HOW IT ALL BEGINS - A TRUE STORY ABOUT FAMILY, FREEDOM AND A NEW LIFE
From work, failure and the quiet courage to follow your own path
Volume 1 of the trilogy "Don't ask for Sugar"
HOW IT ALL BEGINS tells the beginning of a life that rarely follows the route originally intended.
Chris grows up as the fifth of six brothers in Stuttgart. Home is loud and lively, school changes frequently, and five years at a strict Catholic boarding school provide plenty of rules, discipline and early opportunities to wonder whether there might be more interesting places in the world.
As a young man, he works in a photo lab and later trains as a mechanical engineering mechanic. But a secure job is not quite enough. He wants to travel, to see what lies beyond Germany and to find out what happens when there is no carefully prepared plan.
As it turns out, quite a lot.
His first long journey takes him to Sri Lanka and Thailand. In Bangkok, he meets Suzanne from New Zealand. A few days become a week together on Koh Samet, and what began as a chance encounter suddenly becomes something neither of them had planned.
Then they separate again. Suzanne travels on, Chris returns to Germany and, four months later, earns enough money to follow her to Australia.
For a while, everything seems remarkably simple.
Then they meet a fortune teller.
The fortune teller predicts a bright future for Suzanne. But when she takes Chris’s hand, something changes. Her arm begins to tremble and her voice becomes serious.
She speaks of trials, dark forces and encounters that will shake his life.
At the time, they are only words.
Later, they will look rather different.
HOW IT ALL BEGINS is the first part of DON’T ASK FOR SUGAR and tells the beginning of a true story about travel, love, freedom and the decisions that quietly change the direction of a life.
It moves from Stuttgart and a Catholic boarding school to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Australia, from ordinary jobs to unfamiliar countries, and from the desire simply to see the world to a relationship that suddenly gives the journey an entirely different meaning.
There are adventures, mistakes, unexpected encounters and moments that only reveal their importance much later. No carefully constructed life plan is required.
Which is fortunate, because Chris didn’t have one.
At the end of the book, a selection of original photographs brings this period back to life.
Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger writes from lived experience – from setbacks, detours, new beginnings and encounters that never needed to be invented. His texts begin where real life leaves its mark.
If you are interested in my novels, you can find the links to the titles here.
ALMOST NORMAL – 16 SHORT STORIES
NOTHING REMAINS AS IT IS – VOLUME 2