We were just bored.

   And now Kolja has changed the weed for M.E.T. – Drum and bass for Oliver Shanti and binaural beats. The Thai prostitutes for tantric massage workshops. Touching excluded.

  And I can’t sleep any longer.

  While we’re coming to rest in front of a heavy sound-proof door made of steel.

  “By the way… this used to be a slaughterhouse.” says Kolja and pushed the bolt aside.

  “Where the carcasses used to dangle from their hooks, now we sit on our cushions and meditate on the temporal nature of being, dude! If that won’t give us some good karma I don’t know what will!”

  The butcher coats replaced with robes and sandals. The butcher’s calls replaced with the submissive moans women in a holotropic breathing session. And the blood of the mute, sedated animals exchanged for a hope of something new and exciting.

  “Drive a genuine brown coal digger for 98 dollars a day. Steer a tank for 1000; fly a jet for 3000, with ejection seat and parachute 6000. Discover your true face, your authentic being. Reveal the flowing nature of existence. Eight days sitting without moving. Vipassana plus lucid dreaming workshop: 500 Dollars. Accommodation excluded.

  “Shit, it’s jammed!” Kolja says.

  I push him aside and press myself into the door with all my weight. My chest squeezes into the metal so that my breath becomes flat, my fingers clutched around the cold handle until they become white. Then there’s a jolt and a sound as if a branch breaks.

   “You ripped out the lock, dude!” Kolja says. “Well done!”

  My hands are numb as if I had rummaged in the snow for hours. I see the brown rust on my red fingers but I can’t feel them. Then I prop myself up on the elbows and try to stand; Slowly.

  My master says: pain is pain; winter is winter, the sun – sun, death – an idea; So to say.”

  “Dude, you should get your root chakra checked. It’s totally hyped!” Kolja says

   “I don’t even know if I’m awake” I say.