Hannes or The foreign Land

A chance acquaintance. Two men of advanced age. What begins as childhood memories leads to an unresolved, deep conflict. We are all the creators of our own happiness. But what if we haven't learned to forge?

This book is not a search for guilt, but for the causes of deeply felt breaks in a person's life.

Excerpt:

"Hannes was an idiot. These are not my words. He himself once said that about himself. Maybe not in a pathological sense, he added. He is one of the more inconspicuous of his kind, after all he is still allowed to move freely among us.

Basically, Hannes even had something like charm that made him seem likeable to the majority of people around him. Even as a child he was quite popular, especially with older women. They appreciated him for his respect and the courtesy he showed them. He tried to endear himself to them, as he later did to his schoolmates and then to his childhood friends. That was his way of dealing with people. But he had a deficit from an early age.

We met on our walks, Hannes and I. We greeted each other when we met and one day we talked about this and that. Insignificant everyday pleasantries. Dogs bring people together. His dog and mine knew and accepted each other. If four-legged friends like each other, their two-legged friends usually like each other too. After all, only good people have friendly dogs. We also succumbed to this short-sighted conclusion.

It almost happened naturally that we ended up taking our walks together. While our dogs secured their territory by sniffing and marking, we talked about God and the world. We sniffed each other, so to speak, human-style.

We were both of retirement age and could organize our time as we wished. One of the blessings of our age. Hannes explained that I tend to be lazy and would probably not exercise as regularly without the dog. Sport was never really my thing. Much to my daughter's annoyance. She sometimes scolds me because of this. But everyone lives according to their own ideas. Even if sometimes they are the wrong people and you know it.

At first the two of us met by chance. But over time it became a habit for me. It was good to spend the time having a pleasant chat. This took my mind off the daily grind and brought a breath of fresh air into my head. We greeted each other, the dogs also completed their greeting ritual and then we began our tour. We talked about things that came to mind. For example, what we had come to appreciate about retirement."