Static

The air outside was just as thick as the air on the train. I climbed down slowly and made a face as the sun hit me in the eyes. A couple of older people, unpleasant types, stared at me like I’d just revealed my true self straight from hell. Their stupid little ugly dachshund barked at me. I barked back, just as ugly.

I hadn’t been at this godforsaken train station in over two months, not since I decided to cut contact with my best friend. The stupid cunt I’d gotten myself tangled up in. The longer I didn’t hear from her, the better I felt. But slowly I started to miss her.

Ana hadn’t changed much. Her blonde hair was a bit shorter, but she hadn’t lost weight—which was fine, actually. That’s what I’d heard anyway. She rode alongside me on her bike. The fucking sun burned into my shoulders. We understood each other like we’d been half-naked in bed together just yesterday.

I keep photos of a lot of girls I have a history with. Relationships, one-night stands, pathetic spontaneous fooling around. These experiences are scattered across different parts of my life, but keeping them makes me feel like acquaintances live in my bedroom—the ones who understand best the pain and joy and electricity of those closer moments. They know how to get my attention. They know me the way I actually am. I love the faces of these girls.

For days I avoided looking at the photos of Ana even though they hung right in front of my face. They mocked me. But I didn’t want to take them down. Not out of cowardice or laziness, not because I couldn’t let go. It was the images in my head that occupied me more. The sad, depressive music playing under my dark thoughts just wouldn’t leave. How she died in my dreams. How other guys touched her. How my ex-girlfriend had to pick me up because I had tears in my eyes over her stupid bullshit. That I was a bad person, she’d said. But my head learned. Eventually it started putting static in my head whenever a thought like that came on the horizon, like a soap opera cutting out at the crucial moment. On a rainy afternoon I took the photos off the wall. Then Rock im Park happened and Ana became more of a nagging thought than a real person.

And that’s still all she was when we bought multivitamin juice at Lidl that day. When we watched 40 Days and 40 Nights in bed without any background music. When we sat on a bench in the heat watching the glittering stream. Even when she told me she’d slept with another guy, my blood didn’t boil, my thoughts didn’t run wild, my pants didn’t burst. Ana wasn’t the Ana I’d been so wistful and depressed about anymore. She was mostly back to what she’d been for me last summer when we’d roasted ourselves at the gravel pit. A good friend, my good friend. I still haven’t hung her photos back up. Out of precaution. In case someone forgets to hit the static button at the wrong moment.