The Walls Were Moving

I was 24 and living in a student apartment in Berlin that had somehow gotten smaller. Not metaphorically—the walls moved in. My landlord laughed when I asked about anything, this real incredulous laugh at the ratio of what he was charging to what I was living in.

One night I decided to try the internet. Posted looking for a one or two bedroom apartment somewhere in Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg or Friedrichshain—max 500 euros, which even then was optimistic. Bathtub preferred, a kitchen that actually worked preferred more. But I wasn’t going to be precious about it at that point.

I think I believed someone would read it and think of something. That’s how it works sometimes—a friend’s sister, a cousin moving, someone forwarding it and a door opening. Mostly though I was just shouting into the void because the walls in that room were legitimately closing in and I didn’t have anywhere else to scream.

Did I find an apartment that way? Probably not. Probably I refreshed the rental sites like everyone else, called people, showed up to viewings where there were always nineteen other desperate people. But I remember the feeling of that room getting smaller and the absolute knowledge that if I didn’t get out I was going to come apart at the seams.