Korridorium

♫ Silen­cer ♫

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151/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor lea­ding to the „Room of Silence“ inside the Bran­den­burg Gate. Before Uwe Albo cal­led me, I had no idea a place like this even exis­ted. „Silence“ is writ­ten on the wall in various lan­guages. A pretty fit­ting place for Eas­ter, really, but I alre­ady have a bad fee­ling about wha​t’s wai­ting for me here.

Ever­y­thing is cordo­ned off. Albo’s col­le­agues reco­gnize me and wave me through. The detec­tive hims­elf stands in the small, unador­ned medi­ta­tion room like a lum­ber­jack in a per­fume shop. My gaze imme­dia­tely drops to the floor, and sure enough, right on cue: in the middle of the room lies a stack of paper, top­ped with a bloody lump of meat.

„Ano­ther heart,“ Albo says when he sees me. „Num­ber three.“

A sharp wave of his hand scat­ters the young offi­cers. We’re alone. „This room is locked at night. Yet this mor­ning, the heart was sit­ting right here.“ Albo grabs my arm. I can cle­arly see the whites of his eyes. „That bas­tard sca­res me, you know? He wri­tes a story every day on one of his type­wri­ters, and when­ever he finis­hes his run of fifty type­wri­ters, he calmly drops ano­ther one of his hearts some­where in Ber​lin—​wi​t​hout us get­ting an inch clo­ser to cat­ching him!“

I can smell Albo’s breath; he’s stan­ding that close. Is this a cry for help? Is he crack­ing? Is he at the end of his rope? But Albo rela­xes his grip, lets go, and clen­ches both fists. His eyes nar­row to slits as he says, men­acin­gly low, „I’m gonna nail him with these bare hands, and once I’ve got him, he can play all the hide-and-seek he wants in the cell where he’ll spend the rest of his life.“

He looks at me, as if loo­king for backup. I give him a stern nod. That seems to satisfy him. „Come on, let’s move. Foren­sics can handle the rest.“

Later in Albo’s office, we study copies of the new texts. Fami­liar the­mes, new twist​s—​the playful, com­pul­sive streak shi­nes through again and again.

„I paid the Inte­gra­lists a visit,“ I say. Albo looks up, intrigued, having cle­arly for­got­ten he asked me to infil­trate Ber​lin’s Inte­gral scene in the first place. „Decent peo­ple across the board who think they’ve found the Phi​lo​so​pher’s Stone—a kind of cut crys­tal with a whole range of facets that all need to be accoun­ted for when loo­king at huma­nity and the world.“

„Facets?“ Albo asks, frow­ning.

„Yeah, just like the kil​ler’s texts. Ever­y­thing can be viewed from dif­fe­rent angles and per­spec­ti­ves…“

„Which I can then con­ve­ni­ently pick and choose from.“

I shake my head. „No, no—​the whole point of the inte­gral approach is that it’s holi­stic. You don’t just limit yours­elf to sin­gle aspects.“

„In other words: you felt right at home with them.“

„Point is, it’s a phi­lo­so­phy that values life in all its forms. It does­n’t breed kil­lers, if tha​t’s what you’re asking.“

Albo scrat­ches his stub­ble. „So where do we find him then?“ I rap my knuck­les against my stack of copies. Our only lead.

A uni­for­med offi­cer with a goa­tee and pony­tail knocks on the open door to grab our atten­tion. Albo steps over to him. I immerse mys­elf in the pages in front of me. The​re’s men­tion of a twin. Inte­res­t­ing. A lead to the vic­tims, the first two of whom were appar­ently iden­ti­cal twins? „Then get back to work!“ I hear Albo bark.

Snort­ing, he comes back into the office, waving a thin fol­der. „The hear​t’s got the same DNA as the other two.“

„A third iden­ti­cal twin?“ I ask, sur­pri­sed. „Is that even a thing? Iden­ti­cal tri­plets?“

Albo slams the file onto his desk with a loud bang. „They’re so rare that every sin­gle one of them is regis­tered. But none of this makes sense, quite apart from the fact that no pair of tri­plets has been repor­ted miss­ing.“

I let his „pair of tri­plets“ slide. „Then they must be unre­gis­tered tri­plets. Or the lab made a mistake…“

Albo nods, loo­king sud­denly exhaus­ted. „Told them the same thing. They need to recheck ever­y­thing, step by step.“

„—Or,“ I con­ti­nue, „they’re clo­nes.“

Albo sta­res at me. „Those were three hearts from adult human beings,“ he says hoar­sely. I nod.

Albo leans hea­vily on his desk and looks me dead in the eye, worn out. „Offi­ci­ally, human clo­nes don’t exis​t—and cer­tainly not adults.“

I nod again. „Offi­ci­ally,“ I say.

„Man,“ Albo gro­ans, slum­ping into his office chair. „Hous­ton, we have a pro­blem.“

♫ Fal­ling to the Sky ♫

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152/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, com­ple­tely unsu­spec­ting, when sud­denly I’m struck by a blin­ding flash of a vision: Simul­ta­neously with me, thou­sands, even tens of thou­sands of peo­ple around the world enter a cor­ri­dor. For some reason, I sud­denly sense them, feel their emo­ti­ons, think their thoughts. I am, at the same time, old and young, sad and happy, rela­xed and stres­sed, man and woman—i​t’s all there, all at once, in count­less cor­ri­dors.

An indi­ge­nous child runs down a hall­way with a toy air­plane, making loud vroo­ming noi­ses. A jani­tor pre­pa­res to get the boot out­side the exe​cu​ti​ve’s office at the pro­perty manage­ment com­pany. A plum­ber sear­ches for the cor­rect name­p­late; a reques­ted mas­sage the­ra­pist looks for the right room num­ber in a motel. Inside the mind of a young Chi­nese vio­li­nist on her way to her les­son, a Mozart sonata soars, and an Eng­lish lite­ra­ture pro­fes­sor with a thrown-out back on his way to his lec­ture hall sil­ently reci­tes a Shake­spearean son­net. A sense of rever­en­tial won­der creeps over a Bud­dhist pil­grim in a gold-ador­ned temple, a Rus­sian cos­mo­naut floats through the sta­tion with a screw­dri­ver in hand, and a mid­wife in Hawaii, almost run­ning late, hears the screams of pain from a woman in labor…

Col­le­agues help me up. „Are you fee­ling okay?“ „Should I call an ambu­lance?“ „You look so pale!“ I shake my head to wave them off. My knees are still com­ple­tely wob­bly, and I can barely stand on my own. „You pas­sed out briefly. What hap­pened?“

„We ente­red the cor­ri­dor,“ I mut­ter ton­el­essly, wit­hout any of the bystan­ders hea­ring me. Alt­hough all of this only las­ted for a split second, it has become inde­li­bly etched into my mind. I retreat to the rest­room down the hall, where I splash cold water on my face until I feel like mys­elf again, and only mys­elf.

♫ Sloe Sea­son ♫

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153/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor at the sta­tion, clut­ching the stack of copies con­tai­ning the wri­tings of the tri­ple mur​de​rer—​texts lite­rally stained with blood. The blood of ille­gal clo­nes?

Albo is engros­sed in his files. I skip the pleas­ant­ries: „Is there such a thing as iden­ti­cal qua­dru­plets?“

Albo looks up. „Just had some in Leip­zig recently. Damn rare, but not impos­si­ble.“

I grab a cof­fee. No sugar left.

Albo keeps his eyes on me. „Why do you ask?“

„Because then it might finally be over.“

Albo laughs bit­terly. „Over? I have to catch a kil­ler, regard­less of what hap­pens in fifty days!“

„—Forty-eight,“ I cor­rect him. Albo gives me a look that would­n’t pass day­time TV cen­sor­ship.

„Ray Brad­bury,“ he says then. I look at him, slightly con­fu­sed. „Ame­ri­can aut­hor,“ I say.

Albo nods. „Any Fri­end of Nicho­las Nick​le​by’s Is a Fri­end of Mine.“

I shrug. Albo tos­ses me a thin, worn paper­back: Ray Brad​bu​ry’s I Sing the Body Elec­tric! „Any Fri­end of Nicho­las Nick​le​by’s…“ is one of the sto­ries lis­ted in the table of con­tents.

„You read stuff like this?“ I ask, sur­pri­sed.

Albo shakes his head. „One of our foren­sic guys put me onto it. The​re’s a guy in there who thinks he’s Charles Dickens but can’t put any­thing wort­hwhile on paper. He buys six dozen type­wri­ters and wri­tes like a mad­man…“ With that, he stands up, walks over, and takes the slim volume back from my hand. He flips it open, finds the spot, and quo­tes: „The poem. The essay. The play tra­gi­que. The farce. The short story. And it was all bad.“

„What are you try­ing to tell me, Albo?“

„Tha​t’s him, don’t you see? The type­wri­ters, the dif­fe­rent texts. And then he sits…“ Albo taps the book­let. „…at the back of a train and throws all the pages out one by one, and they flut­ter away. Thou­sands of them.“

„But tha​t’s just a story, Albo. We have three dead bodies and a serial kil­ler.“

Albo slams the book onto his desk. „Just a story, you say? But these are all sto­ries, too! The type​wri​ter​s—​don’t you get it? He knows the Brad­bury story and iden­ti­fies with it!“

„Take it down a notch, Albo. He iden­ti­fies with ever­y­thing and not­hing. Tha​t’s pre­cis­ely our pro­blem. He’s a shape-shif­ter, and we can’t get a grip on him. One minute he’s ‚inte­gral,‘ the next he’s sur­rea­list. We don’t grasp him, get it? You can’t just pick out one facet and call it a day. Not here. Not with him. And six dozen type­wri­ters are­n’t fifty.“

Albo looks like he’s on the verge of blo­wing a fuse. He must have lat­ched onto this Brad­bury thing out of sheer despe­ra­tion. I don’t give him room to brea­the: „Num­ber 122 is ano­ther one of those. Incom­pre­hen­si­ble gib​be​ris​h…“—I pull the sheet from my copies—“…un​til you find the ori­gi­nal.“

„Which ori­gi­nal?“ Albo asks, frow­ning at the page.

„A Brau­lio Are­nas is men­tio­ned, right? Chi­lean poet. Just so hap­pens he wrote a poem titled ‚Errata‘ that lists a bunch of prin­ting errors found in an unna­med text. A sur­rea­list poem.“

„And?“

„Num­ber 122 is that text. It con­ta­ins every sin­gle error lis­ted. For exam­ple, in the poem, it says, ‚Ins­tead of making two hits with one shot it should be making two lips with one mouth.‘ Sound fami­liar? Or ‚Ins­tead of the youth the beauty the mill it should be the mill the beauty the youth.‘ Ulti­m­ately, it was the miss­ing com­mas that tip­ped me off that his text was built on that poem.“

Albo looks at his copy, rubs his stub­ble, and thinks it over. Finally, he asks: „Does it make any sense?“

„None,“ I say. „It’s jus​t—and I quo​te—‚a gro­tes­que parody of some­thing that is alre­ady absurd.‘ “

„Uh-huh,“ Albo says.

I tap his copy. „The​re’s one error miss­ing, by the way.“

Albo’s brow fur­rows.

„One line reads: ‚Ins­tead of I love you it should be I love you.‘ “

„Whe​re’s the error?“

„Tha​t’s the whole point of Sur­rea­lism. And the same goes for the kil­ler. He’s no more Brau­lio Are­nas than he is Charles Dickens!“

Albo nods wit­hout loo­king up. „So how do we nail him?“

„Let’s talk about someone who deci­ded to stretch his bizarre mind games so far into rea­lity that the homic­ide squad has to deal with them,“ I say, hol­ding up the copies. „Let’s talk about incom­pa­ti­ble claims and col­lapsing belief sys­tems.“

Albo looks up. „Always a good idea,“ he says. Do I spot a wry smile tug­ging at the cor­ners of his mouth? Maybe it feels to him, too, a bit like thirty or forty years ago, when we used to sit up all night deba­ting life, God, and the uni​ver​se—and all the insa­nity we humans inject into it.

♫ Still Echo thru my Mind ♫

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154/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, and ever since the sud­den vision that over­whel­med me right here the day before yes­ter­day, I’ve had this uneasy fee­ling every time I step out the door that it might hap­pen again: fee­ling con­nec­ted with ever­yone else in that same moment, or even fee­ling as one with them.

This time, on my way to the cafe­te­ria again, it hap­pens. But it’s wea­ker and does­n’t knock me to the ground imme­dia­tely. Again, I sense peo­ple inside me, though fewer this time, and it does­n’t feel quite so strange and diverse: as if I’m alre­ady fami­liar with these peo­ple, as if we’re old fri­ends. For a split second, we are one—my brot­hers and sis­ters in spi­rit and I—peo​ple with whom I share a strong spi­ri­tual bond, wit­hout kno­wing them or even having gues­sed they might exist some­where in the world. The intense fee­ling of unex­pec­tedly redis­co­ve­ring long-lost, unknown family mem­bers makes me stag­ger for a moment. Then, it’s over. A few col­le­agues give me sus­pi­cious looks—small won­der after the inci­dent two days ago. But I don’t let on.

Who were all these peo­ple? Do they really exist some­where on this pla­net? And can they per­ceive me, too? Is there any way to track them down? And what does any of this have to do with this cor­ri­dor?

I’m absent-min­ded and use­l­ess the rest of the day because these ques­ti­ons weigh on me. But over the next few days, the expe­ri­ence fades, and since not­hing extra­or­di­nary hap­pens when I enter the cor­ri­dor, I finally attri­bute the mat­ter to my overw­rought ner­ves.

♫ Glue Trap­ped ♫

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155/398

„I Enter the Cor­ri­dor“ is the title of a coll­ec­tion of texts with which an alle­ged aut​hor—​male or female, though likely a whole coll­ec­tive of mali­cious sub​ver​si​ve​s—is attemp­ting to spread a dan­ge­rous intellec­tual virus via the inter­net.

Con­sciously, after the repe­ti­tive „I enter the cor­ri­dor,“ the rea​der’s mind per­cei­ves only a more or less well-con­s­truc­ted short story, which often loses its­elf in incom­pre­hen­si­bi­lity or non­sense and usually lacks a pro­per pun­ch­line. This is likely inten­tio­nal, because sub­li­mi­nally, the mind absorbs some­thing else enti­rely during the rea­ding pro­cess: The man­tra-like repe­ti­tion of „I enter the cor­ri­dor“ crea­tes a pro­gres­si­vely nar­ro­wing tun­nel vision. Rea­ders become par­ti­cu­larly sus­cep­ti­ble to mes­sa­ges below the thres­hold of con­scious­ness, con­veyed through hid­den arche­typal key­words.

On the sur­face, the mes­sage of the „I Enter the Cor­ri­dor“ texts appears to be an iro­nic, post­mo­dern play with tro­pes. In rea­lity, howe­ver, anti-capi­ta­list and anti-sci­en­tis­tic ide​as—so​-cal​led „plu­ri­di­men­sio­nal“ and thus essen­ti­ally occult ideo​lo​gies—are sur­rep­ti­tiously trans­mit­ted, sub­jec­ting rea­ders to a form of insi­dious brain­wa­shing. „I Enter the Cor­ri­dor“ imper­cep­ti­bly opens the door to a men­acing ideo­logy, Cor­ri­do­rism, which ulti­m­ately leads to para­noia and the delu­sion that con­spi­ra­cies are ever­y­where, and which, in all likeli­hood, ends in a com­plete shat­te­ring of the ner­ves.

♫ Mare chro​ni​um​––​Fo​cus​sing ♫

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156/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. Pas​cal’s Coq au vin smells deli­cious once again. The twelve strokes of the church clock are just fading away. I’m a little early and stand wai­ting out­side Room 27.

„But I orde­red us food!“ I hear the voice of Mr. Kori­an­der, our guest for the night, from behind the door. Some­thing clat­ters. I can’t make out the response. „Oh, but you can, I insist!“ Mr. Kori­an­der asserts. Some­thing bangs again. „Please wait at least for the meal!“ Mr. Kori­an­der pleads. Even though I’m sure I’ll turn red with exci­te­ment, I decide to serve imme­dia­tely. I knock. Mr. Kori­an­der opens the door. „See?“ he says, tur­ning back toward the room.

A small man is stan­ding on the bed. He has a bald spot with just a few white hairs in the back, wears glas­ses, and has a rather amusing round face with sti­cking-out ears. How old might he be? Sixty? Eighty? Hard to tell…

„Oh,“ he goes, and steps off the bed. He inspects my tray, and he seems to like what he sees. I serve them their meal at the table. „Just water?“ he asks as I pour table water into two glas­ses. He has a slight accent that I can’t quite place.

„Of course,“ Mr. Kori­an­der says. Then he opens his note­book and beg­ins his ques­ti­ons while his guest starts to cut up the chi­cken and pep­per it vigo­rously. I step back a few paces bes­ide the bed, hol­ding mys­elf in rea­di­ness to top up their water.

At first, the con­ver­sa­tion revol­ves around Mar​s—I might have gues­sed. Since they’re spea­king Ger­man, I under­stand ever­y­thing this time. And yet I com­pre­hend almost not­hing. „Arl­an­thro­pos“ seems to be the name for a Mar­tian that is merely a piece of brain inside a giant metal machine and shares no human inte­rests. Kori​an​der’s guest, howe­ver, does­n’t seem incli­ned to talk about it and grum­bles dis­con­ten­tedly again and again. Jud­ging by his accent, he seems to be from some­where in the East, Rus­sia per­haps, or Roma­nia. I’m not sure.

„Where has Golem XIV vanis­hed to?“ Mr. Kori­an­der wants to know, but his guest informs him that tha​t’s not how it works and that enti­rely dif­fe­rent things mat­ter, espe­ci­ally given the short amount of time.

Mr. Kori­an­der seems a little mif­fed. He pres­ses his lips tog­e­ther and snaps his note­book shut. His guest smi­les, takes it from his hand, looks inside, and says, „Pirx.“ But Mr. Kori­an­der shakes his head. He wants to talk about evo­lu­tion and con­scious­ness.

His guest smi­les mischie­vously and asks, „In a small black box?“ Mr. Kori­an­der bites his lip and says, „Trurl.“ „Kla­pau­cius,“ says his guest. Their crazy con­ver­sa­tion goes on like this. Somehow I gather that the visi­tor has evi­dently given far more thought to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and nano­tech­no­logy than others. For a while, they talk about some­thing they call „Phan­to­ma­tics,“ then about a cer­tain bac­te­rial „Erun­tics.“ They might as well have been spea­king Anci­ent Egyp­tian for all I unders­tood.

Finally, it’s time to clear the table. Mr. Kori­an­der looks some­what despe­rate as he stu­dies the long list of unas­ked ques­ti­ons in his note­book. His guest laughs, and I can still hear his laugh­ter as I stand by the ele­va­tor and the church clock strikes one.

♫ Temp­le­s­cape ♫

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157/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, almost having for­got­ten my visi­ons that had sud­denly and wit­hout war­ning over­whel­med me there some time ago. Howe­ver, I find mys­elf stan­ding there, almost bes­ide mys­elf, some­where in the moun­ta­ins, gazing up at an old man with a white poin­ted beard, wea­ring a simple, faded robe. My heart flies to him; he is the Mas­ter, my Mas­ter, cal­ling me to the Hima­la­yas to become his disci­ple and receive the pre­cious spi­ri­tual gifts he has pre­pared for me.

„Hey there,“ greets me a pas­sing col­le­ague. I don’t respond, still enrap­tu­red by my vision and the over­whel­ming desire in my hear​t—a devo­tion, an enthu­si­asm that I had almost for­got­ten I was capa­ble of, back when I was a young woman.

Late at night in bed, the Mas­ter comes to mind again, and my heart aches briefly with lon­ging. Howe­ver, my hus­band, peacefully sno­ring bes­ide me, would neither under­stand nor approve. What could I tell him? And where in the Hima­la­yas should I search? Cer­tainly, it would be an adven­ture to give up ever­y­thing at once, to go into the unknown and seek a new spi­ri­tual home there. It sounds like some­thing that could bring some exci­te­ment back to my life! On the other hand…

As my eyes close, the lon­ging fades away, and I find my well-ear­ned sleep.

♫ Hun­ting Spree ♫

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158/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor of the pre­cinct and close the door to the john behind me. Every now and then a good idea hits me while sit­ting on the throne, but this time, my mind is a blank slate. I’ve been holed up with Albo for way too many hours, going through the kil​ler’s hundred and fifty texts with him like we’re pie­cing tog­e­ther a puz­zle. Some­where in there, a clue has to be hid­den about who he is and why he car­ves the hearts out of inno­cent tri­plets.

Albo is on the phone when I get back. This late at night? It seems true that the homic­ide squad never sleeps. Albo hangs up and sta­res at me with bloodshot eyes. „The con­ver­ted dou­ble-decker bus that tours through the back­wa­ters at night…“ I resist the urge to grab ano­ther cof­fee and sit down ins­tead. „With chill-out music and phi­lo­so­phi­cal self-dis­co­very.“ Albo holds up the page in ques­tion. „Made it up. Does­n’t exist in rea­lity. I had my guys check.“

Figu­red as much. It star­ted with the fifty type­wri­ters. The guy who sup­po­sedly bought them one by one, second­hand, only exists as a for­mer eBay handle, „SpellingError68,“ with a Ber­lin address and a Pay­Pal account. He’s since dele­ted all the accounts, and no one’s lived at that address for years. Every trace has been meti­cu­lously era­sed; all inqui­ries lead to dead ends, just like in the texts: as far as we know, hotel chef Pas­cal is just as fic­tional as house­boat dwel­ler Norbu or some Cory d’Or, male or female.

„A riddle wrap­ped in a mys­tery inside an enigma,“ I’d mut­te­red ear­lier in the evening.

„Hape Ker­ke­ling,“ Albo had offe­red with a nod, but I shook my head. „Win­s­ton Chur­chill.“ Albo smirked croo­kedly. „Eit­her way, all clues lead nowhere.“ Which holds true for me, too, as a psy­cho­lo­gist and—as Albo likes to ele­vate me—a pro­fi­ler. Even the „KISTe,“ the Fede­ral Cri­mi­nal Police Office’s text ana­ly­sis data­base used to eva­luate writ­ten state­ments by cri​mi​nals—​con​fes​sion let­ters and ran­som notes—​could​n’t get us any fur­ther.

We’d last been deba­ting the alien. „I would have so liked to speak with him about God. Then it must be done this way,“ it reads in Num­ber 106, right as the alien kills the human astro­naut with whom com­mu­ni­ca­tion seems impos­si­ble. Crazy story. Who comes up with this stuff? A reli­gious fana­tic?

I step over to the win­dow. The city is silent. Even if Ber­lin never truly sleeps, around 3​:30 in the mor­ning it at least drifts into a brief half-slum­ber. „Maybe he thinks he’s doing some­thing good,“ I say. „The​re’s a movie where a phi­lo­so­phy pro­fes­sor fakes a mur­der that turns out to be a sui­cide at the last secon​d—​but as a cri­tique of the death penalty and the Ame­ri­can jus­tice sys­tem, he wai­ves his appeal and goes to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber as the alle­ged kil­ler.“

Albo stret­ches his back with a groan. „How do you pic­ture that? The tri­plets were in cahoots with him? He bred clo­nes of hims­elf, breathing husks wit­hout fee­ling, and he’s cut­ting them open to cri­tique the mora­lity of our sci­en­tists?“

I tug at the win­dow, try­ing to pop it open. It’s been sti­cking for years. „I’ll get it fixed,“ Albo says, and for a second I feel like I’m trap­ped in a time loop, having heard him say that at least a dozen times. „I say that every time, don’t I?“ Albo asks, cle­arly having the exact same thought.

„If he were a psy­cho­path, he could­n’t put hims­elf in other peo​p​le’s shoes the way he con­stantly does in these texts.“ I rea­lize I’m start­ing to lec­ture as I pace back and forth. „Of course, we’re still not sure if the texts even came from the kil­ler. Maybe they came from the tri­plets. But assum­ing the mur­de­rer wrote them: then the texts point to the mur​der​s—and the mur­ders, in turn, point to the texts.“

„We’ve covered that ground. We’re going in cir­cles, pal,“ Albo grunts sul­lenly.

„No,“ I say, „because your flash of bril­li­ance about a cri­tique of the sci­en­ti­fic estab­lish­ment is the best idea we’ve had so far. Mur­ders that are​n’t really mur​der​s—​meant to raise ques­ti­ons and shake peo­ple up.“

„Swit­ching sides now? Plan­ning to cozy up to him, grab a drink, be his buddy?“

I stop pacing. Albo’s sore. No won​der—​the case is taking a nasty bite out of his pro­fes­sio­nal pride.

„I would​n’t be sur­pri­sed,“ I say, „if it was his own heart. Sym­bo­li­cally, I mean—t​hat he’s tearing it out as the aut­hor of these texts because some­thing in them cuts him to the quick, because one of these texts is genui­nely real and he’s reve­al­ing hims­elf to us. Maybe with wha­te­ver he’s sto­ring behind the black door? Or the busi­ness with the shat­te­ring world­views?“

Albo looks at me, tired but with a slight pro­vo­ca­tive edge. „In a case like that, you look at the suspects and cross off ever­y­thing until only the most likely ones are left, right? So go home, man, and do your home­work.“

Dawn is alre­ady brea­king when I step out of the pre­cinct. The crisp air feels good. The Life of David Gale sud­denly pops into my hea​d—​with Kevin Spacey. That was the title of the movie about the phi­lo­so­phy pro­fes­sor. But how did Cory d’Or manage to tear their own heart out three times and plant it at three dif­fe­rent Ber­lin land­marks? My thoughts haven’t made sense for a long time. High time to get some sleep.

♫ Grimm örlög ♫

---

159/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. The hun­ters are alre­ady sear­ching for me here as well. Before they can pounce on me, I dart aside. A long stair­case beg­ins here, for which my four legs are actually too short, but mor­tal ter­ror pro­pels me upward. The war­ri­ors are fol­lo­wing me. In front of me, I see a man ope­ning a heavy tim­ber door. I fol­low him, run bet­ween his feet, knock him over unin­ten­tio­nally, and huddle in a cor­ner of the room, trembling.

„Close the door, cook!“ thun­ders a voice. Obe­diently, the man rises from the floor. Out­side the door, a few of the Ein­her­jar stand sil­ently, sta­ring in. The cook clo­ses the door and turns around. His face is bla­cke­ned by soot. I reco­gnize him! He’s the cook who set the hun­ters on me and wants to throw me into his caul­dron.

I do not know the other man, the one stan­ding by the win­dow ope­ning. Two ravens sit on his shoulder, but now they flap their wings and fly off, croa­king into the open air.

„My Lord, the boar…“ the cook beg­ins and falls silent.

„I see.“ The man at the win­dow has just one healthy eye. It fixes on me. My entire body trem­bles as I try to make mys­elf as small as pos­si­ble.

„The boar did­n’t want to go into the forest today to be hun­ted. It ran back to the fort­ress, and then… obviously…“ Again, the cook falls silent.

„Obviously straight to me. Spare me expl­ana­ti­ons for things that are plain to see. Maybe the boar does­n’t want to be hun­ted; maybe he does­n’t like that?“ The cook nods.

„Maybe he does­n’t want to be but­che­red and coo­ked? Only to rise again from his bones the next mor­ning, only to be hun­ted, but­che­red, coo­ked, and devou­red again by war­ri­ors, val­ky­ries, and my wol­ves? Day after day, week after week, year after year?“ The cook stands moti­on­less.
„Or would you, per­haps, find plea­sure in such a fate, cook?“ The man with the soot-bla­cke­ned face shakes his head. He, too, seems to want to make hims­elf as small as pos­si­ble.

„So let us deli­ver him from his fate.“ The man at the win­dow steps aside and takes a gle­a­ming spear from the wall.

„But my Lord!“ the cook inter­jects. „What am I to serve at the feast tomor­row? What are the Ein­her­jar sup­po­sed to eat in the future? And what should your wol­ves feed on?“ He ven­tures for­ward, but sud­denly rea­li­zes whom he’s repri­man­ding and bows deeply, moving back­ward until he backs into the dou­ble doors.

The man by the win­dow laughs. „Tomor­row, cook, when he is res­to­red to life, the boar will know not­hing of the fact that his god had pro­mi­sed him deli­ver­ance.“

And with that, he throws the spear. Ever­y­thing hap­pens too quickly for pain. Sud­denly, I am enti­rely weight­less, and I gaze down on the world from far above. I can see ever­y­thing from up here. It seems a mas­sive feast is approa­ching, where rivers of mead will flow. And under a large caul­dron, the cook sto­kes the fire…

♫ Haun­ted by the Zeit­geist ♫

---

160/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, fee­ling a bit exci­ted. It’s my first time expe­ri­en­cing this trend cal­led Cor­ri­do­ring. Yeah, sure, I know you should­n’t jump on every viral inter­net fad, but the​re’s some­thing about this one that reso­na­tes with me. Maybe because it hides behind masks. Or because of its con­nec­tion to an anci­ent myth. Any­way, the thought of craf­ting a bul​l’s head mask and cap­tu­ring a photo of mys­elf wea­ring it in a cor­ri­dor of my choice​—​the idea trig­ge­red some­thing deep inside me, and I just had to be a part of it. I can only hope that others will also post their pho­tos in the gal­lery, show­ca­sing their home­made bul​l’s head masks in a cor­ri­dor of their choice. Over time, this could grow into a vast net­work of hall­ways and pas​sa​ge​s—​the magi­cal land of Cor­ri­do­ria, so to speak, a vir­tual world­wide laby­rinth tra­ver­sed by a soli­tary, bewil­de­red hybrid being.

It’s kind of a nice expres­sion of our zeit­geist, isn’t it?

Well, the Ato­mium defi­ni­tely has ple­nty of cor­ri­dors to offer for such a photo. It imme­dia­tely came to mind when there was talk of cor­ri­dors, and as it turns out, I just need to get inside early enough so there are­n’t tou­rists run­ning around ever­y­where and the Hor­ned One is truly alone in the pic­ture.

I set up my camera, pull the papier-mâché mask from my back­pack, adjust the self-timer, and hang my head as I get into posi­tion…