Struggling, I looked into the darkness. A strange creature approached my jetty. Cautiously, it seemed as if to avoid getting off the road or entering into something, for it was a cloud-dependent night. This creature had probably never been there before, so it was moving around the night with an awkward and mocking tone. It was a man, I finally realized. It rarely occurred to me that a man visited me on the bridge, but he was obviously a curious specimen. He also seemed more likely to have strayed than to visit me. But he did not ask for directions when he was standing next to me but seemed to be right.
“Good evening! Are you Ms. Nyx Nachtgedanken?”, he asked jovially.
“Hello! If you will, yes,” I replied.
“Permit, Dr. Herbert Hagedorn. I am an attorney and in this function I have been asked to see you here, here, in this rather odd to decadent seeming ambience. The matter for which I am going to see you is one which is to be described as extremely serious, so you would like to ask yourself the formal question,” he told me.
“It may be important or urgent or something else, you are here with me and therefore my rules apply. So, you can talk to me as you want,” I said succinctly.
“I must ask very much. It’s a business deal,” he said.
“Not for me. So what is it?” I asked, looking around. Actually, I was not interested in what he had to say. In business, he said, where I have nothing to do with business, just with stories. He opened his case briefly.
“Is there no table here? You cannot work like that,” he said.
“Of course there is a table. If you go across the lake, enter the castle, turn left and open the first door, you’ll find a table,” I said willingly, and he turned to go when he realized I was not going to follow him.
“Are not you coming with me?” he asked irritably.
“No, I do not need a table,” I replied truthfully, so he had to turn back. At last he took a thick portfolio from his pocket and held it right under my nose.
“I would like to ask you to read them carefully and sign them,” he added, not waking the folder before my nose, so I had to sneeze.
“Sign? I could paint a flower to you. I can get flowers. Is also much nicer than a signature,” I said musing.
“I do not want a flower, I want a signature!” he said, slowly becoming impatient.
“What’s in there?” I asked, ignoring the folder as well as I could.
“That’s why you’re supposed to read it so you know!” he replied indignantly.
“Then tell me. I do not like to read it all now. I do not have time for that,” I said.
“What does not time mean? They do not do anything,” he said in astonishment.
“Just, and my time is very well filled. So, what is there now inside?” I asked, in the vague hope that he would go again.
“The men have charged me to sue me, unless we commit ourselves out of court by finally compelling ourselves to ignore this part of mankind so ignominiously and discredit it by generalizing it,” he solemnly declared, and began again of his portfolio.
