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On the road to Brandenburg

“Aint no sunshine when she’s gone”.

“Aint warm when she’s away”.

The music floated from somewhere on the platform as our train paused at the station before it moved onto its final destination to Berlin Brandenburg airport. Up to that moment, the trip at daybreak had been filled with the typical unspoken marital tension. A tension that originated from differing expectations on how to prepare for a trip back home, a trip I had decided to skip this time and a trip that would be her first, alone and across continents. Though like all disagreements, the current one brought up memories of past ones, adding fuel to a fire that if left alone, would have died on its own. As even Winnie the Pooh rightfully knew, “Sometimes the smallest things takes up the most space in your heart”.

So the fire persisted silently as terrible May seemed to encroach into June.

Till Bill Withers husky voice floated into my ears with the lyrics I had heard countless times before. The only difference being up to then I had only heard those words.  However, at this particular instance and time, when even the Berlin summer sun had not risen to greet us and when we were stuck in a train station filled with drunkards and partygoers, I felt those words. I knew what Bill was singing about. The minor quibbles could not mask the fact that I faced a month without her, without all the joy and warmth she had added to a once solitary life in a foreign land.

So i reached out and held her hand. 

And she held mine back.

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