Snow
The daylength was shortening and the winter was coming. Autumn, with its colourful games, was also leaving the pace to the quiet and well ordered mood of the winter. A Sunday morning I was going to pay the weekly visit to the local museums. I managed to wake up quite early, more than usual, because the weather forecast did not announce a favourable day for strolling around without an umbrella. Since I feel unsafe and annoyed when I cannot rely on both of my hands, I was accustomed, as I am nowadays, to wear an angling hat every time I felt in the need to cover my head against the rain. I had however forgotten it in my office at the bank and the purchase of an umbrella would have constituted an unnecessary expense. I proceeded cautious, pressing the soft and wet terrain to avoid to make my shoes dirtier than those of a member of the working class. Whose last members were slowly disappearing under the pressure of digital innovation and the rising costs to maintain an home in the centre of Munich. Walking along the Isar inspired me self confidence and quiet. I never felt alone even if I was acquainted to less than twenty people in a city of a million and a half. The crowd was familiar to me and I did not distrust the mob, as the common sense would have suggested in any other area of the planet. I left the Reichenbachbrücke behind me and the Deutsches Museum was getting closer. I stopped for a while. I looked at the river and at that mastodonic building that I admired so much in my youth. On a wall just close to the waterside, a graffiti was celebrating the Schickeria and the provocative actions of the local hooligans. I did not like it, but I liked even less that wall. It was not in a better shape than what I had seen in the former headquarters of the German intelligence. In both cases, those fragments of writing were testifying a decaying civilization, ready to cope with the latest drama. The audience could have waited for years, but for sure it would have been melodramatic. Suddenly the wind began to blow stronger, clouds were covering the sky. Against all my expectations, what was falling was more consistent than water, it was snowing. I was not dressed for the coldest winter and, although the humidity level in the air should have been significant, I did not find it such a strong inconvenience. On the contrary I decided to go further, in the direction of the Parliament and the Englischen Garten. I wanted to have a cake in Schwabing, in one of my favourite place that have been inaugurated during the previous months. If I could have caught a cold I really did not care. Nor would have a Vopo mesmerized by the dullness of the Wall while charged to prevent any undesired flight.
