Marcel Winatschek

City Hunger

I have nothing left to do but keep breathing. In and out. For all time. Forever. Until you discover me, sit deep within my soul, and finally feel how wonderful I am for you, how you won’t want anyone else in your life anymore, how you send the vultures home. My nightmares grow stronger, weaker, more colorful. Of coughing trees, blonde girls, graceful horses.

When I open my eyes again, the powder lies carelessly scattered next to you. Your breasts glow blue in the moonlight—such a beautiful sight I haven’t seen in a long time. For hours I watch the rises and falls, the rhythmic up and down of your being.

No trace left of the one-sided numbness after the great tremor; my head clear again and soaked with the murky thoughts of recent times. How much everything could change. You, me, the two of us. Next to your reddish-blonde hair lies Hugo, smiling, drooling, sleeping.

An insatiable hunger penetrates my innermost being; my thoughts circle around soggy cheeseburgers, greasy pizza, fried noodles baked over with eggs and cheese. I almost throw up from appetite, get up without kissing your forehead one more time, and run naked through the apartment.

The refrigerator is filled with beer, Red Bull, and champagne. Not a trace of anything edible anywhere. The room begins to spin, the bright light drills straight into my stomach, my lungs, my legs. I collapse onto the floor, start to cry, starving miserably.

When Sina sees me the next morning curled up in front of the open refrigerator like an embryo in the womb, she begins to kiss me all over my body, doesn’t stop until I open my eyes, take her head between both hands, and look deep into her ocean-blue eyes.

Countless stars shine within them, the end of the world, the meaning of life within reach. My parents strike up a cheerful song, dolphins leap around. And before I can finally uncover the secret of our entire existence, the doorbell rings.

Sina smiles, gets up, and opens the door to the postman without bothering to cover herself first. He doesn’t bat an eye, presses a small package into her hand, and says goodbye as politely as usual, with a couldn’t-care-less attitude toward the two of us. I feel ashamed. Are you hungry? she asks me then. I’ll order us a pizza if you want.

It takes almost an hour before I can finally eat something. We sit on the couch and watch *The O.C.* on DVD. The sun shines through the huge windows of the old apartment building. On the horizon, the television tower rises above everything.

When Ryan holds the dying Marissa in his arms, I run into the bathroom and vomit into the bathtub. In that moment it simply seems more fitting for my spontaneous undertaking. Sina comes after me and we have sex on the cold tile floor. When I’m finished, she asks me, Do you promise me that it will stay like this forever? I nod silently. She climbs off me.

The package contains a new camera that I had ordered online. It’s expensive, it’s beautiful, and the first thing I photograph with it is Sina while she’s cleaning the bathroom. Whenever I look at those pictures today, my heart seizes up—an overwhelming, bone-shattering feeling of why I didn’t take better care of her. Why I wasn’t there sooner, when it happened.

The first time I saw you, you were sitting right in the middle of Alexanderplatz. Huddled together, unwashed, with greasy hair. You were hiding behind a cardboard sign with a scrawled message that flowed straight into my heart: I’m homesick. Please give me money so I can afford a ticket back home. I sat down on some steps a few meters away from you and watched you.

You were crying. People passed by without a glance, avoided you, practically despised you, like the dirt of society. Spring hadn’t really arrived yet and it was slowly getting dark. I couldn’t bear the sad sight anymore, stood up, and slowly walked toward you. Come with me. I’ll invite you to eat. At first you didn’t want to listen at all, resisted my help—resisted me—but then you gave up your fortress. You stood up, brushed a strand of hair out of your face with your long fingers, and then walked beside me at a respectful distance.

My name is Sina, you muttered while stuffing a big bite of cheeseburger into your mouth. I found that disgusting. Why do you look like that? While I waited for an answer and increasingly wondered why I had brought you, you repulsive little thing, here in the first place, my thoughts drifted into Berlin’s nightlife. At that moment I could have given in to my urges, my feelings, my thoughts—granted myself a journey into nirvana and then hooked up with some cheap hipster in my huge apartment.

My companion didn’t seem to miss my wide grin, and so she began to open up, trying to pull the attention back to herself. Paula and I ran away from home. She’s my best friend.

You almost choked and first took a big gulp of your cola. I felt nauseous. From your manners, the smacking, that repulsive smell. I was in the bathroom at the main train station. And when I came back, she was gone. With my backpack, my phone, and my money. The stupid bitch.

A tear ran down your freckled face. And suddenly a feeling of pity flickered inside me. Now I remembered why I had ended up with you in this miserable place, and I smiled as I ordered two more meals. We talked the whole evening. You told me about your horrible family, your stupid ex-boyfriend, school, the feeling of not knowing where you belonged. And that Berlin was the last hope of finally getting your life together. I knew that feeling all too well.

As for me, I babbled on about my job as a party photographer and how I had always wondered how I managed to make so much money with such a completely pointless occupation. However, I didn’t tell you anything about the drugs, the excesses, and the prostitutes who came and went from my place. But I did reveal that my father never took me seriously, that my very first love had sex with my two best friends, and that I had once been in prison. Why, for the time being, remained my secret.

If you want, you can stay at my place tonight, and tomorrow I’ll buy you a ticket back home. You looked pretty bewildered. Why would you do that? Why would I do that? No idea. I have money and you need money. I was raised Catholic. All that stuff about sharing and loving your neighbor and all that crap. Fine by me, but you’d better not touch me! Suddenly you were a cat, with fangs and claws and that look full of mistrust, fear, and self-defense.

I liked the strength in you, bursting with woundedness and inner greatness. In your sparkling blue eyes I seemed to encounter myself, before I had lost the fun in all of this. The voices of many ghosts came over me as we finally kissed beneath the dim light of the streetlamp. You were pale, unaware and unsuspecting, your being so full of pain and strength. That was the most beautiful thing about it all.

We slept together the whole night. In the bed, on the table, against the wall. And the next morning you didn’t want to leave anymore. I tolerated you in my place like my housecat. My little monkey. And step by step I introduced you to my world, which after a short time seemed to give you far more happiness than it had ever managed to give me.

Basically, everything we did revolved around sex. Not love, not dancing. When she let that disgusting junkie screw her in the bathroom at the opening of Chan Shin while I was busy taking funny pictures of the party crowd that disgusted me, it didn’t really bother me at all.

And yet I beat Sina bloody in the parking lot when she told me about it so cheerfully. With every blow, every strike, every kick, his face came to mind—how he mounted her like a wild animal, having no idea about her dreams, her longings.

That she liked to drop three lumps of sugar into her coffee. That she snorted like a little pig when someone said something funny on television. And that she wore pink underwear when she had her period. That jerk didn’t know any of that when he pushed her against the wall and rammed his disgusting cock into her flawless body again and again. And he didn’t give a damn.

When they pulled me away from you, you were lying on the dark concrete, gasping and crying. Blood flowed, gleaming, down your freckled face. You stood up and looked at me the way a mother looks at her son who has done something stupid but incredibly sweet.

You love me, don’t you? you ask me as we lie together in bed at night, taking turns on a joint while I kiss your wounds. How do you get that idea? I ask curtly. Because you were jealous. Because I fucked Cosby in the bathroom. You giggle happily. I hate you, I say, turn my back to you, and fall asleep.

I only wake the next morning because of the clicking sounds from your laptop. I blink, see you sitting on the floor in your white nightgown, and kneel down behind you. Anger starts to boil up inside me—you’re chatting with Cosby early in the morning. I grab the MacBook and throw it out the window, like a Frisbee. You look at me, puzzled, give me a kiss on the cheek, and make us some scrambled eggs with bacon. Buy a new one—I want to listen to music.

My name is Sina. Close friends describe me as a bit of a stubborn mule who can suddenly fall head-over-heels for things and people with the full force of a raging storm—only to grow bored just as quickly and drop them again.

In my short life there are only a few scenarios that truly terrify me to the core. One of them is among my worst fears: that someday I might become wealthier than my father.

Because in my mind the evidence is clear: all that money is the reason that idiot is constantly jetting from one world metropolis to the next with an entourage of blonde, anorexic secretaries who aren’t even older than I am—while his loving family always ends up coming second. My mother doesn’t know that he’s sleeping with at least half of those soulless Barbie dolls. Or maybe she doesn’t want to know.

Another uncontrollable fear I clearly have is of small children. I don’t know how to deal with them, I don’t know what to do with them, and I certainly can’t understand how it can be that eight-year-old gnomes with thick pants and even thicker balls either call me a slut or constantly grab my ass at the bus stop. And if you slap one of them, suddenly they start crying and calling for their bull of a father, who then berates you with a mixture of disgust and dripping lust. Thanks for this lovely morning.

But most of all, I really hate the idea that my bikini might slip off when I take a daring leap into the swimming pool or the Stollensee lake. That’s what happened to my best friend Paula last summer. Since then, the whole school knows that she has the biggest breasts and darkest nipples ever. And it’s not just those precocious bitches from the fifth grade who find it hilarious, no, Johnny, self-proclaimed moron and predestined winner of the BILD newspaper reader of the year award, loves to rub it in.

Although, at that moment, he was probably more preoccupied with rubbing it into me, making disgusting grunting noises, and almost falling off the bed in his failed attempt to finger me while humping me. So he decided to leave it at that.

Which was really better for both of us, because he was just slapping around on my stomach like a crazed lunatic anyway. At least I didn’t have to look him in the eye during his very personal interpretation of World War II, so I took the opportunity to look out the open window at the park on this sunny day and think about the important questions of life.

Whether Paula had also forgotten the history presentation that Mr. Dächler had assigned her. How many women were also kneeling on all fours in front of their loved ones at that moment, concentrating intently on counting the clouds. And whether I should finally redeem my gift certificate at Douglas tonight.

There was a new perfume by Calvin Klein that smelled like a mixture of vanilla and raspberry and went incredibly well with my phenomenal natural scent. I had to have it. Turn around, you little whore! came a shout from behind, and before I knew it, I was lying on my back with Johnny’s miniature version of a cock heading straight for my nose.

The idea of going to Berlin to turn my life around and finally figure out what I really wanted to do with my existence came to me a few minutes after this lively experience in Johnny’s filthy bathroom.

I had just splashed my face with warm water and reached for the towel when I accidentally stared straight into my ocean-blue eyes, which seemed to stare back almost disdainfully. Slowly I examined my face while the post-romantic sounds of Rammstein echoed from the living room. The smell of marijuana drifted into my nose.

At that moment it became clear to me: I was more than just a small, red-haired girl whose face was good for nothing but serving as a graveyard for semen. I had character. I was damn creative. I was something special. And I had great tits, too. With this realization in tow, I walked into the living room, grabbed my clothes, ran past Johnny with a loud Adios, you jerk! and stumbled out the door into the courtyard, relieved.

The deaf-mute elderly couple sitting opposite me on a blue bench against the wall of the building seemed to enjoy my striptease out in the open, at any rate. I took my time getting dressed, pulled a cigarette from my pocket, and headed for the bus station. And heaven help it if there was even a single gnome standing around there!

We ate a lavish dinner on her rooftop terrace. Sina and Eva had cooked—lasagna with salad, pudding with little chunks in it—just the way I liked it best. Adam talked about the business. The club. The Chan Shin. How hard it had become these days to keep a place like that running. There was too much competition in the city. And the customers were getting stranger and stranger—but funnier, too.

He was tall, with monumental tattoos on both arms—lions and eagles, stars and roses. Piercings adorned his face, which seemed eaten away by madness, and his dark voice underscored everything he said with an inescapable emphasis.

Eva, on the other hand, was small, narrow, and slender. Together with her blonde, shoulder-length hair, she often transformed in my imagination into the shape of a bright fairy. Her voice was gentle and thoughtful. I would have loved to have Eva read me a bedtime story sometime.

I nodded incessantly, but in truth I didn’t give a damn about anything Adam was explaining at such length. I was one of the most dazzling figures in the business, and I couldn’t care less. Sina knew that. She looked at me with an understanding glance and took a big bite of the lasagna. Back then I found it cute when she stuffed large pieces of food into her mouth.

Why does this world make you so happy? I asked her as we walked home. Which world do you mean? She loosely wrapped an arm around me and then danced cheerfully across the cobblestones. The parties, the clubs, the over-the-top people. The drugs and all that.

She stopped calmly and slowly turned toward me. Because you live in it. I looked at her in disbelief. But I hate it. And you know that. And why?

Because none of it is real. It’s all exaggerated and artificial. People suppress their problems and worries, wash them down with alcohol, and push themselves into strange mental worlds with drugs—only to crash even harder onto the ground of reality the next morning.

With a smile she stepped toward me, took my hands, and pressed a kiss on my mouth—both tender and passionate. I’m real, she whispered softly. And the two of us live in this world.

A bright beam of light broke through my murky thoughts, long ruled by darkness. Howling and shrieking in pain, the demons of my self exploded into a thousand pieces, making room for a green, healing bud that pushed its way upward through the cold, withered earth.

A grin spread across my face, which only moments before had been so thoughtful and sullen with deep conviction and aversion. See? she said, then ran off and spread her arms wide. Come on, let’s fly! she shouted and disappeared around the next corner. Wait for me!

Sina was like a little child, a whirlwind. She reminded me of my own resolutions and convictions that I had lost through life here. Her temperament was always cheerful, carefree, and full of positive surprises. She was Ernie, I was Bert. Don’t be such a Bert!

I enjoyed every minute I spent with her. At least that’s how it felt in hindsight; in truth, she often annoyed me with her overly naive view of existence. Maybe I was simply jealous.

Often I would look at her bright body, photograph it, caress it. I knew every freckle on her, every scar, every tiny hair. I knew how to stroke her stomach so that she would start giggling like a chicken, which spots she didn’t want to be touched, and how I could drive her to inner despair right up to orgasm.

Sina was an open book to me, and yet so many pages still seemed unread. Perhaps unwritten. And those were the ones I was afraid of. A future waiting for me that I didn’t want to know about—because it would change everything, destroy our world, annihilate our existence.

He collapsed in front of me, dropping to the ground, yelping and gasping. Right in the balls! Paula shouted to me triumphantly, beaming from ear to ear. It was dark, it was cold, but because of that good deed I was practically glowing inside. I felt so liberated. What a victory, what a triumph. Johnny grimaced in pain, his brainless friends stared at me like paralyzed rabbits.

Come on over here, you idiots, I’m in a really good mood today! I shouted at them, glaring as fiercely as I could. I had nothing left to lose, and they should feel that. Johnny wailed.

Sina, hurry up, the damn train’s about to leave! I grabbed my backpack and started running. I was running away from my old life—my boyfriend, my family—just get away from here. Johnny shouted after me: You slut! If I catch you, I’ll kill you! Cuuunt!

At that word we jumped onto the train. The doors slammed shut loudly behind us, and shortly afterward we were on our way to a new, better life. I was so relieved that I dropped to my knees and started crying.

Paula was my best friend. She had big breasts and an even bigger heart. I loved her, I adored her, I would have given my life for her. When I opened my eyes, we were holding each other tightly. Outside, trees, mountains, and houses shot past us. I snuggled into her lilac-colored sweater, which smelled so wonderfully of roses, and breathed in deeply. How much longer? I murmured into her ample bosom. A few hours, came the brief reply from above. Aw, man…

When we arrived at Berlin Central Station, we first trudged happily—yet exhausted—to the nearest Burger King, ordered the fattest menu with bacon and large fries, and celebrated our newfound freedom. I was happy, truly happy.

If you want, you can go to the bathroom quickly. I’ll wait here for you. Paula put on her brightest smile. I nodded eagerly, took another quick sip of my cola, and ran off. When I came back, she was gone. At first I thought it was a joke. I kept smiling and acted completely unfazed so I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction when she jumped out from around the next corner. But she wasn’t behind any corner. She was nowhere.

Slowly, panic crept up inside me. I ran through the station—every platform, every shop, every corner. She had my phone. With my last bit of change I called home and, crying, explained my situation. But my mother only laughed cruelly, said it was my own fault, that I should figure out myself how to get out of it, and muttered something about the mess I’d made for myself. Everything started spinning. I found myself on all fours, doing nothing but calling Paula’s name. But she didn’t hear me.

Sina celebrated her 18th birthday at Bar 25. We danced closely entwined to the dull, pounding bass, completely wasted. In the bathroom, two girls absolutely insisted that I photograph them and began undressing each other. I had a headache and had to fight the constant urge to just vomit loudly. The taller one gave me a blowjob while I counted the white, shiny tiles on the wall. When she finished, I went back to my birthday girl to continue the dance we had interrupted. Can we go home? she asked quietly. I’m tired.

That night Sina’s tears wouldn’t stop flowing. Why do I even put myself through all this shit? she shouted hysterically across the room and threw a basket of apples at my head. I love you, you asshole, but you’re a coward, a freeloader, a hypocrite. You hate this world, but you take advantage of it. You hate these people, but you sleep with them. You hate these drugs, but you keep snorting one line after another.

She threw the packet against the wall. Like snow, the little white grains slowly drifted to the floor. I sat on the bed and watched her crusade without doing anything.

This world means nothing to you. I mean nothing to you. Love means nothing to you. How can I open myself up to someone for whom love means nothing? Explain that to me! I’m not answering that trick question. She grew even angrier.

She stomped into the kitchen, came back with a large knife, and began stabbing the pillows and the mattress. I leaned against the wall, smoked a cigarette, and calmly watched the scene unfold. Feathers flew around the room. Sina looked like a naked, exploding angel.

I have to get out of here! she suddenly screamed and dropped the weapon. She got dressed, began stuffing some clothes into her Hello Kitty backpack, and ran out of the apartment before I even remotely understood what was happening.

When I finally snapped out of my paralysis and ran into the hallway, she had already slammed the door shut behind her. I ran to the balcony and looked down the dark street. When I spotted her reddish-blonde head of hair, I shouted down: Sina, where are you going? No answer, no explanation—she disappeared into the next subway station.

I took some orange juice from the fridge, drank from it, and then hurled the carton against the wall in a fit of rage. A large yellow stain still marks the white surface to this day. Her phone lay on the bed. I grabbed one of her panties, snuggled into the torn-up pillows with it, and tried to suppress the dark time.

That night I had a frightening dream whose abrupt ending remained deep in my bones for hours after I woke up drenched in sweat. I staggered into the kitchen, poured milk and cornflakes into a bowl, and still saw her corpse-white face right in front of me—the face I had held tightly to myself while screaming across half the city.

That peculiar smell still lingered in my nose, and I looked down at myself until the blood I could just make out in the corners of my eyes, which seemed to cover half my body, revealed itself as a cynical play of light and shadow. When I dipped the spoon in and brought a load of cornflakes to my mouth, I recognized the faces from the night before—the ones who had stood with me outside the club shouting her name, loudly, over and over again. In one hand I held my phone, in the other a bottle of tequila.

The people around me told each other that she had supposedly disappeared, completely drunk, with a more than shady guy from the Chan Shin, no longer in control of herself. I screamed for my life. Her name. The louder I screamed, the more everything would turn out alright—that much I was certain of.

Opening the window now seemed like a good idea. The cold, fresh air washed over my throbbing, wounded thoughts, and I tried to chase away the memories—how they showed me the way to her, how I ran, how I cried.

And when I turned the corner and saw her lying there, so defenseless in a filthy backyard, it was all over. All the feelings in the world concentrated into that unreal moment—like a shot, a bang, a blow. I ran to her and screamed words that didn’t even seem to exist, but so loudly that I hoped they might still reach her. The faces around me melted into a huge blur of pity as I held her so tightly that everything around me seemed to burst apart. I choked on blood and tears, and the last thing that burned itself into my mind was the image of her unhappy, restless face, whose dull eyes seemed to admonish me as the one who had not been with her when it happened. The doorbell rang.

I celebrated my 18th birthday at Bar 25. The photographer and I danced closely entwined to the dull, pounding bass. When I opened my eyes, he staggered toward the bathroom, two sun-tanned sluts following him. My world was full of colors, voices, and tragedies, so I hurried after them. When I pushed the door open a crack, I could see his strained face and his open pants, while the two girls fumbled around them. When he came back to me on the dance floor, I looked at him intently and asked, Can we go home? I’m tired.

When we got there, I couldn’t stop crying. Why do I even put myself through all this shit? I shouted in his direction, grabbing random objects and throwing them at his head. I love you, you asshole, but you’re a coward, a freeloader, a hypocrite. You hate this world, but you take advantage of it. You hate these people, but you sleep with them. You hate these drugs, but you keep snorting one line after another.

I realized too late that I was holding our new packet in my hand and, the next moment, hurled it against the wall. Suddenly the whole room was full of white specks. The photographer sat on the bed and stared at me silently.

This world means nothing to you. I mean nothing to you. Love means nothing to you. How can I open myself up to someone for whom love means nothing? Explain that to me! I’m not answering that trick question. Anger boiled inside me.

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. When I returned to the bedroom, I began stabbing the pillows and the mattress, screaming loudly. The photographer leaned against the wall with a cigarette and smiled now and then while taking a drag. Feathers flew through the room and covered me in an explosion of pale color.

I have to get out of here! I shouted, dropping the knife. I stuffed a few clothes into my backpack, looked at the photographer one last time, and then fled the apartment.

Furious, screaming, crying, I stumbled down the stairwell and burst through the front door. Once outside, I ran straight toward the nearest subway station while a voice from above called my name. I didn’t look back—I wanted nothing more to do with that asshole—and soon found myself underground. The quiet down there freed my mind; I could hear a small heart beating.

Whenever we argued, the photographer wanted to finish the fight on my body. I closed my eyes, and behind my eyelids a colorful world of chaos seemed to open up. Crystal-clear tears ran without stopping. How had I ever ended up in this place?

Love and suffering wore dark velvet robes for me, burying my battered body in the broken dreams of my own self. With the sweet words of a clear night and the organs of a rebel, he had entered my soul—and now, out of amusement, recklessness, and fear, he abused everything I had ever believed in.

Nothing struck my youth as hard as the realization that I could not ease his suffering—the suffering of living in a world whose existence and tragedy he himself had conjured. Not through my love, nor through my breasts. Small, gray fears devoured me from the inside and made my joyful moments seem dull and lonely.

All my life I kept constantly encouraging myself. That I was something special. That one day the just balance of things would catch up with me. And that life held a fascinating ending in store for the little girl with the sparkling eyes in the mirror. My tears tasted bitter, but I smiled with confidence. And when I felt the rush of wind from the train on my skin, I opened my eyes and let myself fall onto the tracks.

Are you satisfied with your life? the little blonde girl asked me openly as we strolled hand in hand through the deserted streets of long-forgotten Berlin. Not a breath of wind could be felt, not a sound could be heard, not a single soul could be seen. The war that had once raged had silenced all activity and burst the houses apart in a fiery breath.

I only looked upward—unable either to give an answer or to ask a question. White clouds on a blue background drifted triumphantly above the ruins of the once magnificent city. How alive these streets once were, and yet no one survived the days of eternal night. My battered body lay somewhere beneath these ruins as well. Forever.

My companion and I turned into a nearby park and walked along a path lined with dead trees. Her bright dress shone in the midday sun, and the honest smile on her face made me forget, for a moment, the endless pain I had been carrying deep in my heart for some time. We giggled, we played around, but suddenly she stopped and pointed forward with her arm stretched out.

My gaze froze when I saw the red-blonde, naked girl standing at the other end of the path. I ran toward her, but when I saw her empty stare, her pale face, and the bloody wounds covering her body, I slowed down and stopped in front of her. The sky turned black, the clouds transformed into glowing sparks raining down upon the dead earth, and the ground opened wide at our feet.

When I come to, Paula is holding me tightly in her arms and pressing a glass of cold water toward my face.

Another one of your nightmares? she asks gently. Her large breasts sway with every movement, and the mere presence of her character—the kisses, the smell of cheap perfume and poor intimate hygiene—strengthens my aversion toward her with every breath we both take. Paula likes orange ties.

The fact alone that she has replaced Sina as my companion of the night leaves me with no doubt that something incredibly wrong is happening in the universe, and that it is up to me to restore the balance of our civilization.

I have to find her, I reply curtly and take a large gulp of the refreshing water. More than three months ago she ran off in a rage, crying with hatred, and since then these visions have been haunting me. They’re making me sick.

The room is soaked in dark blue-black tones, and a few empty syringes have been carelessly thrown onto the floor beside the bed. My body is covered in sticky sweat, and while I vomit over the balcony, I imagine the thousands of fantasies that keep appearing. How she dies. How she suffers. How I can do nothing about it. A storm is coming.

She’s your best friend, you fucking slut! I suddenly scream at Paula and curse the day I ever opened my doors to her. The endless nighttime conversations, the crying, the repeated apologies, and the remorseful sex. Where did she even come from? And since when has she been here?

I mix reality with madness, no longer able to clearly distinguish what is actually happening and which parts of my life story are only playing out in my head. The drugs, the music, the women. And yet I only want one thing: to have Sina back. That’s all that matters right now.

It was one of those incredibly hot summer days whose bright glow burned itself into our skin and souls and kept the night away as if by magic. Eva watched the southern waiter dreamily as he walked away, while I tried to crush the ice cubes in my cocktail with the straw. A group of tourists pushed noisily down the street, shouting and laughing. I watched them go by and felt a little envious.

How’s Adam? I asked hoarsely toward the person sitting across from me—more to break the awkward silence than because I was truly interested. We hadn’t seen each other for so long, and yet her life and that of her partner meant relatively little to me.

Good, was the brief, meaningless answer, which led her to ask a counter-question: And how is Sina?

A jolt of thought thundered through my body. I accidentally knocked the cocktail to the ground. The way it shattered on the hard concrete—the mixture of glass, fruit, and liquid—I liked that. I smiled a little foolishly.

Two years had passed since Sina had fled my apartment and my life in tears and in a rush. And we hadn’t exchanged a single word since then. From what I had heard, she had adjusted wonderfully to her newfound freedom in this city, made important connections, and could be found at every good party among the upper circles. Recently she had begun hosting a few shows on a music channel, occasionally modeling for one or another local fashion label, and was rumored to be having various affairs with musicians, managers, and TV personalities.

From time to time I ran into her new self at various social events and even photographed her occasionally, arm in arm with overbred celebrities and emaciated models. She smiled into the camera like a professional, but once the flashes were over, she turned away and moved on—usually straight to the bar. As if she no longer knew me. After that, the evening was usually over for me.

An exceedingly tormenting god seemed to have placed our two fates on a set of scales that were now tipped in a painfully uneven way for me. While Sina’s life had turned—at fast-forward speed—toward happiness, prosperity, and recognition, mine was sinking into a black sludge of self-doubt, dissatisfaction, and ungrateful hatred toward everything and everyone.

What had long ago become my new purpose in life—my search for her—was now turning my hopes, dreams, and certainties into an endless journey of setbacks, disappointments, and trampled feelings. I had become a shadow of myself.

I had scoured all of Berlin for a worthy copy of her. I searched for her playful freckles, her red-golden hair, and her bright blue eyes in every Catholic schoolgirl, burned-out designer, and soulless prostitute in the city. And every time, with less shock but more finality, I had to admit that they were all just empty shells—insignificant side characters who could never measure up to what Sina had awakened deep inside me, and who could never even come close to meeting the false expectations with which I burdened them.

So at night, under the influence of overpriced stimulants and Red Bull, I lay awake, masturbating again and again to the photos on her Facebook profile. I was jealous of everyone who left some sycophantic message on her page, became a fan, or linked themselves into her life. I had become a stalker—a lonely nobody without real friends who had ultimately drowned in this world of glitter, drugs, and false reason. Just as Sina had once predicted.

It must have been a few days after the terse meeting with Eva when I was asked to take photos at the after-show party for Schweighöfer’s new film at a hotel—a party I showed up to already drunk and far too late.

There were plenty of candles, seventeen different martinis, and a constantly wasted boss who spoke German with a New York accent and overdid it completely. Her New York accent made me sick. Only a fraction of the photos I took that evening were usable. But I didn’t care—just like I didn’t care about anything else. After all, I was an artist, and there was no reason not to admire me.

Being a problem person didn’t make life in this world easy. Never had I been so aware of the limits of existence—I kept pushing further, further, even further, until everything around me began to crack and shattered like a glass cube into a thousand pieces. My life was an experiment, and everyone in it became a test subject I could experiment on until I freed them from their fantasies with too much pressure—or until they got there first and fled. It was time for me to disappear.

The rigid faces, the forced laughter, and the sad eyes of the invited guests disgusted me and practically pushed me away from them. I went out onto the balcony to light a cigarette and only after a while realized that a girl was standing next to me, watching intently as I tried to blow smoke rings toward the TV Tower, hoping to bring it crashing down. When I saw her face, I started coughing. Sina smiled at me.

Sina and I stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like several eternities. My head seemed to explode in inhuman colors, my breath stopped. Adrenaline pumped through my body like a maddened bull—the only conceivable conclusion was a stroke.

Where had she come from, why was she there, and—for God’s sake—why was she speaking to me after ignoring and despising me for the last two years, after luring me into a psychological minefield of despair, sleeplessness, and suicidal thoughts and leaving me there?

Hello, I croaked out in a phlegmy voice, cleared my throat quickly and conspicuously, and repeated my greeting, which now sounded almost like a question.

My counterpart kept smiling calmly and steadily, took a sip from her wine glass, and then skillfully and stylishly tossed it over the railing. Long time no see, she slurred toward me. Sina was drunk. And clearly high.

My disappointment at the prospect of having a sober and honest conversation with her must have been written all over my face, because she staggered toward me, wrapped her arms around me, and then grinned with dilated pupils as if looking right through me. Are you alright?

Her apartment wasn’t far from mine. High walls, large windows, a fascinating old building. Every room had been arranged thoughtfully and in a modern style. The walls were covered in soft pastel colors; the furniture was partly new, partly old, but everything fit together. Everywhere it smelled of vanilla and mango, and the lamps and candles filled Sina’s world with a romantically muted light.

Photos of her with her new friends and lovers were stuck to the refrigerator. She was smiling in all of them. I felt bad—seeing in my mind the scenes in which she cried, howled in pain, and balanced on the edge of existence.

Would you like a glass of wine? the most beautiful voice in the universe I knew called out from another room. I nodded, briefly touched my forehead, and then said yes. Why did you let me go so easily back then?

We were lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, covered in spilled wine. I tried to answer skillfully and eloquently, but the marijuana and the alcohol blocked my reason and let adventurous stories spill from my mouth, pushing the air around us aside—stories of knights and flowers, dresses and bears, whores and drama.

She laughed loudly and for a long time at everything I planted in her red-blonde head. Her hair smelled just like it used to—of ice cream, Red Bull, and a mixture of fast food and a meadow of flowers. Then Sina sat up, took my hands, and said: That one night—the night that separated us—I tried to kill myself.

After that night we started seeing each other more often again—over coffee, at the movies, or at one party or another. Like a puzzle, we revealed our lives of the past years to each other piece by piece. Some things made me smile honestly; others only forced a strained smile from me because they tore at my thoughts.

She never spoke again about her attempt to catapult herself out of life, but all the more about sex, love, and the hard and soft separations. When she asked how things were going for me in those respects, I lied through my teeth. I deliberately left Paula out of it.

But lies had no effect between us. We both knew that. Since that moment on the balcony, we could suddenly read each other again like an open book. As if the time in between had never happened—as if only minutes ago I had been shouting her name down at her through tears and spit while she, empty and at the end of herself, walked along the street and disappeared into the next subway station.

The nightmares, the vodka, the medication—everything rotted away before my eyes into the final remnants of the darkest time of my life. When she realized it, she hugged me tighter than ever and tears ran down my neck. It was terrible, Sina just managed to say. Then we slept together, and for a while, everything was okay.