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      Solstices

      Volume 1 of the trilogy Fictional Truth

      Crisalis

      Cover: Logo of labyrinth-international.org, modified

      Original German edition: 2011.

      Translation to English: Elisabeth Alewell-Nebe

      Revision of the English version: Sheila Wilson

      Impressum

      Copyright: © 2016 Crisalis

      published by 2002-2016 Lulu Press, Inc., www.lulu.com

      ISBN 978-0-244-20146-3

      The door opened slowly, as if moved by an invisible hand, gliding softly and silently on its hinges until it was half open. Eight men and three women turned simultaneously, each taken by surprise, nobody saying a word. Apparently they were wondering whether the open door might bring the ongoing meeting to an end.

      The meeting had by now reached its lowest energy level. The dominant men were trying to prove their point by endlessly repeating their opinions, like an endless rhetoric loop, thereby pushing differing opinions off the table. An experienced chair would have been able to summarise the outcome, and the meeting could have ended half an hour ago. However, that was not to be, evidently. They could not reach a consensus that would satisfy the company’s management; therefore everyone seemed caught in a kind of paralysis.

      Charlotte had been experiencing this slowly rising paralysis inside her for some time. Before this numbness reached her heart, she decided to visualise a brightly pulsing yellow-orange light in her body. She knew that she had to act before the endless talking in circles made her lose so much energy and vitality as to make it impossible for her to have the important points manifested in the protocol. Just as she had managed to stabilise the light inside her to a warm and steady pulsing, the door had suddenly opened, silently and softly.

      A shudder went through Charlotte. Tension crackled in the air and she noticed some of the men were getting nervous. They had been discussing a 15% staff reduction, even though the company was doing well, which was causing uneasy feelings in some of the participants. Charlotte sensed thoughts like 'sabotage', 'revenge' and 'spying' coursing around the room while everyone looked through the open door into the empty foyer. Suddenly there was a strong presence in the room, quite in contrast to the destructive, down-to-earth atmosphere of the meeting so far.

      Before the tension could become unbearable, Muehlin interrupted the silence by snorting softly. In his function as general manager, he was not only in charge of this meeting but this was clearly his territory. He even lived one floor up in the penthouse. He gave another supercilious snort, laughing disparagingly and said, 'Don’t worry, it isn’t a vengeful ghost, but the cat belonging to my wife. I should say, to my ex-wife. She preferred to leave the cat with me. I have no idea how the beast managed to get in here.'

      Ah, Charlotte thought, that’s why he’s in such an icy mood.

      Muehlin jumped to his feet, pointed towards the open door with the air of someone used to having his orders followed, and barked, 'Cleo, get out! You don’t belong in here.' Cleo completely ignored Muehlin. Mewing softly, she jumped elegantly onto the table and slowly – head and tail held proudly high – marched the length of it until she reached Charlotte. Her raven black coat and white paws were reflected in the shimmering dark cherry wood of the table. Everyone’s eyes were on the cat. Muehlin gestured angrily but seemed helpless. It was quite obvious that he did not want to touch the cat, nor did he want to be made fun of. He turned abruptly and left the room, shouting for his secretary.

      Meanwhile, Cleo had reached Charlotte and sat down with dignity on the table in front of her. Charlotte chuckled. She slowly lifted her hand and softly massaged the cat’s neck. At once the tension in the room disappeared. Some smiled and others started talking about their own cats and dogs or children. When Muehlin stormed back into the room, his secretary in tow, Cleo was in Charlotte’s lap, purring softly. Muehlin stopped in front of Charlotte, the secretary standing behind him with a cage in one hand. Astonished, Charlotte looked at Muehlin then his secretary, the cage and back at Muehlin, while she continued to stroke Cleo. Impatiently, Muehlin said, 'Give me the cat now, so we can continue our meeting.'

      'But she doesn’t bother me at all. Why don’t you just leave her with me?'

      For a moment Muehlin looked really angry and his secretary flinched slightly, but suddenly his whole face lit up. 'Okay then, why don’t you take the cat home with you? It seems to be a woman’s cat anyway.' Gruffly he took the cage and put it on the floor beside Charlotte’s chair, dismissed his secretary with a flick of his hand, and with a satisfied snort once again took his seat. 'At least I don’t have to see that cat any more. I would have had someone take it to the shelter otherwise.'

      Everyone looked at Muehlin in surprise before they turned to Charlotte, slightly embarrassed. For a while there was total silence and only Cleo’s steady purring could be heard. At first Charlotte was too much taken aback to reply. She tried to gauge her feelings and felt how the warm and happy sensations emphasised the orange and yellow light. Therefore she nodded at the questioning looks of her colleagues and replied,

      'Okay I’ll take her. But I must ask you to end the meeting now, because I’ll have to go and buy cat food and litter before the shops close.'

      Muehlin threw an approving glance in her direction, acknowledging her ability to take charge of the situation, but Charlotte did not wait for his reaction. She carefully put Cleo in the cage, gave a few instructions to the person writing the protocol and made for the door, calling out, 'See you, everyone'.

      She stopped by the secretary’s desk, leaving her phone number in case Muehlin’s wife changed her mind and wanted Cleo back.

      Walking down the stairs, Charlotte became aware of the sudden happiness filling her since she had decided to keep Cleo. This happiness had defeated any lingering fatigue. Cleo contentedly sat in her cage and watched the world around her. In spite of the fact that they were in the middle of office buildings, Charlotte found a small stall at the next street corner that sold cat food and litter. In no time at all she was at the station waiting for the train to take her home. She felt satisfied and almost happy. The meeting had been very strenuous and tiring at first and she had had the feeling of being superfluous and unsuitably qualified for her job. Cleo’s appearance had completely turned the situation around.

      When the train pulled in, she chose a seat by the window, snuggled into her coat against the window, put her hand inside the cage to stroke Cleo softly and closed her eyes.

      She thought about her job with Synergia. Her work with one of the world’s largest management consulting firms was a safe job and very well paid. She was in charge of women’s affairs and worked as a mediator. But mediating newly formed teams and the monitoring of projects was becoming more and more difficult. The atmosphere had become increasingly rough and implementing solutions seemed to need more and more energy and time to break through the protective walls her colleagues had put up. Apart from that, the topic of sexual abuse had now made it into the highest level of the company. After it had repeatedly appeared in different media, the company management felt obliged to state an opinion and now Charlotte had been told to plan a series of seminars on the topic. At least the directors had implied that they understood this topic wasn’t to be dealt with in one single presentation. Charlotte sighed. If only she could banish the world from her thoughts for a short time..., fall into the semi-darkness of a doze for a few minutes. She felt herself starting to drift, becoming lighter, gliding into that semi-darkness.

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