• The Sound Of Silence

I left the academy in the beginning of 1991 without a degree. I needed  a fixed income, to support my parents there, and to survive here. Finally I had to establish an existence. I moved again, this time in my first real apartment. Although it was just a sublease  it was completely furnished, it was mine, and only five minutes apart to U.B's apartment. I needed to get back to my original profession to find a job and started to work in a photo laboratory, where I was signed in and got my first employment permit. I worked there ten to twelwe hours a day for a starvation wage among other foreigners. They hated me, just because they felt threatened in their own existence. The system worked impeccably, one foreigner said to the other „go home!“ I didn’t care about that nobody talked to me, they not even greeted me. I worked alone in the darkroom in everlasting darkness and silence. It was not allowed to listen to a radio. Daily I had to develop thousands of photos manually. Since I dissociated myself from U.B. she seemingly wanted to work on the relationship, and wanted to keep it. I just didn’t have the energy after work for that. If I got home late at night I found every day a short notice or some little gift from her. That was nice. She was writing her dissertation at that time, and moved into an other apartment. It was also only five minutes apart from mine. As she signed her rental aggreement, I got aware, that we never would live together anymore. My heart was broken, I cryed (nobody saw that), but I helped her as good and as often I could with the refurbishment of her new apartment.

SIMON & GARFUNKEL • THE SOUND OF SILENCE