City of Blinding Lights

Nothing happened.

There was no loud and clear voice in her head, which proclaimed "Audrey my child you will find yourself," there was no blinding illumination and no vision which displayed her path in life.

There was nothing,

All she heard was the dim rhythmic chant of the priests, locals uttering their Confessions and the low whispers of the tourists that swarmed around the Church.

Audrey did not want to believe that this was it and so repeated the Lords Prayer seven times, ran through as many of the Ten Commandments as she could remember and was even tempted to start humming "The Lord is my Shepard" but she refrained from doing solely because she could not hum in tune.

Utterly dejected Audrey raised herself off her knees, dusted the light film of dust from her Calvin Klein jeans and then took her palace on one of the wooden chairs, she let out a frustrated sigh and with irritation pushed her ash blonde hair behind her ears, before settling down to look around her.

It was much the same scene as it had been before she closed her eyes. There was an intricate mix of locals and tourists milling around the church, a few people were sat on the chairs, which were set out in neat and tidy rows, true to the German style of organisation.

Audrey shot a glance to her right, and started up when she saw that there was an elderly woman sat right next to her, and who was watching Audrey quite openly with an amused expression on her face.

"Tut mir leid," said the elderly lady in a German that was heavily accented with the local Bavarian dialect. "Ich wollte dich nicht erschreken."

Audrey had many talents, but German wasn't one of them.

"Ich bin Amerikanerin," Audrey parroted off the sentence that Fabienne had taught her in case Audrey got lost, it was a sentence that was to provide safe passage and help. In this case it did.

"Oh sorry I didn't realise you were American," the elderly lady switched easily to English and this permitted Audrey to understand her, despite the lady's odd German accent. "I also apologise I did not mean to scare you early on."

The look on Audrey's face must have been a strange one, a look of half horror, confusion and panic. She couldn't deal with strangers, especially not older ladies with grey hair who wore floral printed dresses and could switch perfectly between German and English.

"You just startled me, that's all," Audrey said with some trepidation taking in the older lady with some weariness. "How come you can speak English so well?" Feeling the need to ask the obvious questions first.

"My husband was an American soldier who stayed hear after the war," the lady in floral print said and was about to carry on, but she was interrupted by the loud and self assured sounds of Ashlee Simpson shouting "And all I here is ay ya ya ya ya!" from the depths of Audrey's bag.

Flushing scarlet as her phone kept ringing and Ashlee kept singing, Audrey tried to find her phone as quickly as possible, however due to the size of her YSL bag and as bad luck happened to have it, Audrey's iPhone was right at the bottom.

Finally retrieving the singing device Audrey shot an apologetic and embarrassed glance at the lady in floral, who nodded with understanding.

"What?" Audrey hissed down the phone once she had pressed the talk button.

"Whoa easy there!" Came the startled voice of Fabienne. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm in a church I can't talk right now, the priest is giving me evils."

And without a word more or less Audrey ended the call, with a frustrated sigh and threw her iPhone carelessly into her YSL bag, which was perched delicately on the seat next to her.

"You don't look happy," the still un-named lady in floral said, studying Audrey with kind grey eyes, which were surrounded by smalls cracks that spoke of age and tribulations.

Audrey's head snapped up and she started at the woman with confusion across her face.

It was true and the emotion of unhappiness could be read far too easily on Audrey's pretty face. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was not as clear as it should be for a girl of her age. Her hair looked groomed but it lacked vitality and bounce. Audrey's clothes were fashionable but in neutral shades of grey and white, with tan leather boots. The most colourful thing about her were her vivid green eyes, however these lacked their usual shine and brightness.

And with the dropping of those words from the older lady, tears began to fill Audrey's green eyes.

"How do you know?" She asked with wonder, fighting back the lump that was rising up her in throat.

"Unhappiness is an easy emotion to read."

With that Audrey burst into loud and heavy tears, drawing the attention of almost every person in the church. She sobbed loudly, each one racking through her body causing her shoulders to convulse. She buried her pretty face in her hands and carried on crying. All the emotions that she had left behind at home made a welcome back appearance.

"I don’t know who I am any more," she said hysterically, not caring for the people around her and their judgemental looks. "I'm so lost. I have no purpose. I've finished high school but I have no aim, no future. I'm a bottom of the barrel scraper only ever doing enough to get by and nobody expects anything else from me," she carried on before wiping away black tear tracks with the handkerchief that the floral lady had passed her.

Maria Bauer had seen many things in her time. She had lived through the Second World War and she could handle anything. She had carried on through the times when hunger was permanent and you had forgotten what it felt like to eat. She had carried on when she saw friends disappear and never come back. She had carried on when the American soldiers marched into her beloved town and started ransacking what the Russians had left behind. Maria Bauer could handle anything.

Which was why an 18-year-old girl from Dallas Texas, crying hysterically in a church did not faze her in the least. She handed Audrey a self-sown handkerchief and waited patiently for the torrent of emotional blabbering to cease before she spoke again.

"So why did you come to church?"

"Because my grandmother said that god knew the answers for everything and I thought that he might help me find out who I am and what I'm meant to be doing, but he's not hear! He won't talk to me!" Audrey cried out once again in total hysterics, before bawling into the handkerchief.

Maria shook he head gently.

"God can’t tell you who you are, you have to find that out yourself. Follow what your heart says." Maria suggested gently, putting a wizened hand softly on Audrey's shaking arm.

"This was meant to be the summer of my life! I was meant to go trekking around Europe seeing all these sights and then college in the fall but I'm so lost, I'm lost," Audrey kept repeating almost like a mad woman. "Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Milan, Naples, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris. I was meant go there but now I'm stuck in a rut."

"What is your dream?" Maria Bauer, the kind lady in floral print asked Audrey with startling simplicity.

"Fashion."

The answer came out of Audrey like a bullet from a shotgun, so quickly that even Audrey was startled. It was not a dream that she liked to admit to. Her father was a lawyer and her mother part of the United Nations. No daughter of theirs was going to study fashion.

"What about fashion in Paris?"

The suggestion from Maria Bauer was an obvious one, however due to restrictions from home and various other family influences this had been a taboo topic whilst Audrey was finishing high school.

But now Audrey was out of the sheltered environment that was high school. Now she was in the real world, and sitting inside one of Germany's oldest churches crying hysterically was defiantly real.

Audrey turned to look at Maria Bauer with wide green eyes that were sparkling with fresh tears, however the expression on her face was one that seemed almost enlightened.

"You mean I should just go to Paris? Like run away?"

Maria Bauer just nodded.

Audrey took five minutes to think about it.

After five minutes her decision was clear.

She stood up and threw her arms around the frail form of Frau Maria Bauer who had survived every hardship there was, and thankful tears collected in Audrey's eyes. The old lady had helped her in a way that her parents had never been able to do. It was feeling with your heart. It was letting go of regulations, rules and plans and following whatever instinct pushes you.

"Thank you, you have no idea how much you've helped me," Audrey said with a cracking voice as she shook Maria Bauer's hand over and over again. The latter only smiling because she knew exactly how much she'd helped, her age and wisdom being her guide.

After hugging Maria Bauer one last time, Audrey left the church much in the same manner as she had entered. Half an hour after her departure from the realm of almost True Silence, Audrey Tateman had emptied her bank account and all her money, her savings account and her college fund was stacked in her purse.

That evening she explained everything to a flustered Fabienne who despite strong objections and opinions, promised to help Audrey get to Paris.

And so for once in her life Audrey Tateman did what her heart told her to do, and it couldn't have been a better decision to make.