New Year´s bang

It started at 7 p.m. Nobody knows why. Bring in the cats; they´ll go bazurk. Feed and calm them.

Eleven thirty in the Berlin Fast Transit train. A goup of young people. They are igniting a canon cracker right under the seats. Is there a chance to ask for the use of this action?

10 to midnight on a Berlin re-vegetated landfill from after WWII from which most of the city can be viewed. Ear-deafening banging has started from fireworks going off. Why now?

Same location, midnight. Hell has broken loose. Everybody has ignited some sort of fireworks, nice to be admired. All of the city is illuminated.

The chime of churchbells is drowned in the noise. Vapour is rising from the ground. Respirative dust. As much as cars would never be allowed to emit in this country during a matter of years.

Don´t ask for the costs. How many suffering families could be fed. How much money is wasted.

Someone said, the poorer the families the bigger the fireworks. It all doesn´t go together.

There are people who would give the world for a quiet New Year. Who are hit by bombs and rockets and who loathe the sound of expoding ammunition.

My father always said: I don´t need any New Year fireworks. I have had enough of banging during war.