I slept particularly bad today. I never sleep more than 2 or 3 hours, but today was really bad, as if I have felt that something was up.

Woke up shortly after midnight, and saw something that looked like an obituary, I thought, damn, please not. Checked the teletext, and it was verified. Our president Dr. Thomas Klestil died at 23.33 pm, July 6th 2004. Only about 45 minutes before, that felt so weird. Knowing that just an hour earlier he had still been alive.

Fell asleep again, woke up. On both public channels were requiems until about 4.00 am, in honor of our president.

Fell asleep, woke up again, saw a press conference from the hospital. The doctors looked aweful, VERY affected by what had just happened. His organs failed him, hardly one organ that had not failed. The family of course devestated, I dont want to imagine.

The radio was on at the post office. They brought one sad song after the other (Didnt We Almost Have It All, Tears In Heaven, …), very hard to deal with. Black flags everywhere. Then all of those newspapers. One had his face blown up all over the cover. I hated that. Another newspaper had a really sad face of him on the front, even worse!

So so sad. He would have stepped down tomorrow. Retirement, future plans, 2 puppies. It is aweful, a real tragedy.

We are all devastated.