When we arrived in Glasgow, Leila was already waiting for Gian. When they locked each other in their arms and kissed I suddenly remembered the beginning of a wonderful movie I had seen long ago. I could even hear Hugh Grant saying “love, actually, is all around” in my head. At least the Italian saying was gone for a moment.
        Gian’s girlfriend somehow looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why and I quickly decided that it was a meaningless déjà-vu.
        He introduced us and asked if I cared to join them for a drink before we’d go our separate ways. I am usually not the type who quickly bonds with people but the last two hours on the plane were quite enjoyable and that uncanny feeling about Leila intrigued me. I had no plans for the evening anyway, so I agreed. The meeting with my editor was scheduled for the next day at 4 p.m., so I could easily sleep through the morning. In Berlin, my parents hadn’t allowed me many zeds, they were too excited that I was finally home again after six months. And when they slept, I went to the Sony Centre to meet up with some old friends. It was a great week.

We went to a pub right next to the airport and sat down by the window from where we had a great view of the runway. As Gian paid for a round, Leila told me she had grown up in Berlin too, but she and Gian were having a long-distance relationship. She was an assistant lecturer at the University of Glasgow and he was working for an insurance company in Berlin.
        When it was my turn to pay for a round I asked Leila what drink she’d like. Suddenly the Italian saying vanished for a second time and I heard the Ouverture of Gershwin’s World playing in my head, which confused me even more. I hadn’t heard that song in years; I couldn’t even remember when I had last listened to some Hancock.
        Leila and Gian both asked for a cup of coffee. I wanted to go for an Irn-Bru but then decided to order a toddy – I needed something to pull myself together and Craig Ferguson once noted that whiskey solves any problem as long as it’s hot. I had never tried it, but when in Glasgow, do as the Glaswegians do.
        As it turned out, comedians sometimes do tell the truth. The toddy tasted great and I felt a bit better. Gershwin’s World was no more and Gian and I started telling Leila about the trouble of getting through the check-in with all the fans of the winning teams arrriving and those of the losing teams leaving. I have never been into football – or any other kind of sport for that matter – but I am usually a calm person, however, that chaos was annoying. Luckily, it was not as bad as the disaster that came to be known as the World Youth Days in Cologne the year before. Some people still talk about Teutonic thoroughness, but we are far not as thorough as we like to think.
        I can’t remember exactly how but at some point we ended up exchanging stories from our various encounters with the punks at the Alexanderplatz. Perhap U2’s Zoo Station playing on the radio inspired us to discuss the social issues in Berlin. I got carried away and started talking about the love of my youth, who just so happened to have been a punk. Unsurprisingly, I lost a bit of their sympathy when I started reminiscing about Zoe. Or should I say they lost a bit of my sympathy when they showed no understanding of the problems that can drive teenagers into becoming punks – for example a father who sets off to Thailand and leaves his family behind, as was the case with Zoe’s dad. I sometimes wonder why she is the only girl I end up remembering time and again. Admittedly it is hard to imagine falling in love with a girl who has blue hair and more piercings in her face than any other punk, but it’s not as if she had been like Christiane F. who had been a heroin addict and prostitute by the age of 14. Christiane didn’t even hang around on Alexanderplatz, but at the Bahnhof Zoo and anyway that was in the seventies. I felt uncomfortable justifying my ex-girlfriend and I decided to stop remembering my youth. I was just about to change topics by asking Leila what it is like teaching at the University of Glasgow when her phone rang.

        ”Oh my god that lady’s just been hit by that car!”, she screamed.
        ”Go look for a phone booth and call 112, I’ll check on her,” I shouted, running towards the woman.
        ”I got a mobile…”
        ”She’s still alive but she’s heavily wounded! Where’s the bloody car?!”
        ”It’s gone. Hit and run.”
        ”Fuck! Have you called the ambulance?”
        ”On its way.”
        ”She’s unconscious!”
        ”It’s gonna take them at least ten minutes to get here. You know first aid?”
        ”I can remember a few but…”

The memory was foggy after seven years but the woman looked incredibly similar to Leila. When she had put down her phone I realised that it had actually been her mobile that triggered the memory, even though it wasn’t the same phone of course.
        I tried remembering more of the scene but it was like Marcel Proust’s famous scene of the madeleine, at every attempt the images fainted more and more. I thought about asking Leila, but after having gotten off track and talked about my punk girlfriend earlier I didn’t want to add any more weirdness to their first impression of me in case I was just imagining the woman having been Leila. I would probably never see them again but, as I said, I am not the guy who quickly bonds with people and I actually started to feel quite at ease with these two. Messing it up and parting in total awkwardness was not at all how I wanted the evening to end.
        I had decided that asking Leila about her favourite musical genre was the easiest way to go – if she didn’t like Jazz, I’d know that it couldn’t have been her who I met at that Jazzfest back then.
        Thinking back, I am surprised that we went our separate ways and never saw each other again after that fateful night. Leila, if it had been her, was one of those very few girls who not only are stunningly beautiful but with whom you can also have a meaningful conversation. Perhaps that was the reason why I had accepted the invitation to drink a pint with them even though I thought I didn’t know them – well, I was still pretty sure I had never met Gian before.

        ”I would never have expected seeing another person as young as me here,” I heard the girl behind me say.
        ”Well I like to blame my father for it, he listens to Jazz all day long. And he particularly likes Hancock. He tells everyone that Hancock is the best. He must have passed that passion onto me,” I replied, turning around.
        ”Oh I love Herbie Hancock.”
        ”Really? So we found one similarity. Two more and you’ll have to go drink a coffee with me afterwards,” I answered, deciding that the girl in front of me was absolutely worth flirting with.
        ”Silly you! Of course we both like Hancock, we’re standing in line to enter the concert hall,” she said.
        ”Don’t look for excuses, you’re the one who started this conversation after all,” I replied in an overly cocky voice.
        ”Because I was bored,” she teasingly answered.
        ”Ouch,” I said, looking down on the floor.
        ”You don’t even know my name…”
        ”Yet.”

Leila liked Jazz. She even started talking about having been to some Jazz concerts. I didn’t dare asking her if she’d ever been to the Jazzfest though. I still couldn’t get a clear image of the girl I met back then. Maybe it was Leila, but I could only remember small pieces of that day and I didn’t trust them as they were really fuzzy.
        After two hours we had come to talk about my book of which I was going to hand in the final draft the next day. Gian asked me about every detail of the story, even though he had already bombarded me with questions on the plane. I decided to tell him about the chapter in which the main character receives her nonna’s secret receipe for the best pasta in the world (leaving out the fact that I had also written about how pasta was actually invented by the Chinese and not the Italian) on her wedding day. That did it for Gian. He started talking about his nonna as soon as I had finished my sentence. You have got to love Italian people and the incredible pride they take in la famiglia, especially their mother or, in this case, grandmother. Leila told Gian to stop however, complaining about getting a headache from the same old story.

        ”Hey, you alright?” she asked me.
        ”Did the doctor just say she’s dead, before they closed the door and drove off?” I asked, trembling.
        ”He said she had a cardiac arrest, he didn’t say she was dead. All we can do now is hope that she makes it,” she tried comforting me, though of course it wasn’t any real comfort.
        ”There’s only hope while there’s life. She wasn’t alive when they put her in the ambulance.”
        ”There is nothing else you could have done.”
        ”She looked so young. She certainly wasn’t older than we are.”
        ”Come on, let’s go get a cup of coffee and talk about it.”
        ”I can’t believe I couldn’t remember how to move her into the lateral recumbent position.”
        ”It wasn’t your fault. She was severely hurt and you were not the one who hit her in the first place.”
        ”Still… Did you ask what hospital they are taking her to?”
        ”No…”

I remembered having gone to a café opposite the concert hall. I remembered having sat there with this girl who only two hours earlier I had actually wanted to ask out and who now was trying to comfort me about another girl. I remembered feeling inane. But I had blotted out the memory of that day completely long ago and it was only coming back slowly. I couldn’t even remember her name. Perhaps we never introduced ourselves.
        I looked at Leila and tried concentrating, maybe this time I would succeed in putting all the pieces of memory back together. She looked back at me; surely I must have seemed like an obsessed person when I stared at her face. Why didn’t she recognise me? Maybe I was mistaken and it hadn’t been her after all. She asked me if something was wrong, which I denied at first, but then I saw a scar on the top of her forehead, covered beneath her auburn hair.

I’ll paint a picture with autumn leaves,
carve our names into a bench,
or our initials, with a heart around them.
I’ll dance in the rain and laugh,
smile all day long for no particular reason,
crack up when we’re apart,
go loopy when we’re not.
I’ll make you a mixtape like they used to
and put pictures of us online as they do.
I’ll shout out the beauty and pause for a moment
before I open my eyes and discover the world anew.
I’ll learn exotic languages to describe it all
and invent words for all the things nobody ever saw.
I’ll forget what it will all become one day;
nobody will tear this madhouse down for now.

A crippled human walking past
The ruins of a crashed mall,
A deadened soul creeping through
The foul mud left behind.

Echoes of poltergeists moaning,
Much cry and little wool,
They have already bitten the dust.

A thirsty alcoholic drinking
The last glass of leaded water,
A dying past redemption
Expectorating till the last breath.

Harsh wind in sinister streets,
Blue light onto burning debris,
Vanishing footsteps on ashes,
Dead child under a rotten bench.

Das Gefühl der Unzufriedenheit plagt eine komplette Generation in einem Ausmaße wie es seit langem nicht mehr der Fall war. Das fin du siècle war womöglich die letzte ähnliche Bewegung – das Jazz Age einmal aussen vorgelassen, denn in den 1920ern war es immerhin die ältere Generation die von dieser Unzufriedenheit geplagt wurde, während die Jugend immer dekadenter wurde. Vielleicht ist heute am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts aber zum ersten Mal beides der Fall: die Welt verändert sich in einem nie dagewesenen Tempo und der Spalt zwischen den Generationen wird immer größer. Es mag eine subjektive Beobachtung sein, aber mir kommt es so vor, als würden die jüngeren Generationen so radikal wie nie zuvor eine neue Kultur erschaffen – vom Krumping bis hin zum Nutzen neuer Technologien. In den letzten Jahren sind mehr neue Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten entstanden als jemals zuvor in der Geschichte der Menschheit; von der Wandmalerie zum Buch verlangte es Jahrtausende, vom Buch zum Radio Jahrhunderte und vom Radio zum Fernsehen Jahrzehnte. Vom farbigen Fernsehen zum Internet brauchte es nur noch wenige Jahre und das Internet hat in wenigen Jahren soviele Möglichkeiten geschaffen wie nie zuvor. Von Blogs über Podcasts bis hin zu Videoportalen erschließen sich einer Generation, welche mit diesen Entwicklungen aufgewachsen ist, plötzlich fantastische Ausdrucksformen. Dass dabei auch viel wertloser Inhalt entsteht ist unabdingbar, verringert aber nicht das Potenzial der Entwicklungen.

Am Ende des Tages bleibt aber dieses große Problem bestehen: Massenkultur – ein Wort, das bereits in sich einen Widerspruch darstellt. Kultur entsteht durch individuelle Sichtweisen, neue Definitionen von Altbekanntem, das Brechen von Konventionen und Regeln. Kultur kann nie einer Masse gerecht werden. Wenn Millionen von Menschen Harry Potter lesen ist das keine Kultur, sondern das Resultat einer groß angelegten Marketingstrategie des Mainstreams. Wenn Millionen von Menschen sich den neusten Spielberg Film ansehen, ist das keine Kultur sondern das Konsumieren eines Produktes. Ein Wort welches das Problem passend illustriert ist die Bezeichnung Kulturindustrie. Kultur wird dessen beraubt was sie eigentlich ausmacht: Originalität. Wenn einer eine Idee hat, wird sie entweder sofort patentiert oder gleich von allen kopiert anstatt interpretiert. Klauen ist einfacher als nachdenken. Die Industrie versteht Kultur hier aber absolut falsch: Kultur heisst nicht, sich von Produkten berieseln lassen, sondern das genaue Gegenteil davon: richtige Kultur regt zum Nachdenken an. Sie entzieht sich jeglichem banalem Konsumieren sondern verlangt dem Betrachter ein Stück von sich selbst ab. Kultur ist nicht nur das bloße obligatorische Besuchen des Louvre, das Ansehen des neusten Hollywood Filmes oder Lesen des letzten Dan Browns.

Wir brauchen wieder etwas, das uns verbindet. Eine Basis die nicht auf kommerziellem Interesse beruht, sondern auf dem Drang kreativ zu sein. Eine Basis die es nicht erlaubt einfach nur zu konsumieren. Eine Basis die es erlaubt auf anderes aufzubauen und nicht nur eine bloße Kopie zu schaffen. Möglichkeiten dazu existieren bereits genug: ein besonders hervorzuhebendes Phänomen sei das Podiobook, eine Form des Podcasting bei der unveröffentlichte Autoren ihr Werk als Podcast publizieren – zu einem großen Teil den “großen” Autoren überlegen. Das ist aber nicht genug. Wir brauchen wieder eine literarische Bewegung die sich nicht auf ein bestimmtes Thema stützt, sondern vielmehr den Autoren die Möglichkeit lässt, ihre Ideen niederzuschreiben. Eine Bewegung die den Drang nach Selbstexpression unterstützt. Eine Bewegung die sich nicht durch bestimmte Stilfiguren definieren lässt, sondern gerade durch das Nichtvorhandensein dieser. Eine Bewegung die so vielfältig ist wie die Gedanken ihrer Autoren. Eine Bewegung für eine aufstrebende Generation von Autoren die sich nicht einem Herausgeber und dessen Ideen unterwerfen wollen, eine Bewegung dessen Ziel es nicht ist von der Masse anerkannt zu werden, sondern verstören will.
     Eine Bewegung die sich den Problemen der Welt bewusst ist und den Menschen wieder zum Nachdenken anregen will. Werke die es wagen unbequeme Fragen zu stellen, eine neue Sichtweise auf Dinge zu geben, Konventionen zu brechen. Autoren die unzufrieden sind mit der Kommerzialisierung der Kultur. Autoren die das schreiben, wozu sie den Drang verspüren und nicht was ihnen von der Kulturindustrie vorgeschrieben wird. Autoren die am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts stehen und erkennen, dass die eingeschlagene Richtung die falsche ist. Autoren die Kultur wieder zu dem machen wollen, was sie einmal war: kreativ.

Tag 745
Ich weiss nicht wo ich gerade bin. Es könnte Paris sein, aber nirgendwo mehr sind die Ruinen noch erhalten genug um es sicher behaupten zu können. Irgendeine Bande hätte mich vor ein paar Tagen wieder einmal fast erwischt. Ich habe zwei Blätter Papier auf der Flucht verloren und keine Ahnung wo ich neue auftreiben soll. Was zu Essen auftreiben ist jetzt sowieso wichtiger, ist jetzt schon wieder fast eine Woche her.

Tag 768
Habe ich mich eigentlich nie verzählt? Was ist wenn wir erst Tag 767 sind, oder schon 769? Ein Tag länger in der Hölle, oder einen Tag weniger. Ich habe gestern gesehen wie sie ein kleines Kind erschlagen haben weil es ihnen nicht sein Wasser überlassen wollte. Was bin ich nur für ein Mensch geworden, dass ich ihr nicht geholfen habe? Es tut mir so leid.

Tag 774
Julia heißt sie. Sie sagt man spreche das wie Jjüllia aus, mit der Betonung auf dem “a”. Mein Französisch ist mies.
     Ich habe sie in einem alten Lagerhaus gefunden, sie versteckte sich dort vor einem Vergewaltiger. Er hielt sie als persönliche Sklavin. Ich frage mich jeden Tag, ob ich schon alles erlebt hätte an menschlichem Abgrund, und jeden Tag wird es schlimmer. Kann Feuer wärmer werden?
     Ich habe ihr ein paar Lakritzschlangen gegeben. Es war das Einzige was ich hatte. Seither läuft sie mir hinterher. Ich bin mir nicht sicher ob ich das gut finde. Einerseits gefällt es mir, nicht mehr alleine zu sein, andererseits bedeutet eine andere Person auch doppelt soviele Sorgen und langsameres Vorankommen.
     Als ob ich wüsste wo ich hin wollte. Zwei Jahre irre ich nun schon durch Europa. Ich glaube jedenfalls, dass ich noch in Europa bin. Vielleicht bin ich auch in eine ganz andere Richtung gelaufen und das ist nicht Paris sondern irgendeine russische Stadt. Ruinen und Leichen sehen überall gleich aus.

Tag 775
Julia hat mich heute morgen gefragt wo ich herkomme. Da wurde mir klar, dass ich das gar nicht mehr weiß. Ich war sechzehn als der Krieg ausbrach und lebte in einem Vorort von Köln. Mein Vater wurde als Reservist eingezogen und starb noch in der ersten Kriegswoche irgendwo in der Türkei. Meine Mutter starb bereits bei meiner Geburt, also war ich auf mich alleine gestellt. Ich habe keine Ahnung was aus meinen Freunden wurde, die meisten sind gen Süden geflüchtet, weil Australien sich als neutral erklärt hatte. Das intressierte die Japaner aber kaum. Nach einem wackligen Bündnis mit den Amerikanern und der Rache an den Russen warfen sie überall Bomben ab, wo sie es nicht für wert hielten Soldaten für die Eroberung hinzuschicken. Der große Krieg war ein Krieg ums nackte Überleben, bei dem 4 Milliarden Menschen starben. Aus dem Krieg ums Überleben wurde die Nachkriegszeit ums Überleben.
     Wo komme ich her? Irgendwie hört sich die Frage belanglos an. Wo ich herkomme – das ist eine Welt die es seit langem nicht mehr gibt. Wen ich zurückgelassen habe – das sind Menschen die ich aus meiner Erinnerung verdrängt habe, weil man heute nur noch als Egoist überlebt.
     Beim letzten Satz hat sie mich erschüttert angesehen. Wenn ich es nicht besser wüsste, würde ich sagen, sie hätte Hoffnung.

Tag 782
Sie hat mich geküsst. Ich fühle mich schlecht. Ich weiss nicht ob ich verliebt bin. Ich war’s noch nie und das einzige Gefühl, das ich die letzten Jahre kannte war Gefühlslosigkeit. Noch nicht mal Einsamkeit. Ich glaube, das ist der Instinkt des Selbstschutzes. Gibt es sowas?
     Für einen ganz kurzen Moment habe ich vergessen, dass ich vor Hunger fast sterbe und meine Haut sich trocken anfühlt. Für einen Moment habe ich das Mädchen vergessen, das damals erschlagen wurde während ich mich feige versteckt habe. Das weiss Julia nicht. Würde sie mich noch mögen, wenn sie es wüsste? Ich hasse mich ja selbst dafür. Ach, da ist doch noch ein Gefühl: Hass.

[Die weiteren bisher veröffentlichten Teile gibt es hier.]

All in all is all we are. Kurt Cobain or ancient philosophers?
Somewhere inbetween regarding factual existence.
Far too long after both to feel alive.
I miss him so badly, I even start
looking up pornographical terms on the internet.
The behaviour pattern of an academic in need for closeness.

The rain starts again, and R.E.M. play turn you inside-out.
I’ve turned my inside out in front of you. Backwards against the wall.
Walls slide, pits open, you turned and went. Outside in on me.

I miss him so badly, I can´t sleep without light.
Turn on the bright lights! So as they say,
stranger things have happened before.

I’m deaf to the tone of drones in the nest. I am never aware.
I pass dangers like life passes me.
So they have no interest in mine.

What’s in stores? I would have bought another identity, had I only known.

Wither blister, burn and peel. I shook you off my shoulders.
And even so the world won’t listen,
We will never be the same. A bottomless fall, a burning sharp winter.
We will never recover.
I covered the truth I wanted to know with my hands.
Have you ever been here? Have you ever come out of my head?
Will I ever rise to the surface again?

Our hearts still remember the thrill touch of the grass
On our skin after long baths in the lake.
I hate to say I miss the walks with you
To the other end of the pasture lands
Where we did share sunburns on our sandalled feet.
The glare of the sun dried all pain
For once no gash in my soul.
How we got into the car and drove off until morning
For once not driven by an insatiable need for more.
When the sun went up we sat on the front lid and watched
The golden glimmer on a field of corn.

Confide in me, I will sit and count every cloud
as their passage brings us back to that endless summer

“Death,” he began, “is a part of one’s life. It is the main point of one’s personal story which has been developping for years. It may be true that your future lies in your proper hands.
     However, you have to remind yourself from time to time, that you do not know when your last hour has come. You could die tomorrow or in 50 years’ time. You have no clue when your last chapter will end. Sure is, that it will.
     So, enjoy your life like you would enjoy a thrilling novel. Rejoice the terrible experiences you have to make, they might open your eyes and give you the possibility to ameliorate your life.
     Let others take part in your story, even when they claim that they despise you. Who knows? It is possible that your arch-enemy only hates you, because he or she only sees something special in you. The important thing is that you should integrate them in your life. You see? It could be anyone, by the way.
     An old, gentle lady used to live there across the street. I had never seen her talking to anyone.
     Yet, I had never seen her without a book in her hands either. I did not know that lady, however, I admired her. Well, one day I decided to ask her why she read so much. She smiled and did not appear to be surprised at all that a young stranger like me asked her such an irrelevant question. She said that, sadly, she did not want to be reminded of her own life story. She added that she hated remembering that she had missed the unique chance to live and had lost every purpose for living. The lady made me think a lot.
     How could she talk about herself as if she was already gone? Into the bargain, it took me pretty time to grasp what she had told me. And then the day came when the post man told me that the lonely woman who used to live across the street had died. Ironically, when they found her dead, she held a novel in her hand called ‘As I lay dying’ by William Faulkner. Somehow, I started to realise that we are not immortal. Of course we are not immortal… But do you get my point? All you have to do with your life is to live it just the way you want it to be lived, which is not that easy. I believe that is what the lady failed to do. It is just that I kept hearing the same old story “Someday you will die, son,” however, I could never imagine what it is like to stop breathing. I believe that it is an important issue, which everyone should face. Death is a distressing truism. It makes me sick.”

I said nothing at all. I looked at his handsome face, and all of a sudden my heart seemed to burst violently in two. The smile he was giving me right now, was a harrowed one. Then he looked askew as if he tried to shelter from my looks. I observed how the smile on his face faded away slowly and eventually turned into a heart-breaking grimace. There he was, sitting next to me on the grey, cold concrete floor. Gazing into space. I expected deafening silence for some more time. However, he suddenly furrowed his brows and continued his odd speech:

“People die every day. One day it will be my turn. Hell, I am afraid of death. I am scared to death, you could say. It might sound extremely weird or far-fetched, but sometimes I think that someone or… something wants to give me a sign. When I fall asleep, I dream of never wanting to wake up again. It is so scary. Everytime I get up in the early morning, I am terrified. Something is wrong with me. I hope you do not think that I am going nuts… I have no idea why I told you this, there must be a specific reason, I believe.”

I put my hand on his shoulder.
He looked at me. It felt like he was screaming at me like a fool…
I couldn’t hear you. Why?
It can be that I did not want to take him seriously.
It’s a phase. Everyone has phases…
“Let’s go home,” I suggested meekly.
I miss you so terribly much.

On a cold day in March, when snow fell on the now forsaken and silent concrete floor, your dream turned into a truism. Sleep well forevermore.