Good Days
Six in the morning. The alarm killed whatever I was dreaming about. Up to walk Amy, the dog, because it had to be done. I hate early mornings—there’s something specifically evil about them. Threw on a tracksuit still half asleep and drove to the woods. Already hot. Already bright. Munich summer was starting.
By six-forty I was back home, showered, fed, heading into the city with my family to look at an apartment. Sendlingen was already baking in the heat. We circled for parking forever. No spots, naturally, despite ten thousand no-parking signs. Parked three blocks over.
The apartment was nice. Three rooms, kitchen, a real bathtub. Could work as a shared place if I could find the right people. My mom was still looking at the closets when someone rang the bell. Two women about my age, wanting to see it too. One had dark hair, sharp features, the kind of person who clearly doesn’t need a second glance. She didn’t even look at me.
There’s something about Sendlingen where if you spend long enough there, attractive women just keep appearing. I spent maybe five minutes walking back and forth across one street, and I saw several worth noticing. Do the math on that—a whole day of it, back and forth, and you’d see a lifetime of them. Obviously that’s not how it works, but in that heat, in that crowd, anything felt possible.
We drove home by noon. Friends were waiting to go to the lake—Dietringen.
Absolute zoo. Packed with old people and their parasols, the usual summer migration, but woven through all that age was actual beauty. Two attractive women and a guy lying out right in front of us. Then others kept drifting over, creating this rotating parade of strangers. I had to look twice. This many good-looking people in one spot felt almost hostile.
We jumped in the water to cool off. From the lake we started rating the crowd. Got hung up on one woman—insanely fit, completely tan, the kind of body that looked Photoshopped. Good beach day. We left at six.
My landlord called when I got home. I got the apartment. I remember grinning like an idiot.
In bed later, my phone rang. An old friend. We talked for an hour about life, love, what we’d done since school, where we were headed. Decided together that we were too weird, too particular, too much ourselves to actually pull off a relationship. Felt profound at midnight.
Some days nothing happens—you watch TV, sleep, wait for evening. Some days you pack a lifetime into the hours. Today was the second kind.