Korridorium

♫ Shi­ver Policy ♫

101/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. It reeks hor­ri­bly of a zoo enclo​sure—no sur­prise, con­side­ring I’m in a bear pit. The two resi­dents, Maxi and Schnute, have been locked in the other side to give the homic­ide squad access.

„The bears did­n’t touch it. They actually recoiled from it, accor­ding to the kee­per,“ Uwe Albo greets me, wea­ring his usual ill-fit­ting suit, his face deeply lined with worry. Here, the bears can step out­side on two sides to be admi­red by visi­tors, right in the middle of Ber­lin in a small park bet­ween the Embassy of Angola and the Ger­man Psy­cho­lo­gists’ Publi­shing House. The cor­ri­dor inside the small bear quar­ters, situa­ted bet­ween the two fen­ced out­door areas sur­roun­ded by blue-tiled moats, sits in gloom.

„Ano­ther heart,“ Albo says. He sounds exhaus­ted. „And ano­ther fifty pages.“

„Déjà vu,“ I say. My sto­mach turns. This was sup­po­sed to be a rela­xing long weekend.

Later, the detec­tive paces his office dia­go­nally in sup­pres­sed rage, back and forth, from the door to the cof­fee machine, from the cof­fee machine to the door. And back again. Tomor­row, Car­ni­val Mon­day para­des will wind through Ger­man cities. But the Ber­lin homic­ide squad won’t have any reason to cele­brate or throw candy. „Now we’ve got two vic­tims. And a serial kil­ler we know not­hing about, except that he’s sent us a hundred damn mes­sa­ges we can’t make heads or tails of.“

Tha​t’s direc­ted at me. I’ve only been able to skim through the new texts so far. To have some­thing to say, I respond with a coun­ter-ques­tion – an old psy​cho​lo​gis​t’s trick: „Why first the Sie­ges­säule and then the Bären­zwin­ger? Ber­lin land­marks. He’s try­ing to signal some­thing.“

Albo grabs the open door frame. „You tell me.“ He gets inter­rupted, step­ping out of the room to talk to an offi­cer. Somehow, I alre­ady have a hunch what the news will be.

And sure enough: „No usable evi­dence. The guy pro­ba­bly just clim­bed into the enclo­sure at night. Must have a death wish. Or he knows his way around bears. And the pages: ano­ther fifty type­wri­ters. The exact same fifty type­wri­ters. In the exact same order.“

I pic­ture a simul­ta­neous chess player step­ping from table to table, making one move on each. Fifty tables, fifty chess­boards, fifty games. Advan­cing one move at a time. I don’t men­tion any of this to Albo. Bad timing. He’s tired and angry—a woun­ded bear that does­n’t know why ever­yone is houn­ding him or where to take cover.

Work is wai­ting for me. Rea­ding. Thin­king. Fol­lo­wing leads. Con­nec­ting the dots. I figure it’s time to make mys­elf scarce.

♫ O pium desi­de­rium ♫

102/398

„I enter the cor­ri­dor,“ I whisper into the door​man’s ear. He nods and lets me through. The pass­phrase has been the same for year​s—​li​kely because the cus­to­mers here, peo­ple like me whose memo­ries have become patchy and unre­lia­ble, can easily remem­ber this watch­word, as it per­fectly descri­bes the first moments when the effects kick in. There is also a cer­tain sense of voli­tion to it, a story we tell our­sel­ves every time we make our way toward our divans and the long pipes.

♫ Kamelle! ♫

103/398

I enter ze cor­ri­dor … (The resi­dents of Colo­gne we are tal­king about here don’t speak genuine Ger­man eit­her, and cer­tainly not during Car­ni­val, which may be due to alco­hol, but not only. Trans​la​tor’s note) … behind ze stage of ze Stunk­sit­zung. Ze Fun­ken­ma­rie­chen are gone, ze last little bou­quet has been thrown, ze last fan­fare has faded, all ze booze-casu­al­ties have been coll­ec­ted und han­ded in at ze coat check. (It’s the after­math of a big stage show during the car­ni­val, with young women dancing in tra­di­tio­nal cos­tu­mes, while the cele­bra­ting Jecken remain blissfully obli­vious to the inher­ent objec­ti­fi­ca­tion. Trans​la​tor’s note).

Ze reve­lers have vunce again really let rip: ze Colo­gne cama­rilla, ze Euro misery, ze stock mar­ket debah­kull, ze cli­mate cata­stro­phe, all ze cri­ses in ze Middle und Far East simul­tan­uhsly, ze mil­li­ons of star­ving tykes around ze vorld…

Boy, did ve laugh!

♫ Tous les trente-six du mois ♫

104/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. And please, don’t think for a moment that it’s easy for me. Every damn time, it’s a struggle, an ordeal, ano­ther case of having to push past my own limits. Not kno­wing what to expect. The agony of choice when doors branch off to the sides—​c​lo​sed but not locked, unla­be­led, and wit­hout a sin­gle hint as to where they lead. The sheer inner ten­sion, kno­wing it could be a trap, or that new, unwrit­ten laws might app​ly—​laws that could bring me death or worse, if I unkno­wingly break them. The cer­tainty that this won’t be the last cor­ri­dor and, no, it will pro­ba­bly never get any easier to enter them. On the con­trary. It gets har­der every time.

I’m not cut out for cor­ri­dors. Let me enter the rain­fo­rest, send me to ter­ra­ced rice fields, or ship me off to the desert for all I care! But cor­ri­dors? Always the​se—how many now? Over a hundred​?—nerve-wracking pas­sa­ge­ways, hall­ways, end­less sui­tes of rooms?!

Well, fine. It must be done. I enter the cor­ri­dor.

♫ Insom­nia ob omnia ♫

105/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. It’s sus­pi­ciously quiet behind the door to the detec​ti​ve’s office. I kno​ck—​so​me​thing I never do. A kind of groan is my ans­wer: Albo grunts as he pushes hims­elf up from his swi­vel chair, loo­king dis­ori­en­ted. „What time is it?“

„Too early, by the looks of it. Uwe, did you crash here?“ Albo mas­sa­ges one of his legs, which seems to have fal­len asleep, too. „I need to hit the wash­room for a second.“ He limps out of the room.

While he’s gone, I take ano­ther look at the copies of the mes­sa­ges left by the kil­ler. I’ve alre­ady spent the whole night poring over them. Albo usually sits in his office at the crack of dawn, so I thought it’d be a good chance to see if the cops have any­thing new.

Albo comes back, hair wet and water splat­te­red across his shirt. Does­n’t look like he keeps a razor here at the sta­tion.

„Num­ber 73″ he says, aim­lessly flip­ping through his copies wit­hout fin­ding the one he’s loo­king for, „is a joke, right?“

The cof­fee tas­tes even more bit­ter than usual in the early mor­ning. I set the paper cup on Albo’s desk. He looks like he needs it. „The one about ‚joy ever­y­where‘? He’s making fun of us. But I think we can pin him down this time.“

„Out with it,“ Albo prompts as he drops into his chair, which almost rolls right out from under his ass.

„I had the impres­sion from the start that this guy suf­fers from obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der. Text num­ber 95 speaks volu­mes. Plus we’ve got a child­hood trauma, a schi­zoid story with death thre­ats, and the dead-end situa­tion.“

„Num­ber 54, you mean? That one’s too old. He worked his way past that a long time ago. Don’t for­get, he used the exact same type­wri­ters in the exact same order.“ Albo takes a sip from the cup I put in front of him and coughs.

„He coul​d’ve used them back­ward or scram­bled them up. But you’re right, Uwe, he won’t be stop­ped that easily.“

„Schizo, you say? The one with the mir­ror-self.“

„Tha​t’s where he plants a bomb.“

„His Isla­mist sui­cide bom­ber wants to blow ever­y­thing sky-high, too. So why does the guy kill with a knife hims­elf…?“ Albo’s voice trails off. His thoughts are alre­ady some­where else—or maybe it’s just the sleep depri­va­tion cat­ching up to him.

„You should go home and hit the sack, Uwe. You look ter­ri­ble.“

„Thanks, same to you,“ he ret­orts. „And don’t show your face back here until you’ve got some­thing useful.“ His phone rings. With a sharp, shoo­ing wave of his hand, he kicks me out. Before I leave, I study the walls. We should put up one of those huge cork­boards some­where, like in Ame­ri­can movies where they pin up all their evi­dence and con­nec­tions. We’d leave the middle blank, and gra­du­ally, the image of the suspect would take shape right there. What was it again? Cory means „cavity“?

I decide to take my own advice, can­cel all my mor­ning appoint­ments, and crawl back into bed.

♫ The Stingy Thingy ♫

106/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, fee­ling for a niche in the wall with one of my ten­ta­cles and pul­ling my body in after me. By adop­ting the color of the back­ground, I am now barely reco­gnizable to eyes that do not per­ceive ultra­vio­let light.

We came to the stran­gers‘ ship to wel­come them to our pla­net. As the theo­lo­gian of our dele­ga­tion, I was meant to speak with them of uni­ver­sal mys­ti­cism and cos­mic love. Ins­tead, they hunt us, cul­ling us wit­hout mercy. Only my stu­dent and I remain.

One of them enters the cor­ri­dor. He is hea­vily armored and car­ries one of their deadly wea­pons. When he is very close, I ask the ques­tion, but I do not wait for the ans­wer; ins­tead, I imme­dia­tely morph one of my ten­ta­cles into a sharp, hard stin­ger. I would have so liked to speak with him about God. Then it must be done this way.

Full of com­pas­sion and love, I strike…

♫ Kein Orm ♫

107/398

„I enter the cor­ri­dor“ is writ­ten at the top of my note­book. Ever­yone else is wri­ting dili­gently. I stare at my scraw­led let­ters. Ana comes to my desk. She’s our Ger­man tea­cher and wants us to call her by her first name, but I pre­fer „Ms. Ried.“ Actually, I’d rather say not­hing at all, espe­ci­ally when she’s so close that I can smell her – that fresh apple scent makes me feel strange, and my mouth goes all dry.

„Let your crea­ti­vity run wild, just write wha­te­ver comes to your mind,“ she encou­ra­ges me. I keep sta­ring at my note­book because I know if I look at her, weird things will hap­pen. I’ll turn all red, and I’ll pro­ba­bly start to stut­ter or some­thing.

„Come on now! ‚I enter the cor­ri­dor.‘ And then just con­ti­nue with wha­te­ver comes to your mind.“

I put the pen to paper. It trem­bles. Hop­efully, she does­n’t notice. I start to write. Ms. Ried turns away. I write and write. Always the same, always the same sen­tence.

„I enter the cor­ri­dor. I enter the cor­ri­dor. I enter the cor­ri­dor. I enter the cor­ri­dor. I enter the cor­ri­dor…“

♫ (Invi­si­ble Calls from the) Soaring Sirens ♫

108/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, gui­ded by the red thread. I stumb­led across it by chance while wan­de­ring through this end­less, laby­rin­thine palace. There must be someone else here! And if this someone is lay­ing a thread, then it will eit­her lead me to the​m—​pro​vi​ding a wel­come change in my mono­to­nous die​t—or it will lead to the ent­rance through which they came. And what is an ent­rance for them is an exit for me!

So I fol­low the thread through the laby­rinth. And sure enough: day­light and the distant roar of the sea. How I have missed the sun during these lonely years! At the end of the cor­ri­dor, I see blue sky. And a figure. It is a woman. I have to blink. She looks fami­liar. „Sis­ter!“ I say. My voice sounds strange and rus​ty—I haven’t used it in a long time.

„You have no place out here,“ she replies. She has aged. Do I see streaks of gray in her hair?

„I fol­lo­wed the thread.“

„That was Daeda​lus’s design.“ I might have gues­sed. She sees my gaze fall on her black arm­band. „Father…“ she says, and swal­lows.

„Then I am king now.“

„Fat chance,“ says a new voice behind me. A sharp pain shoots through my back, and I see the gle­a­ming tip of a sword pro­tru­ding from my chest. I want to say some­thing, but my lungs refuse to fill with air. My legs buckle, and I sink to my knees.

From here, I can see the sun, now blin­din­gly con­sum­ing the world that just moments ago stood open to me, until my sis­ter steps toward me, cas­ting her shadow over me as she leans down, and a mer­ciful, all-encom­pas­sing dark­ness embraces me.

♫ The Bias Switch ♫

109/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor bet­ween two incom­pa­ti­ble state​ment​s—a men­tal exer­cise I’ve prac­ti­ced for years to make use of my mor­ning tooth-brushing rou­tine. Today: „Home­opa­thy is pseu­do­sci­en­ti­fic non­sense“ ver­sus „Like cures like, even in high dilu­tion.“ At first glance, both state­ments appear irre­con­cilable, the­sis and anti­the­sis; but upon clo­ser exami­na­tion and reflec­tion, I begin to dis­cern con­nec­tions bet­ween these con­tra­dic­tions. A cor­ri­dor takes shape, one that I men­tally ven­ture into to explore fur­ther, at which point it usually quickly expands, unfolds, and bran­ches out…

Just as I con­tem­p­late whe­ther the human ima​gi​na​ti​on—​when redu­ced to the so-cal­led pla­cebo effec​t—​might be cri­mi­nally unde­re­sti­ma­ted, my four anti­nomy-minu­tes are alre­ady up. So, I place my elec­tric tooth­brush back on the shelf above the sink and turn my atten­tion to the pres­sing ques­ti­ons and chal­lenges of the day.

♫ Déjà vécu ♫

110/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor as the last of 110 and sit down to write my life on paper scraps—and wait until the clock runs out.