Eight Hundred Thirty-Nine Witnesses
If I hadn’t been born here, at this specific moment in history, none of these people would exist to me. The particular warmth some of them carried, the particular cold others aimed like a weapon, the love and the cruelty and the honesty and the quietly depraved things they did when no one was supposed to be watching—all of it contingent on the accident of geography and timing. It’s one of those thoughts that should probably unsettle you more than it does.
So many different characters have traced their small and large orbits through my life, glowed up and went dark forever, sealed now into whatever I use for memory. The people who shaped me most—their dramas, their secrets, the disasters they lived through and the ones they caused—feel like they deserve some kind of reckoning. A brief window into the tangled, sympathetic, occasionally depraved world of my friends and enemies.
Martin is actually in love with Nicole. Sarah lost her virginity at thirteen. Maike’s boyfriend is an asshole. Helena wore green socks. Manuel is short. Thomas got taken on. Anastasia had anal sex with Paul on New Year’s Eve. Klaus is better at Warcraft III than Manuel. André came in Melanie’s mouth. Alican kissed Sarah on the playground. Karina slept with Markus. Marvin was in love with Christin. Rebecca had Martin’s penis in her mouth. Tino can’t speak German. Bettina has long nipples. Tanja cheated on her boyfriend during the school trip to Italy. Johannes almost lost a testicle.
Sebastian slept with two lesbians. Gino bought a new Nintendo game every week. Sabrina only shaves the mound. Caner was always the smallest. Lisa slept with Julian. Bianca is with Ben. Stefano was bullied as a kid. Jennifer has big breasts. Anne cried. Maria is now a lesbian. Vincenzo was always a womanizer. Lydia kissed Robert without tongue. Cindy looks better than Mandy. Rebecca asked for more fingers. Kathrin participated in an orgy and had an abortion afterward. Carolin kissed Thilo. Tina doesn’t like to shave.
Stefanie likes the feeling of tampons. Sina’s father teaches driving lessons. Benjamin stripped in front of a topless dancer. Sara slept with a woman. Paul barely eats. Franzi let herself be photographed naked. Darja has no friends left. Ferdinand wrote the most beautiful love letter. Ramona’s boyfriend broke up with her. Meltem lost her father. Dennis has a new girlfriend. Hannah kissed an emo. Onur keeps getting heavier. Regina was precocious. Mandy slept with Sven. Irina works as a dental assistant.
Kevin has a pretty girlfriend. Julia was an altar server. Stefanie has small breasts. Theresa writes short stories. Angelika had a child at sixteen. Susanne bit her ex-boyfriend in the genitals. Katharina loves Korea. Aaron is a gangster now. Anton wanted to kill himself.
Larissa is into tattooed girls. Sabrina has a burn scar on her chest. Stefanie follows wherever the current takes her. Kerstin stripped on a table. Isabell has mental problems. Julia lost her virginity to four men at once. Margarete only ever ends up with strange guys. Rebecka got everything she wanted. Lisa had hip surgery. Sebastian loves to swim. Nadine gave the bartender a blowjob. Ina has fine blonde hairs on her skin. Verena likes rich guys. Raphaela lay naked in bed with Eniz. Ayse cannot lose. Sonja always wants to go to Munich. Kerstin was too tight. Nobody ever liked Binnaz. Maria shaves an arrow between her legs. Mona is dead. Sandra sings to herself. Daniel is with Madeleine. Susann never got over the breakup. Tanja sent nude photos of herself to a stranger. Verena has a soft ass. Laura is a slut. Silvia has rich parents. Marcel has cheated on every girlfriend he’s ever had.