Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It seemed like it would never stop raining. The sky was a gray, heavy blanket, and a lone cyclist braved the driving rain along the seawall. The waves were driven over the pier by the strong wind and broke into a hundred thousand tiny droplets of water.
Pondering, a farmer stood at his window, packing his pipe, while his eyes scanned the surroundings for his cows, which had sought shelter under the tall trees at the edge of the forest. If it weren't raining so hard, he could see the village, but not today.
Today the world was small and gray. The farmhand was passing the window, sweating and pulling hard on the cart loaded with milk cans. You couldn't hear the clatter of the milk cans rumbling over the cobblestones in this strong wind.
The church tower in the distance was indistinguishable that day due to the dark, ominous sky. It seemed as if the village could easily be swept away by the torrential rain. The village of Gaasterland, with its church tower in the middle and cozy houses around it, seemed like nothing more than tiny cardboard dollhouses in the face of this natural force.
While the neighbor poured her sputtering coffee and hung her laundry to dry on racks in front of the coal stove that had just been stoked again, and the butcher across the street was working his meat with slapping sounds, I was born in the house on the little square. On a Friday morning in a typical Frisian village, like there are so many in Friesland.
The rain lashed against the windows in fierce gusts of wind, while I was being wonderfully wrapped in flannel cloths and the smell of coffee spread through the house. The pendulum on the mantelpiece ticked on, as if nothing had happened.
It seems I had a red mark on my head that turned into a huge bump after a day, and it only disappeared after three years. Some people are born with a helmet on, but I was born with an eggshell.

The little square

Because of the curious glances, I put on a hat outside on the street. Across from the house was a small square, with the butcher's house on one side, my paternal grandmother's little house on the other, and the turn to the right was my other grandfather and grandmother's garage.
Grandma's cottage on the little square was a cozy, snug cottage with old box beds. I smelled the scent of the old kerosene stove when you came in.
Dry sausages were hanging in the deep cellar. Next to us was a carpentry business where you could constantly hear the sounds of sawing and hammering.
The back house was pastureland that belonged to the farm further down the road. It was quiet in the village because there weren't many cars yet. My first memories date back to that time.
I still remember being upstairs in a crib with white sheets and white lace and feeling that man standing next to my crib. He was a man wearing white, flowing clothes, and he had a beard. We spoke through mind power, and I didn't even find it strange.
I wasn't a baby; I was thinking as a 'soul.' Desperately, I tried to remember in that little body where I had lived before. I had been somewhere, but I couldn't remember exactly how it was. My memory seemed wiped.
"Let it go," the man said. The law states that your memories fade and you start over.
I understood everything he said.
I vaguely knew where I came from and that it had been very pleasant, and  I definitely didn't feel like having to start all over again.
There was no turning back. I was persuaded to come here from somewhere else, but I regretted it immediately.
I was aware that I lived in a body, but I also knew that I wasn't an ignorant baby. Likewise, I 'knew' I had been somewhere like this before, somewhere I felt at home.
I told my supervisor that I thought I had been awake long enough now. And because I heard my mother coming upstairs, I figured I could start crying. That was the only way to let it be known that I was done with it.
The guide smiled, and I felt his love, but also his amusement when he said, "You're still an excited little thing. You haven't changed at all."
I stuck to my decision and gave a tearful serenade. But nothing happened; my mother just kept walking.
I even held still to listen to what the footsteps were doing. But no, they weren't coming toward me.
I wanted to look over the edge of the crib, but I couldn't lift my head. It felt like a huge restriction, and it made me irritated and desperate. I even panicked because I was stuck in that corset. I started crying again, but nothing happened once more.
"You're not stuck," the man said, "you can just get out.. You're tied to a rope, but it's stretchy.
I decided to try it, and it turned out I could get out. I could go anywhere I wanted, and there was still a connection to my small body.
Through the wall, I saw my mother walking down the hallway with a light blue laundry basket. But that wasn't the only thing; I could even pick up on her thoughts.
I heard her thinking, "But wait a minute, it's not time yet." First, I'm going to put away the laundry.
My attempt had failed; I even felt a certain disappointment. I went back into the bodice.
My supervisor smiled again.
"She didn't fall for it, did she?" he asked, laughing.
Annoyed, I looked in his direction, but I immediately went back outside to look out the bedroom window. A strange realization came over me.
People who lived on Earth apparently thought a baby 'knew nothing.' I knew I had lost my memory and that before I was trapped in a body that was too small, I had simply been big. Somehow a switch flipped in my head, and suddenly I had forgotten everything.

Sensitivity

When I was a bit older, I pulled my brother through the bars of the playpen by his hair because I didn't want to be in there alone. My three-year-older brother was crying loudly, and I felt his disappointment. After all, he meant well.
I always regretted it when I had done something like that, but I would quickly forget about it because there was always something new to discover.
This way of feeling what another person was thinking remained even when I was older. I didn't always feel it, but I did very frequently. It was catching someone else's thoughts, but they had to 'blow' my way, and my 'plume' had to be open.
It wasn't always open. At times when I was sad and angry, my little umbrella would collapse.
But other people's plumes were often folded down too, and then I couldn't feel their thoughts either. I didn't doubt myself. I experienced everything as completely normal, because after all, I didn't know any better. I was a bit of a know-it-all, a lively character, and had a lot of fun. I often talked incessantly in thot language to my friends, whom I always felt around me. And especially, I thought I could do anything I wanted. I wasn't lacking in self-confidence back then. Life was so simple. I either liked someone or I didn't, but I didn't think about it beyond that. I went my own way, just like every child does.
With my bare feet, I slid through the warm sand of the sandbox, and vague memories flooded back to me. I didn't understand where they came from, but as usual, I just let them come over me without thinking.
I stood up straight with my toes wiggling in the warm sand. Not only that, but I saw an image appear in my mind. Like a slide without a screen. I saw cacti and a large white house with bushes all around where you could sit. I felt like I was back in the past. In a life I once had. I had been a beautiful, slender young woman in a lovely dress, wearing a veil that only revealed my green-brown eyes.
As if in a trance, I glided barefoot through the loose sand of the sandbar. My arms moved gracefully, and I looked at my beautiful bracelets. I was especially delighted with those beautiful anklets I was wearing. I belly danced and swayed my hips. I turned my arms above my head.

Until I heard the baker, because then my blissful memories vanished instantly.
I ran barefoot through the garden because I knew I was going to get something delicious from the baker.
After this earthly interruption, the 'big outside world' started to beckon again.

I found a hole in the hedge. First, I put one leg through the hole, made it a bit bigger, and pushed myself through the hedge. I tried to stay on my feet, stumbling with small steps, with the privet leaves in my hair.
Like a belly slider, I pulled myself up onto the windowsill of the carpentry shop. All sorts of people came running outside. My grandmother, the butcher, and also my father had come home meanwhile. He put me on his shoulders, laughing. I was home faster than my escape attempt had taken.

Double

The conflicting feelings within me sometimes confused me. One side of me played as a child and listened to my parents, trying to conform to the rules that apparently everyone else thought were normal. The other side of me felt so different. I knew much more than I should at this age. I knew things I hadn't been taught here. I could think with my soul; I didn't feel like a child. Rebelliously, I wondered why I no longer knew where I came from. I vaguely knew I had been happy and not as small as I was now. It was sunny where I came from.
Who brought me here?
"The stork," my oldest brother joked when I asked him this in the sandbox. I had told him that I didn't actually live here, but I also didn't know how I had gotten here anymore.
I deliberately sabotaged his crane because he was laughing at me. I looked at my small hands in irritation.
In my opinion, I couldn't hold anything normally with those little fingers. I didn't have that problem 'back then'.
"You come from your mother's womb just like I do," my oldest brother finally explained, "because that's where all children come from."
I didn't understand. I even had a vision that all the children of the village came from my mother's womb. My brother quickly burst my bubble and said that children came from all mothers' wombs.
When the weather was bad, I liked to read aloud indoors. With my legs straight out in front of me on a chair, I read from my picture book, pretending to slide my finger along the lines. It was always the same cardboard book with pictures of ducks in it.
There was a picture of a little duck by the water's edge who didn't know where he lived anymore. I had long finished reading when I drifted off on a cloud of homesickness.
My throat got thick, and I actually just wanted to cry from sadness because I was lost too, just like that little duckling. I didn't know exactly where I belonged anymore either.

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