MOVING BIRDS - The travelers

The other evening I went for a visit at the writer's block on discord and chatted with @nobyeni and some other people. This inspired me to publish a short story that I started a few years ago. It's not finished yet and I would be curious to know if you find it worth reading. I will need some postings to get to where I left off writing. Perhaps I will come to a satisfactory end about readers' participation in the events. Why not?

Moving Birds

The travelers

She woke up when two men entered the compartment where she had just slept. The men, one of them was in his mid-thirties, the other, the taller one of them, seemed to be of indeterminate age, but he filled the small space in the moving train with a sovereign presence, which could only be reserved for a more mature man.

Both did not seem to be acquainted with each other, as they were wordlessly carrying out the handgrips that served to set them up in the cabin. The younger - black full hair - had a small suitcase hoisting it up over the woman's head by apologizing briefly for the inconvenience beforehand with a "may I?".

She nodded without saying anything. Still undecided how she would find this disorder for the next few hours.
The elder placed a worn out leather travel bag in the alcove between the compartment door and his seat, took a hand wide case and put it next to him. His hair showed some greyish tones on the sides and he wore a well-cropped chin beard. He drove himself through the beard, the woman glanced out of the window to stop looking at him, while there was a rustle around her and she waited for the silence to return.

But then she heard something hissing and turned her head in that direction. The younger one had opened a bottle of water and returned her gaze. "Would you like to?", he asked her. He took out a small cup and offered it to her. But she shook her head and said, "No, thank you." She had to clear her throat to find her voice.

The young man turned aside and repeated his offer to the elderly. "Nice of you," this one nodded, had it poured out, waited until the other had served himself and drank the cup empty in thirsty sips. "Warm today," he said returning his cup. "Yes, I was down in the valley and at noon you could hardly bear it", the younger one picked up on the subject.

"What were you doing there?"

"Horses trained",

replied the speaker and you could hear that it must have been a busy but fulfilling day.

"Magnificent animals," he enthused, "well trained, strong and resistant."

When he got up to get something forgotten from the side pocket of his suitcase, the woman could see how his thigh muscles were stretched slightly underneath his dark grey trousers. As he sat down, he continued: "Have worked with the animals all morning until one o' clock. When it got too hot, we took them back to the barn."

"What are you doing?", the elder wanted to know and: "May I introduce myself, my name is Langen, Alfred Langen."

"Jonas, just call me Jonas," the young man replied. "I'm a jockey by profession and in two weeks I'll be back here for the big race," he said. His voice revealed excitement at the thought of the race. He leaned over to the man named Langen: "It's a dangerous sport, you know. A jockey colleague, Stanislav is his name and he comes from the Czech Republic, fell from his mare in a full gallop and broke his spine. Never ride again, he's paraplegic and is now sitting in the spectator ranks."

Taking part, Langen shook slowly his head. "And are you afraid to fall off your horse?", he asked Jonas.
"It can happen anytime. I'm not afraid, but I am aware of the risk," replied Jonas.
"And why do you do sports, for money or for risk?"
Jonas denied: "None of this. I love horses, their speed, their strength, their temper! The feeling of being on top of a horse's back is indescribable, you literally fly and are one with the animal", he argued with growing enthusiasm.

"But couldn't you have it without jockeying?"
"Maybe", admitted the younger one, "but I still don't have the money for my own stud farm, I'd like to be there for the horses."

He pondered for a moment and then recalled: "What do you do for a living, Alfred?"

Alfred Langen smiled and said: "I am a hypnotist."

Jonas whistled appreciatively.
"Putting people in a trance so that they cluck like a chicken on your demand, or, what do I know, tell about their past lives?"

Before Langen replied, he noticed how the woman threw a quick glance at him, recognizably listening to their conversation so far. Without letting it be known that he had registered her reaction, Langen replied: "Nothing of all this. People come to me with specific problems or objectives. We perform an anamnesis, I take notes, summarize what it is all about and then the actual hypnosis session begins."

"And then those people are really kicked out? For example, can you pull out a tuft of hair or prick them with a needle?" "Well, you're quite a clown to me," Langen laughed. "I could if I wanted to, but I don't. You must have some circus act in your mind. No, my clients have very serious concerns that I seek to address with the same seriousness."

"Like what, for example? Or are you going to break a vow of silence?"
"Well, I can talk about one case or another without telling you their real names," Langen replied.

Then he thought about it for a while, stroking his thumb over his beard again, looking over at the woman and then consciously facing her. She cut back a little bit and replied quietly and with a spark of curiosity she returned his gaze.

"Excuse me, Jonas, but I'd like to ask our fellow passenger beforehand if she feels disturbed by our conversation. Are we perhaps disturbing you too much?", Langen now turned directly to her.

After a short pause, the woman seemed to give herself a jolt and said:

"If I am honest, I would have preferred it if you had gone to another compartment. I can sleep very poorly and therefore train journeys are relaxing exceptions for me. The rattling has such a pleasant and sleep-inducing effect on me. But ... go ahead, you got me interested. My name is Lydia, by the way."

With this speech, she bent over easily, pretended to both men, first Langen and then Jonas' hand, then leaned back and smiled for the first time.

"Hm", Langen made. Jonas looked at Lydia, stunned at her spontaneous confession of her sleeplessness. But of course, Langen was sure to be able to help her, he thought to himself and was very excited at the thought.

Langen also seemed to have such considerations, because he said: "My, pleasure, Lydia. If you like, we can come back to your sleep problem after I have told you from my practice to explain the meaning of my work to you in my and my clients' lives.“
She was a little surprised, but you could see that this thought had to have come to her immediately after learning about Langen's profession.

In any case, women were the ones who visited Langen in overwhelming numbers. They believed in the supernatural, the mystical and mysterious.
"If you don't mind that we're talking about me," Lydia added modestly, but she was already looking forward to what Langen might possibly say or plan to do with her. Why not? Hypnosis on the train; you couldn't put her into a trance better than that! And maybe she would then get rid of her annoying insomnia once and for all.

"Not at all, but you would have to involve Jonas, we can hardly complement him out of the compartment, wouldn't you?", Langen winked at the younger one, who was more than justified enough to take part in an exciting meeting.

"Of course, it would be very rude of me not to want him around. I like what you said about horses," Lydia said to Jonas.

The widows' case

"Well, then!" Langen rubbed his hands, "we begin with a story from my practice. One day, about five years ago, a lady came to see me. She had recently become a widow and was heavily indebted. She was threatened to be seized of the house and it would have come to pass if she hadn't visited me. She also had a physical suffering that was not too bad, but very annoying, she had a moving kidney. The former kept her very busy, the second thing she mentioned merely because I asked her about it. That's part of the first conversation. I'm tapping physical suffering. If you, Lydia, have something to tell me, you can think about it. No?"

Part two will follow when I got time to engage with other writers and ask for some advice. The beginning was not very complicated but I put in some twists in the story which already are confusing me. I might need help :)
Did you like it so far?

Thanks for reading!

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