Korridorium

♫ Von­len­ska ♫

11/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor and close the door behind me. I must over­come a thou­sand dan­gers before I can reach you. But now I’m safe. You have no tele­vi­sion*, no radio, no tele­phone*. If I want to know the time, I have to check inside the games cab­i­net or behind the photo albums on the book­shelf. Even then, there’s no telling what time your clock shows.

You have all the time in the world for me, an almost per­pet­u­ally good mood, com­fort­ing words from time to time, and occa­sion­ally really nice peo­ple vis­it­ing. I enjoy the quiet with you, and when my heart brims over, you are the most atten­tive lis­tener.

Your tea is the most deli­cious; it must be because of you and your “Wupp.” (“Wupp” was what we called the goal in hide-and-seek and the safe zone in tag where I grew up.) And the sun always seems to shine in. Or the moon.

And yet—why, I wonder—I find myself drawn back to the streets, back to life. You may calmly accept it, but I can’t seem to under­stand myself any­more.

*that numbs
**that blares
** *that shrills

♫ Nomads of the Mind ♫

12/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. A cat is sleep­ing in a patch of sun­light on the win­dowsill. Old, time-dark­ened paint­ings on the walls depict bucolic scenes and fox hunts on horse­back. I look for a good spot for my tri­pod to take pic­tures for my photo book titled “Cor­ri­dors of the World—Places of Pause and Pivot.”

♫ No Wool­gath­er­ing Allowed ♫

13/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor: chairs for those wait­ing line the walls between the doors, each door topped by a dig­i­tal dis­play. Every seat is taken. I read 312 on one of the dis­plays, 313 on another, and the third one is just skip­ping from 311 to 315. I glance at the slip of paper in my hand. 288. I should­n’t have daw­dled! In any case, I’ve obvi­ously missed my call.

I turn around, want­ing to go back and draw a new num­ber in the foyer. How­ever, above the door I just used to enter the cor­ri­dor, there is another dis­play: 314. For a moment, I’m con­fused. There’s no other exit, and—I look around once more with a search­ing eye—no ticket machine either. But I’m not giv­ing up that eas­ily.

The 314 above me clicks over to 316. A young man stands up. This is my chance. But when he real­izes that I’m try­ing to squeeze through the door­way with him, he flashes me a dis­dain­ful look and blocks the crack in the door until the very last sec­ond. He pulls the door shut behind him with delib­er­ate force, fast and hard.

I size up the oth­ers wait­ing there. Most of them are star­ing into space. Some absent­mind­edly roll their slips into tight lit­tle tubes or fold them up. A few teenagers are in the mix, engrossed in their smart­phones or furi­ously mash­ing the but­tons on a PSP with their thumbs.

A chair opens up. I take a seat, quickly dis­miss­ing the idea of steal­ing some­one else’s num­ber. The dis­plays only go up to three dig­its. Even­tu­ally, they’ll hit 999. And then every­thing will start all over again. I clutch my slip tightly. My time will come.

♫ March of the Mon­u­ments ♫

14/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. My old joints ache, but I never fal­ter in mak­ing my daily rounds, lead­ing me through the secret cor­ri­dor deep into Olym­pus, where a hid­den vaulted hall lies. Here, in a seven-thou­sand-year slum­ber, lie elves, dwarves, drag­ons, gnomes, trolls, uni­corns, the roc, cyclopes, cen­taurs, genies, and guardian angels. They are wait­ing out the reign of humans—uncouth, dim-wit­ted, lum­ber­ing fig­ures who cre­ate dis­or­der and sow dis­cord on the sur­face of the Earth.

Some­times, one of the Ancient Beings opens its eyes, think­ing it is caught in a heavy dream. I then sit by its side and sing one of the old lul­la­bies. It won’t be long now, and the age of humans will come to an end. Once they are gone and the right­ful guardians of the Earth have wiped the sleep from their eyes, my ninth life will finally draw to a close. I will walk through the cor­ri­dor one last time on aching paws, lead­ing the way to show them the hid­den exit from which they can descend from Olym­pus.

♫ Fam­ily Beast ♫

15/398

I enter the c… What fiend did this, bal­anc­ing a water bucket high up that ajar gate?! Dares he tri­fle with me—the Beast—with such a silly prank? I shake my mat­ted mane and thun­der a deaf­en­ing blast that rat­tles my palace’s hall­ways. I shall find ye! Let’s see if they’re acquainted with this labyrinth bet­ter than I, the man-eater.

♫ Uvs Nuur ♫

16/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. The thread run­ning through it, I wind tighter and tighter; I already have a sub­stan­tial ball in my hand. I see the thread dis­ap­pear­ing under one of the doors. Here I will find her; here she is wait­ing for me! I toss the ball aside care­lessly and rush to the door, which is indis­tin­guish­able from the count­less oth­ers. As I open it and hurry through with her name on my lips, a crea­ture with a bull’s head con­fronts me. With one of its horns, it tears open the flesh of my chest, lay­ing bare my heart. I fall to the ground. “He is my brother, after all,” I hear her voice, very close to my ear.

How many before me? And how many more will they lure? And all that end­less blood… The water­fall in my ears grows louder and louder, until there is only an all-con­sum­ing roar that mer­ci­fully takes me in.

♫ Ohoominogs ♫

17/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor: One small hop for mankind, but for a lit­tle squirt like me, one gii­iant step.

♫ Fore­shad­ows ♫

18/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. And, strangely, for some rea­son, the arche­typal nature of the sit­u­a­tion sud­denly stands before my eyes—as if I were see­ing myself and my cir­cum­stances from the out­side:

I—the self-assured, reflec­tive human being; the Carte­sian, sov­er­eign ego; feel­ing and act­ing sep­a­rate from the world; think­ing it through; proac­tive.

The act of enter­ing—at once a birth process and a will­ful deci­sion to move for­ward, for progress and devel­op­ment. Res­onat­ing here: the human thirst for knowl­edge, the crav­ing for adven­ture, the insa­tiable curios­ity, and the undaunted spirit of dis­cov­ery that seeks to tra­verse new spaces and expand the reach of power and knowl­edge to the very lim­its of the doable and the think­able.

The cor­ri­dor—as birth canal, tran­sit sta­tion, life path, and an open­ing into the pos­si­bil­i­ties of choice: doors branch off, lead­ing to new spaces, new hall­ways, new rooms, new…

The vision that so unex­pect­edly and invol­un­tar­ily over­came me breaks off. I am stand­ing in a cor­ri­dor. It is dusty, uninvit­ingly fur­nished, poorly ven­ti­lated, and dim. On a ledge, an over­flow­ing ash­tray. It reeks of stale smoke. Wrin­kling my nose in dis­gust, I bolt.

♫ Mein Leben als Frucht­fliege ♫

19/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, whistling a cheer­ful tune. I already know who I’ll encounter here so early in the morn­ing on my way from the bed­room to the bath­room and then straight to the study. It’s you. You, yourself—yes, yes, search your mem­ory, and then you’ll know where you’re hang­ing around in your dreams just before you wake up. In my hall­way! And I am gen­uinely grate­ful for that because you are my qual­ity con­trol.

So I waltz in, in my paja­mas with my hair all messed up, and there you stand, look­ing seri­ous, ask­ing, “And?” (Does any of this ring a bell?)

I enthu­si­as­ti­cally gush about my ideas from the night—for more great cor­ri­dor sto­ries, for exam­ple: “A short sketch about a Chi­nese man who can’t pro­nounce the let­ter R—starts with ‘I entel the col­li­dol!’ ” And you stand there shak­ing your head with that typ­i­cal, ever-so-slightly dis­mis­sive smile. (Is it start­ing to click yet?)

I don’t let my eupho­ria be damp­ened: “Fine, fine, not that one. But how about the cor­ri­dor story using our secret child­hood lan­guage: ‘Itefy ente­fen-terte­fer thetefe corte­for-ritefi-dorte­for’!” As expected, you roll your eyes: “Dumte­fumb” (Quite quick-wit­ted of you.)

“Okay, then, the Pope,” I say, run­ning my hand through my disheveled hair as I try to remem­ber what I’d come up with. “At first, of course, you don’t know who it is. He walks step by step toward the bal­cony, where an immense crowd awaits him along with TV cam­eras and micro­phones. In his mind, he’s for­mu­lat­ing his address—a scathing indict­ment of his con­gre­ga­tion, accus­ing them of behav­ing like fool­ish sheep, unable to use their God-given minds to steer human his­tory in a halfway sen­si­ble direc­tion. Then he steps up to the rail­ing, smiles at the sea of peo­ple look­ing up at him expec­tantly, and then just says ‘Urbi et orbi’ yet again! Well?” For a brief moment, you stare at me as if you’re about to burst into tears. You open your mouth, but noth­ing comes out. “Not good?” I ask with sad puppy-dog eyes, which, as usual, gets me nowhere because you just slowly and firmly shake your head. (By now, at least a few mem­o­ries should be com­ing back to you.)

“Alright, then let’s take the boy in high school who enters the cor­ri­dors between the class­rooms with a rifle, con­tem­plat­ing the best way for his shoot­ing spree to…” Your reac­tion makes me pause: you’re bit­ing your fist. I assume that means: unbear­able and com­pletely off the mark. Too bad. “Could be a tweet,” I add plead­ingly, “very short.” But your brief, dry laugh, tinged with no small amount of despair, tells me the prob­lem with this idea isn’t its length. (Go ahead and check the knuck­les of your right hand for bite marks. Is any­thing show­ing up?)

“Then I have a Jew­ish con­cen­tra­tion camp pris­oner to offer,” I sug­gest, and at this point, your expres­sion is sim­ply price­less: that expec­ta­tion of some­thing ter­ri­ble, and how you fer­vently hope it isn’t true. But of course, I con­tinue relent­lessly: “He enters the cor­ri­dor on his way to the gas cham­ber and…” A sound escapes your throat, a mix­ture of a gasp, a gur­gle, and a sob, only very brief—I stop, because I don’t want to over­step. The best moments are when you roll your eyes to the heav­ens and raise your hands, as if some power from above could dry up this inces­sant tor­rent of half-baked or entirely ill-con­ceived ideas, finally silenc­ing me and thereby bring­ing the world redemp­tion. You do that really well. A sight for the gods, so to speak.

Of course, you some­times nod gra­ciously when one of my ideas does­n’t strike you as silly, ado­les­cent, or taste­less. Oth­er­wise, this blog would­n’t exist. (To be hon­est, I some­times sneak things past your strict qual­ity con­trol. Like this lit­tle story right here.)

You wouldn’t have thought so, would you? You and me, early in the morn­ing in the cor­ri­dor between my bed­room and my bathroom—and all the non­sense you have to lis­ten to every time. Actu­ally, you aren’t sup­posed to remem­ber it at all, because oth­er­wise you’d already know every­thing that appears here on the blog. That’s prob­a­bly exactly why we for­get almost every­thing from our nightly dreams: oth­er­wise, life would just be bor­ing.

♫ His Coun­te­nance Like Light­ning ♫

20/398

 
I enter the cor­ri­dor. This is the last one that has­n’t been ster­il­ized yet, accord­ing to the dis­play on my hard­suit sleeve—soon these wretched Kxax will be his­tory on my ship! I grip my zap­per tighter, scan­ning the shad­ows in the cor­ners of the hall. A sharp pain stabs into my left ankle. A Kxax stinger has punc­tured the hard­suit. I take aim. The sear­ing blast does­n’t just shred the attacker, but takes half of my left leg along with it—yet the alien secre­tion is faster: The dia­bol­i­cal poi­son of the Kxax has already reached my heart. I knew the risk; I know they’ll hail me as a hero. It’s just a shame I won’t be around to reap the rewards.