I am placing this story under the original ones, although it actually is no original. It is very loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's opera "Tosca".

This is one of the tales of my childhood. Before Frodo, Aragorn, the Nazgûl and Sauron, before Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Darth Vader, before Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Yosif Stalin, Mario Cavaradossi, Floria Tosca and Luc Scarpia inhabited my room. The first sketches were written by an eleven-year-old, later features were added by a fourteen-year-old. Now the eighteen-year-old ties up the loose ends and completes the work of his childhood.

This story is dedicated to my sister Mia. I owe much to you. You were my Floria. However, I was Luc. The role of Mario was left to my little black teddy bear.

(For the design of Scarpia's jacket I have to thank Reinhard Heinrich, the costume designer who has worked together with my uncle, a stage designer, for many a year now.)