burst in. He pointed across the room and said the telegram was on a bench. I looked. I didn't see it at first, but then spotted it lying on a couch.
I ran to the couch, grabbed the telegram and ripped it open. I wanted to know immediately what was wrong. The first page (of what appeared to be a telegram consisting of many pages) was typewritten on a page of regular typing paper. I tried to read it, but there didn't seem to be enough light in the room. I thought the man at the reception desk and some other people in the room were probably also interested to know if anything serious had happened. But although I didn't read the first page closely, I could tell by glancing over it that it was an ordinary letter and it didn't have bad news. I then noticed the cost on the front of the telegram was eight dollars and something, and thought that seemed very cheap and that perhaps it wasn't as expensive as I had thought to send international telegrams.
I proceeded back to my room and once there began looking more closely at the contents of the package. I quickly gathered the letter was from someone whom I had never met who was responding to an ad I had placed in some kind of magazine, probably concerning dreams. I wondered how the person had obtained my Berlin address and concluded my parents must have given it out to the person. I was surprised whoever it was had gone to all the trouble to write me in Berlin.
I leafed through the packet and quickly discovered several pieces of art work on very stiff cardboard the size of writing paper were also included. The art work appeared to be some unique-looking collages. They consisted mostly of very colorful backgrounds with only one or two pictures glued to the foreground. I had never seen anything quite like them and was unsure exactly how to classify them. I found them intriguing and was delighted to have received them.
I was gathering that the person who had written me was a woman (probably in her early 30s) apparently somehow involved with psychology. Suddenly I noticed on one of the collages she had pasted a small picture of herself. Actually I discovered two pictures. Her features reminded me somewhat of Mireya (a Dallas acquaintance). From the pictures she didn't appear to be physically very attractive, yet that didn't matter much to me because I perceived much spiritual beauty in the woman.
I found one collage which consisted of two pieces of cardboard together and which had to be opened up to be seen. I opened it and was surprised to see a stand-up kind of collage unfold. I needed a minute to discern that it appeared to represent a hill cut out so the inside could be seen. On the inside were arranged five or six horizontal shelves on which were sitting various objects which apparently had symbolical value. I noticed the American flag appeared twice, once on the highest shelf and once on a lower one.
As I was looking over the piece it seemed as if the woman who had made it and someone else were actually sitting near me also looking at it. The second person asked the woman who had made the piece if that was the way she had really wanted to make it and the woman responded that that was exactly the way she wanted it.
Copyright 2003 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
