Baby Blue

A journey through the night

 B - A - B - Y - B - L - U - E

Again we need to hurry. This time we pass through the alley next to the ancient city weigh-house to the city hall. We enter the city hall from the back side and, via the wedding-room, we go to the main hall on the front side of the building. In the middle of the room is an old man lying on a table. Is he dead? In he lying in state? It looks that way. In his hands is an hourglass. Death...

Around the table where the man is lying is an 18th. century party of dancers. But the strange thing is, we don't hear any music! Soon we notice the dancers do hear music: They are all wearing a wireless headphone. When the dance is over, the dancers take off their headphones and each puts his or her headphone onto the head of one of the spectators. Now we are all isolated and we cannot talk between members of the audience. We have to go on again. We leave the city hall on the front side and we are guided towards carriages which are ready for us. All the windows have been blinded and it is pitch dark inside. The only light we see are the green LEDs on the headphones of our fellow-travelers. The carriages are starting to move. In the beginning I try to count the turns we make, but I soon loose track. Where are we going? In the headphones we hear music, occasionally interrupted by texts: "C'est la vie, c'est la fuckin' vie". Disappointment...

Finally the carriage halts and we are allowed to get out. Where are we? After a while I recognize the road along the Delft canal. There is an ancient cemetery here and this turns out to be the destination of our trip. An old man is waiting for us at the entrance. He is holding a lantern. He is leading us on, without saying a word. At a bend in the path we notice the boy we saw in the ice restaurant again. He is playing with a humming-top. Suddenly he runs off, further onto the cemetery. We walk on, passing between the gravestones. Then we see another little scene in spotlights: The boy is sitting on a swing and the lady with the roses is standing by his side. He is having a phone conversation on a mobile phone and I can hear what he says in my headphone. He is talking about a deadly accident with a motorbike. Our guide is walking on, we have to leave the cemetery again. At the bend in the path we still see the humming-top, but now the roses are lying there too, among broken parts of ice. Sorrow...

Can we now mount the carriages again? No, that is not the intention. The lady gets into the first carriage and her luggage, dozens of suitcases, is loaded into the remaining three carriages. So what about us? Forsaken...

When the carriages have left, it turns out someone did think about us after all. By the side of the canal three boats are ready for us. We get into the boats and set course for the city center again. We are sailing along the 'Oude Delft' towards the Old Church. All along the route we see blue light. Blue spotlights, blue light inside the houses, blues on the headphones... On the first bridge we see a lady in a wheelchair. She is playing a guitar. On the second bridge we see... the very same woman! This goes on. Every time when we have passed a bridge, the lady in the wheelchair is loaded into a van is brought to the next bridge like the wind... Then we see our destination and we are going ashore. What is waiting for us now? Curiosity...

We are entering an art-gallery. Pictures everywhere. Operations. Body parts cut open. Wounds. A picture of a woman with stains of blood all over her body. We leave the gallery at the back and enter the garden. There is the lady from the picture lying in the water in the cold night. Pain...

Via the garden we enter another house. Where are we now? This is Heaven! Angels are everywhere around us. They are playing music, they are massaging each other, they offer us sweet grapes to eat, this is love, love, love...

We leave the house of angels at the front site. We cross the canal and enter another building. We go up a flight of stairs. And another one. And another. Until we reach the roof.

A grand piano and chairs for the audience are ready there. We are getting a roof-concert. It is a bright evening in October and we can see for miles. A sad singer sings the Baby Blue song to us:

Baby Blue,
Once I loved you,
Now you are gone,
Forever

Via other staircases we reach ground level again. We come into the back room of the house. Here someone is lying in state again: A goblin.
A civilized gentleman, dressed in black welcomes us. We are allowed to take off the headphones for a while. "Ah, you are not relatives, I see. Would you like a cup of coffee? Yes, these are tiny cups, that's the way it is on a goblin's funeral. Let me offer you this card. The text was written by the deceased himself..."

He so much loved the birds, the flowers and the grass
It will never be, the way it always was.

"Ladies and gentleman. Let me please explain the protocol on a goblin's funeral to you." - Someone lights a cigarette. - "First of all, smoking is allowed. Smoking should be allowed."

"A goblin is buried in a rabbit-burrow. Then, at the entrance to the burrow vegetables like mushrooms, onions, turnips and carrots are placed. When the rabbit comes home, it will understand from the vegetables, that a goblin has been buried in his burrow. It can no longer use this burrow and accepts the vegetables as a payment for that.
"To honor this protocol, you now all receive a vegetable. Please put that in the garden at the entrance to one of the graves. After that, put on your headphones and go! You need to move on!"

I put my mushroom near one of the little graves in the garden. What a beautiful ceremony. I'm deeply impressed when I leave the garden. Touched...

From the back end of the garden we enter yet another building. Chair are lined up, ready for us. We each take a seat and hand in our headphones. It is absolutely quiet. In front of us is a curtain. Suddenly the curtain opens and an enormous noise bursts out! We have landed in the middle of a party. People are dancing and yelling. The air is full of confetti and paper snakes. Flogging salsa-music is being played. We are guided through the party towards the exit. There we meet one of the people who organized all this. He shakes our hands:

"This is the end of your journey. Thank you for taking part."

We are back on the street in Delft, on more than a mile from the point where we started. In a little over two hours we have lived through a lot of emotions. We were led, without knowing what would be around the next corner. Now it is suddenly all over. An unforgettable experience, that will never come back.
Melancholy...