1st of December to the 17th of December

So this might be the last stretch of little stories that I write according to prompts from a book my wife gifted me. I still do not know how I will continue to write here and in which language preferably. Fact is, I will continue to write. To all of you out there, a great transition into the new year 2024. A couple of stories I might put out tomorrow and if not in the new year…

1st of December: “Things you tend to notice that others don’t”

Maybe I notice when people are speaking Chinese around me. Generally I pick up what goes on in my proximity pretty easily. The main thing is I notice people that behave odd. Facts. So I was once at a summer fest of some business and there was a dude that I immediately noticed as being a bit too odd to be there. You know that second hand embarrassment you get with some people, but that was not it. This dude I could tell would escalate further and something will happen. I however had to leave to be at another happening that night, however that other happening ended early. My decision to show up there again was the right one, and I was right. The dude was smashed - absolutely hammered. Walking in zigzags from table to table. Singing to the band, trying to flirt with every lady there, and just generally making an ass of himself. This also somehow works for fights. I can tell when something is about to happen and leave before it does. Pretty handy, huh?

2nd of December: “A short bio of myself”

It really depends on where you know this man from, but he has layers. You might know him as some metal/hardcore dude, but he also reads and writes a lot and cries easily when it comes to movies. You might know him from stand-up comedy, but that is just something he does for fun when it fits between family and making companies more agile and digital. He also is some left leaning green supporter but also ticks all the boxes of your typical conservative journey: fireman, military service and using every single free week to make some money (out of necessity). From a tiny little beautiful village on the Czech border to the big world with and back to the east of Germany. Come and let him take you by the hand for a bit, and you can peel away the layers until one of them inevitably speaks to you.

3rd of December: “Exquisite Corpse #5”

I still don’t have something to write with. I’ll take it as an idea for a blog or podcast and finish each other’s sentences. We will see in 2024.

4th of December: “A beloved gift from childhood”

The best Christmas ever. It must have been 1996. I just looked up when the PlayStation 1 was released in Europe. A PlayStation was not what I got. I got a Super Nintendo with Super Mario and two other games. Nothing else mattered. I was so happy. Hooking this up to our TV and finally having the ability to rent out games and play them. Sick. Everything was ready and with all the happiness I got from unpacking this magical console I played a few minutes and looked forward to the next morning. A morning I would get up earlier than my parents. Play a bit, make breakfast and coffee, play a bit, eat breakfast with the parents and then play a bit again for every Saturday to follow. I remember every game I played, but the mornings I sat in front of the TV wrapped in a blanket kind of blurred together as the perfect Saturday and Sunday mornings as an early teen. I guess I got a massive piece of Nostalgia that Christmas.

5th of December: “Describe falling in love as a resurrection”

I am still reading a horror anthology called “Rage against the night” and there was a story in there where some man swore everlasting love to his wife, but already accepted death. He decayed away, with his body just being a walking corpse in the final days and only fuelled by love, as he didn’t tell his wife initially. The typical non-consensual way of getting resurrected through love would be snow-white. The day-to-day falling in love as a resurrection is probably the rare case when a care taker falls in love with the drug addict and literally resurrects them. Imagine the overdose and then the person that helps them get out of that hole.

6th of December: “Mars is colonized - would you move out there?”

No. Definitely not. I think I lack that astronaut gene. In my teens, I could have imagined living as a monk in a monastery in China. On a different planet, though? No. If Mars would be green and full of habitable land, then it would be a different story. Even if that colony would exist for a while, what would that be like? Dubai? No, thanks. I enjoy living in a city and being some sort of trailblazer, but living in a fully artificial living environment on a planet that is barely habitable? No. There are cities that give me the ick because they don’t feel lived in, and I think no matter how nice or old that colony on Mars would be, it wouldn’t make me interested in going there.

7th of December: “What stimulates you?”

Too much. I am easily stimulated. Books, games, music, films, reading, laughing, touching, talking, moving. It would be easier to list what doesn’t stimulate me. I have to wilfully ignore things to not have me “waste” time on them. We live in times when we are all overstimulated. Meditation helps, and to really dive into what you want to enjoy and be stimulated by. We need to live more in the moment.

8th of December: “An invalid’s room”

There she hangs. A marvel of the fifties - wooden, mechanical, and slowly ticking away. She used to have a separate bedroom with a large twin bed, but that has been a few years ago. Now in the living room with the low ceilings a mechanical bed/seat is pretty much where she stays. The historical fiction books are out of reach in the wooden cabinet that lines a whole wall. The thick and old carpet swallows almost all the sound the oxygen machine makes. The pictures on the wall of her grandchildren spread love throughout the 20 square meters. If you look closely at the window sill, there are is a variety of plants and one of them grows especially nice, probably due to the cigarette ash that one saw once in a while.

9th of December: “Write about a race that begins and ends in this small space”

The race of the ages. Something you have never seen before. Two pens, same ink, same paper, same weight and only the hands holding the pens differing. They both start at begins and have to end at ends. That is 17 characters, including spaces. Precision is the name of the game. No errors allowed, or it will be an instant loss. They can go serif or sanserif, but we all know that the latter option is a recipe for loosing. So, on the mark. Ready, set, go. It is over in 2.3 seconds. Draw.

10th of December: “Your spiritual home or family”

Spiritual home it is. I am not a spiritual person. Grounded, you would say. However, I like to find out what works. A spiritual home for me is and always has been music. You know that tingle you get when you listen to an epic part of a song? You don’t? Listen to a wider variety of music and let it hit you. It is a bit like an orgasm in the back or on top of your head. If you know those spider like thingies that they sell to you for nothing at all that massage your head, then it is very similar to that. It happens less as I age, though. But yeah, music helps. It’s my spiritual home.

11th of December: “A random book, random right-hand page, a random sentence and write what you think happens after the sentence”

A bustling crowd was filling Gazi Stadium when we walked through the entrance tunnels… It smelled of wet grass and none of the floodlights were turned on. Like little fireflies, a few flashlights on phones moved between the people and tents. People holding all they had, sometimes that meant tiny little humans. Sometimes it was a plastic bag filled with hand-me-downs. Some people singing and some just sitting there swaying back and forth. The little bit of food that made its way with the crowd into the stadium was shared. Bread being broken and smiles here and there spread like a fire.

12th of December: “Visceral fear as a sensation”

For us city-dwellers, visceral fear is a rare sensation. The last time I felt that was the two drug-upped brothers that tried to attack me after almost running me over on my bicycle. My first reaction was flight, then I remembered my wife and child behind me on their bicycle. I was aware of everything around me. My body functioned at peak levels. Blood rushed into my head and extremities. Calculating odds was suddenly hard, but I was ready to fight. Thinking became something I had to make myself aware of. I walked backwards on my own and flung fists away subconsciously. I took me more seconds than usual to figure out my wife’s earphones were still connected, and therefore the police couldn’t hear me. Movements were tracked as if I was a robot when there is no option of flight, only the fight is left, and it took minutes to overrule the fear and de-escalate and disengage.

13th of December: “Something ugly or mundane having an impact”

This happens a lot, and it always reminds me of the scene of the dancing plastic bag in American Beauty. There is so much beauty in this world. The way tiny little insects build cities. How a pile of poop becomes a meal, a womb, fertiliser and home. How one tiny little drop of water is the final straw that breaks a branch of a tree. A deer feasting on a bird that just hatched and fell from the nest, and the beautiful butterfly that goes out and finds carcasses.

14th of December: “Describe a first”

I’m a kid that grew up in a socialist country that then turned into a democracy. Foreign fruits were rare, and the world just opened up with every single step of my education. I never had a holiday with my parents where we flew somewhere. So my first flight was in my twenties. To China out of all places and to live there for one year during my studies. It felt right. Like I earned my seat in that plane. I was not used to anything in there. I was not scared of flying but totally unsure about the procedures in-flight. Meaning I just can’t call the people in there with the touch of a button to ask for something. That must be rude, no? I am sure I was the first to turn off my phone and electronic devices. I can’t be the one that gets called out for that. I only ordered drinks when the stewardesses walked passed and offered. I even forgot how to eat at some point and spilled some of my beer. It was a life changing experience. Not the flight per se but the experience of going somewhere far, far away and your world expanding to a degree I have only read and heard about.

15th of December: “Copy down a piece of writing you enjoy here”

Über stinkendem Graben,
Papier voll Blut und Urin,
umschwirrt von funkelnden Fliegen,
hocke ich in den Knien,

den Blick auf bewaldete Ufer,
Gärten, gestrandetes Boot.
In den Schlamm der Verwesung
klatscht der versteinte Kot.

Irr mir im Ohre schallen
Verse von Hölderlin.
In schneeiger Reinheit spiegeln
Wolken sich im Urin.

Geh aber nun und grüße
die schöne Garonne
Unter den schwankenden Füßen
schwimmen die Wolken davon.

von Günter Eich

16th of December: “Peel the personality of someone you know like an onion”

The exterior is a man. A manly man. Testosterone or what is attributed to testosterone grows the widow peak more and more. He always seems active, standing tall but the neck is slightly hunched. The sign of a boxer and the rest of his body is also like that to transport this without speaking. Leather jackets and dark clothes. Though he often wears a smile as well and has to do something at gatherings to let everyone know that he is there. One says when people drink the true character comes out and if that is true, then there that layer underneath that is certainly not pretty. He gets violent. It starts with little punches to your arm that get harder with each beer. Later on if someone looks at him the wrong way a fight could start. It happens when that layer comes out. I have not seen him sad, but that is a layer below the violent drunk. There is someone who wants to fit into a group and he is always searching for a group like that, but do not expect to see a vulnerable or unmanly move unless you are one of the girls he wants to have in his life. Content with the simple things and as long as the outside world sees a man - a happy and not so heavy heart.

17th of December: “A man signs a contract and sighs”

The pen just left the paper and he pushed it slighly away to look at the signature from a postion the judge would look at it. Looks good. Admition of guilt it says followed by a long and winding sentence that spans from the time at the Christian camp to the day, years later, where it all happened. He thought it was just a prank. Something that kids do to kids. Instead of having everyone try to outdo each other and staying awake as long as possible he tried to turn that game on the head. A couple of sleeping pills in the vegetable soup couldn’t hurt anyone. That is what he thought back then. That day at nine in the afternoon the camp fell silent. It barely got dark. Everyone asleep. Everywhere. Some in their tents. Only this one kid - Stefan should not wake up the next day. He was scrawny, pale and that is how everyone remembered it and now this letter, this piece of paper is his final goodbye to him and the first time he says what happened that day.