In silence they drove along Phibsborough Road

I wake up to the screams of seagulls circling over my house. Even though I live in a grey, old area of the city with no body of water anywhere to be seen, the voices of the seagulls remind me that Dublin is a city by the sea. I check the alarm, and as usual I’m awake before it’s supposed to go off. I drag my body out of the bed and into the shower, where the mixture of cold water and Rodrigo y Gabriela on the stereo finally wakes me up. The first tea of the day then makes me ready for another nine hours at the office, in a place where you can only see the mountains but not the sea. I leave my house on St. Peter’s Road, where a badge on a neighbours house reminds me that James Joyce lived here for two years of his life. He and his family later moved to Blackrock as far as I know, near the beach. A yellow double-decker bus brings me to the office, and after switching on the computer that is waiting there, I try to write in some kind of modern marketing speech for the next hours.

A colleague of mine has sent a postcard from Thailand. She is staying in a small hut on the beach, she writes. The last time I was on a beach I saw the Milky Way, something I had never seen before. I did drink more Amstel than I had planned in the small bar near the camping ground that evening, and before returning to my tent I wanted to take a walk along the beach to clear my head. But my walk did not take me far. I stopped on the crest of the dike behind the beach, baffled by the image of millions of stars forming a clearly visible band of blinking light in the night sky. And so, for the next 3 hours, I just sat there on the dike, my bare feet dug into the soft and warm sand, gazing at the bright spectacle that the light of so many stars were performing, stars that had long died before their light reached me sitting there, slightly wasted on a beach, while listening to the sound of the surf rolling and breaking on the beach below.

I switch off my computer, leave the office, and a similar yellow double-decker bus takes me home, driving alongside Dublin’s biggest graveyard on the way. After coming home, I run along the banks of the canal, from my house to the Brendan Behan statue and back, passing clusters of beer-drinking men in tracksuits on benches and elderly ladies walking their dogs. After a shower and a sandwich-and-coleslaw-dinner, I try to write and drink an Amstel from the fridge. Lying in my bed I read a few pages from “The Beach”, and in the last conscious moment before falling asleep I hope that I’ll dream of stars and light and the sound of the sea.

Marcel Krueger is a German writer, blogger and musician living in Dublin, Ireland. He loves doing stuff with words, but did not go to school to learn this. He is afraid of flying but loves traveling, aims to read as many books as possible in a lifetime and thinks that without music life is a mistake. Over days he enjoys working as a copywriter for a Daily Planet-like online company with a colourful logo, but when need (or a damsel in distress) is at hand his alter ego, a mixture of Gonzo-journalist, student of English literature and naive fanboy, takes over.
Marcel is and has been writing for: The Dublin Community Blog (Winner Irish Blog Awards 2009), Pocketcultures, Daily Telegraph, Spotted by Locals, Reykjavik Grapevine, meg.ie and his blog King of Pain. His
poem “Cities” was recently featured in the Upstart exhibition project in Dublin. He is co-founder and contributing editor of the ongoing travel and music documentary Sonic Iceland about contemporary Icelandic music. Marcel is also a graduate of the Matador New Media School for Travelers. Before devoting every ounce of Rock’n’Roll he possesses to his writing, Marcel has been shouting for a couple of metal bands, worked as DJ for a German radio station and used to run his own booking agency.

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