act one:scene three

by now our friend jacob has lost the desire to rethink his situation every time he meets people (have i told you recently that i've been habitually typing meat in place of meet and then changing it to its intent. huh. wonder what that means. i also used to always write a "b" when i wanted a "p" even typing it in that way, which is much more concerning seeing as how the letters typed aren't nearly as similar as they are spelled. huh.).

enter kulturebahnhoff, the second floor cafe in the fairly rundown saalbahnhoff not far from the center of Jena. the night is monday, the time is fairly late, but still hours before an average person of jacob's age would find himself in bed. the weather is horrible. it has been raining since earlier this afternoon, taking only the briefest of breaks to snow, then returning to the sludgy drizzle. but our friend has an umbrella. take that rain. ha.

of course the normally brisk fifteen minute walk is not much different than usual, but along the way through this less than favorable weather jacob thinks to himself if anyone will really come today. maybe he should have checked facebook before he left.

surely enough, upon opening the door, jacob is met by an almost empty room. as he turns to leave, he sees a face. "hey i know him."

matthias: "uh, hallo?"
jacob: "oh hey." they are here after all, but just two or three of the usual ten-fifteen.
matthias: "so, where are the rest of us?"
jacob: "ha, yeah, this weather is pretty bad."

conversation leans this way and that way. the kicker is played, jacob and matthias taking two consecutive losses with a certain mixture of class and self-defeat.

matthias: "i was never really clear, what do you do for the church you work for?"
jacob: "for, maybe not the right word. with, maybe."
matthias: "oh, huh. so what do you do with them."

everything really. anything practically. bibelkreis needs some explaining. we get together and talk about the bible. we try to meet as a group of younger students too. the pastor is 70? oh no his son is 17? that makes more sense. so yeah, we try to hang out. at the church? yeah, sometimes. sometimes out in the city.

but why does jacob not bring back the idea of goals. it's fine to share the pieces of the puzzle, but if you could just look at my box, maybe you could see the picture. maybe if you saw the picture you could see what i am putting together. maybe you could see why i'm doing it this way.

but all jacob shows, maybe all jacob knows right now, is the pieces, fragments of the truth seeming to be the whole itself.

the night wears on. they all move to the couch. the australians sent a package, sweet. pictures flash, minutes pass. good night.

scene.