Cycling for Perry Rhodan

My first encounter with this pulp SF series of German origin PERRY RHODAN dates from the mid eighties. Had to be on a Wednesday afternoon when school is off for half a day, somewhere between half past three and five, riding my bicycle, aimless, hoping to find something extraordinary, something from the school routine washing over me the next day, and Friday til finally the weekend starts. Bright but cloudy day, nebulous and so appears the sun, if not hidden, dispersed in its own blur, and always hoping for the dimming, the reduction of light intensity stabbing your eye nerves and profiling you sharply against the backdrop and the loneliness in and around you, longing for the drowsy pastel and some dark tints. Even a drizzle would be hailed with open arms and a victorious smile. Nothing beats a drizzle in Spring, once it ends leaves soil and foliage to release it sweet spice aromas waxing your body and soul. Relieving them from an anxious fever that has no name, no purpose.

I went up to the Nieuwe Kempen, fringe district of North Genk, gateway to Houthalen-Oost, also known as Park van Genk, wandering, coasting and dipping into the time stream between worlds; it always felt like a place of transition, out-of-the-way, dull yet lively in the past with shops that made once name and now were slumbering between rotten fame and lush sneers, but I entered one of these nevertheless, a small supermarket, trotted to the news and magazine stands in the hope to find the latest tidings about an upcoming (or not) Star Trek movie, just for a nugget of information to carry with me to fire up my imagination and nothing in that order was found. It was dull like a nonchalant thrown piece of paper hooked into a corner with chewed gums, dust and juice cans, exhaling staleness, persistently huddling there to evade the etched dullness in the open, in the sun. Life could be boring in my youth, nothing compares with the spiritless boredom that hit my existence then and from which I tried to escape by taking the bicycle out and venturing out, out, out, just out, it doesn't matter where, as long I was on the track....

Well, suddenly my eyes picked up a cover that was out of the place, which I had not seen anywhere else and was something else that the boulevard magazine, the TV magazine or a comic, let alone the forbidden magazine that contained in themselves secrets of the adult world of which I knew only a thin and insubstantial hazy fringe and that would shatter the screen of commodity and decency behind which adult person masked themselves. I would make sure not to cast my eyes on those covers, avoiding them scrupulously, not terrified but alarmed to soil my individuality. I had then already dreams of people running after me and trying making me one of them. I still outrun them at nights.

There then, I came across this novel for the very first time. It was weekly, cheap and fantastic. I didn't like borrowing from libraries and going to Hasselt and perusing the 2nd hand bookshops couldn't be done each Saturday, let alone mid-week, so this handy and affordable alternative was a blessing to dig into space opera and cosmic mysteries. Picture below was the cover of the novel I found and bought that day. One week later or so I would return to that shop and ask a shop assistant (or was it a manager?) where the next installment was, but he was perplexed and thought I talked jibberish, despite detailing the kind of book and where it was a week ago. No dice... Eventually my mother would order the series at a news agent and weekly she would get it for me with the newspaper and her own magazines. Eventually I would find in a bookshop in Winterslag (again on a Wednesday and similar weather conditions!) a whole box of older episodes for an okay price. I must have saved up hundreds of Perry Rhodan weekly novels and bought occasionally a few lengthier books. Then I lost a bit interest, neglected to read some, besides there was at home the complaint that the weekly cost was expensive and that there was not enough room. I gave it all for free to an uncle who sold it eventually on the flea market in Genk.... Much older I feel regret, some are not so much rare, but pretty difficult to trace down and to buy, even on Ebay! Had I obstinately kept them for myself, I could have made now money out from them... Regret comes always after sin or stupidity... Anyway just wanted to share a not quite important facet of my past's experience. It's nothing exciting or thought-provoking, but I can't help it how sad it is that so many small stories from our lives remain untold, going for the big or new brand of stories like moths to a lamp, as if that person once in a time didn't matter and so people come together and part in life without really knowing anything from one another. Strangers come, rub shoulders and depart like strangers.