TRANSIT - THE LAST DAYS OF FREEDOM
A True Story
Volume 3 of the "STATIONS" series
A young man leans against the toilet door of a hopelessly overcrowded night train in India.
Only a few days earlier, he had been lying in a coma. Now his passport, his money and almost everything he owns have disappeared.
Not an ideal end to a journey around the world.
When Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger finally returns to Germany, he owns little more than the clothes on his back. Unfortunately, there is no fresh start waiting for him either.
After more than a year on the road, he has to begin again from scratch in West Berlin. A small period flat. A new job. New friends.
Slowly, almost suspiciously, life begins to look normal again.
Then, one lunchtime, a workmate tells him an utterly crazy story.
At first, it sounds like just another of his jokes.
It would probably have been better if it had been.
Instead, the idea refuses to let Bernhard go. A casual remark becomes a possibility, the possibility becomes a plan – and the plan will change his life forever.
Transit – The Last Days of Freedom is the third volume of the autobiographical STATIONS series.
With humour, self-irony and a generous dose of black humour, Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger tells a true story about new beginnings, freedom, friendship, wanderlust – and those decisions that seem perfectly reasonable right up until the moment they aren’t.
The journey leads from the overcrowded night trains of India, through Nepal, to the period apartments, workshops and back streets of 1980s West Berlin. Along the way are bizarre encounters, unforgettable characters and an idea so improbable that it really shouldn’t work.
Which, of course, is precisely what makes it interesting.
It is a story of friendship, freedom, chance and choices – told with the kind of black humour that sometimes makes you laugh when, strictly speaking, there has long been nothing left to laugh about.
And of a transit route through East Germany that was supposed to be nothing more than the way home.
It wasn’t.
If you have not yet read a volume from the book series “STATIONS”, you can begin with one of the following books. Each volume stands on its own and explores a different aspect of our lives.
Volume 1: WHAT THE FORTUNE TELLER KNEW (IN PROGRESS)
Volume 2: THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH
Volume 3: TRANSIT – THE LAST DAYS OF FREEDOM
Volume 4: DEPARTURE INTO THE UNKNOWN
Volume 6: FRIDAY THE 13TH (IN PROGRESS)