The first light of day separated the shadows from the things. Slowly, the black withdrew from space. Nature’s awoke. The beauty of the surrounding endured the rising sun. In the chilly morning air lingered the magic of a summer’s day. It was the 25th of August. However, this scene seemed so normal, the reader would be amazed, what really happened on this 25th of August within this so surprisingly normal scene.

It was at 8:45am when JE left home. He had a small and hasty breakfast snack and almost forgot his purse on the sideboard. When he left, he tried to lock his front door by using only one hand – in the other hand he balanced 5 CD cases just to resist the silence or radio sound on his way to destination, this was of enormous importance for him – his keys fell to the floor three times. Besides this balancing problems, JE almost hit his neighbour – who was just placing the trash cans at the edge of the curb – when he drove his car out of the garage.

JE’s plan for this morning included a visit at the office of the person who let his band the practice room. JE wanted to talk to him about the opportunity to get a new little space for the Black Space Riders to insist on their right for riding in space, ehm, playing their instruments.
SEB, who showed up as a kind of funny gag bird with a totally serious performance to keep his humor black and lingering, always emphasized that their practice room – with the really beautiful number 49 – “was the best room for living in flow and vibes”. To give this words a meaningful undertone he always added a “I’m serious” to this tongue-in-cheek statement. Nobody from the band ever realized that this was a joke too. Beyond doubt, “49” was really an extremely nice and big room for practicing their music. Without mildew and a window with view to the sky. The room was somehow like a part of the band, the 6th Black Space Rider – so to speak. But this was real life – so problems grew in paradise.

JE was dead set on getting a room in the same building as beautiful as the actual one. And on this legendary – the history books would later on call it this way – 25th of August, JE was absolutely hell-bent on speaking to the lessor. He eased the request of his bandmates and promised to make way for a glorious future. Apart from that, “promised to make way for a glorious future” nearly sounded like a wedding vow. Nearly intended to sound serious like that, JE’s bandmates totally got it with a portion of irony – naturally, within a big element of truth.

On his way to the lessor who had his office in the same building as the Black Space Riders had their practice room, JE tried to calm down with some of his all-time-favorites. In the middle of a very significant song – which got JE engrossed in thought – and just after a gorgeous guitar solo, the CD skipped and the right box in JE’s car became silent. He only heard a low kind of buzzing noise from the left box. On the display of the CD player, he could neither see the title of the song nor the interpret – it was all black. This was confusing and a little bit annoying and when JE stopped at the next red traffic signal, he tried to rectify the fault with some kind of tenderly flapping against the frame of the CD-player. To his own tough luck, that changed anything. JE took this behavior of the car technology personally and started futzing around not knowing what could be of any help. Ultimately, this involves pressing the power button.

With a loud sigh when pressing “power off” JE focused back on the streets to see if the traffic signal gives him permission to drive again. To his amazement, the signal acted in the same strange and annoying way the technology did seconds before: All was black. JE was enervated and theoretical ready to give all displays around him the bird. But then it happened: In front of his car, in a short distance and just in the middle of the street, JE saw three big crows. They simply sat there and stared at him. Their black coat shimmered in the mornings sunshine beams. All of a sudden and without making a sound, the black birds flapped away. He watched them flying and got nearly scared witless, as the CD player suddenly played on full blast “the ride is coming to an end and you’re ready to transcend…”. Within the blink of an eye, JE used the volume control to turn down the sound. But that was not helping him muting all kinds of sounds in the immediate vicinity, JE’s wish for silence was not transposed by the man in the car behind him: “Hey, can’t you see the green light?”
JE was still paralysed by the picture of the crows staring and so he nearly realized the signal-horns of the cars around him. Fortunately, the way to his destination was not a long way anymore.

As JE arrived at his target location, he quickly entered the building through the stairs next to Rudi’s shop. The office of Ludger, the lessor, was on the first floor. It was 9:30am when JE stepped over the threshold. Ludger was not there yet.
„Coffee?“, Simon welcomed JE the way most people would like to be welcomed in the morning. “No, thanks!”, he would have had a chamomile tea instead. Simon stated what JE already had realized: “Ludger is not here. Should I take a message?”
„No, I’ll wait for him, thanks!“
Simon gave a  weary russian shrug and left the office with a big box, labeled with numbers and letters in red font. Shortly after, he came back in with another box with a big “51” in black font on it. He looked skeptically at JE. “Just a minute, Ludger will come soon.” JE nodded. Simon left the office again and JE had a look around.

He recognized an interesting photo on the wall. It was showing Ludger and Simon, standing in front of Rudi’s shop. JE looked closer and saw that this old picture was stuck in the frame later, he took the frame of the wall and realized that he was proved correct: The picture got attached to the frame only on one side with the right upper corner. There was another picture – even much older – behind it. JE got captivated by the motive of this photography. He took a deep breath.

There was a big crow sitting on a big cross made of stone. The crow on the picture faced JE like the crows on the street did earlier this morning. This really got some kind of scary.

JE was thankful for the interruption of his thoughts when Simon came back in and asked vociferous: “The last NEVERMORE album was a real blast, wasn’t it?”
He held the CD in his hands like a treasure. Suddenly, JE really got the feeling he had to escape from all visions of birds, overrated music and having conversations.

“Sure”, he answered. Within the next two seconds he got downstairs to have a smoke.

Just in this moment when JE tried to light his cigarette, a black BMW drove along the street and stopped directly before him. It was Ludger who got out of the car.
“Good morning, JE, you come to see me because of the advertisement?”