Korridorium

♫ Rewri­ting History ♫

191/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor lea­ding to the crew quar​ter​s—and even though we’ve been on this jour­ney for many years now, I still can’t quite grasp that I am on a space­ship bound for a distant solar sys­tem, an alien pla­net, and an extra­ter­restrial civi­liza­tion.

Just stan­ding firmly on the metal floor with my own feet is—in the vacuum of space, far from any­thing that could exert gra­vity on us—ac​tually unfa­thomable: The ship rota­tes, pin­ning me to the outer hull, much like water is pres­sed into a bucket when you swing it around in a cir­cle.

*

It was Decem­ber 21, 2012, that chan­ged ever­y­thing. Today marks ten years to the day since we human​s—e​very sin­gle per­son on pla­net Ear​th—he​ard the voice in our heads. Ever­yone per­cei­ved it dif­fer­ently: some as a clap of thun­der, others as a whisper, some as a female voice, others male, or even that of a child. But the wor­ding was iden­ti­cal for ever­yone: „This is the Galac­tic Fede­ra­tion.“

It was eerie. Some­thing like this had likely never hap­pened in human history. It felt threa­tening and libe­ra­ting all at once. I felt the same as most peo­ple: after that, I could­n’t just go back to busi­ness as usual. As it tur­ned out, it was ano­ther Coper­ni­can revo­lu­tion for huma­nity. Not only was Earth never the cen­ter of the uni­verse, but we humans also tur­ned out to be just one intel­li­gent spe­cies among many—one civi­liza­tion among count­less others.

„The qua­ran­tine that exis­ted for your pro­tec­tion is lifted, effec­tive imme­dia­tely.“

Every per­son on our pla­net heard this brief mes­sage in their own native lan­guage, whe­re­ver they were, wha­te­ver they were doing. I belon­ged to the one-third of huma­nity that was asleep at the time. The voice spoke to me—it was female and gent​le—and I woke up instantly, wit­hout the sligh­test doubt that this had been no dream. It was the same for bil­li­ons, I later lear­ned, just as I soon found out what this qua­ran­tine was all about.

*

For over half a cen­tury, astro­no­mers had been sear­ching for signals from extra­ter­restrial civi­liza­ti­ons. I had never even heard of SETI, because the rese­arch pro­gram had yiel­ded no note­wor­thy result​s—ex​cept per­haps the mys­te­rious Wow! signal. It was asto­nis­hing which fields of know­ledge sud­denly made the front pages, and equally sur­pri­sing were the topics I sud­denly found mys­elf enga­ging with, the enti­rely new ques­ti­ons I was now grap­pling with.

Many felt the same. On some level, it made total sense: the expe­ri­ence of fee­ling some­thing for­eign inside one’s own mind would­n’t let go of us, even if there were peo­ple who tried to dis­miss it as mass hal­lu­ci­n­a­tion or an ela­bo­rate stu­dent prank.

In any case, the tele­pa­thic mes­sage broad­cast world­wide on Decem­ber 21, 2012, made it clear why SETI had been unsuc­cessful for so long and had fai­led to dis­co­ver alien civi­liza­ti­ons: our solar sys­tem had been shiel­ded from all intel­li­gent radio signals, mea­ning they could­n’t reach our sen­sors at all—​save for the Wow! signal, which was likely thanks to a brief mal­func­tion of the qua­ran­tine fil­ter.

Sure, the exis­tence of extra­ter­restrial life was deba­ted, but as far as I had gathe­red, experts ruled out the pos­si­bi­lity that it could cross the vast distances of space. With the voice, ever­y­thing sud­denly chan­ged: there is life in other star sys­tems, intel­li­gent life, and it knows about us.

Howe­ver, who the „Galac­tic Fede­ra­tion“ actually is, and whe­ther the civi­liza­ti­ons in our galac­tic neigh­bor­hood belong to it, remains unknown to us. The voice in our head​s—​which some say was an auto­ma­ted recor­ding played when the Voy­a­ger 1 space probe rea­ched the outer boun­dary of our solar sys​te​m—​did not speak again for the time being. No fur­ther mes­sage fol­lo­wed. Our radio telesco­pes, howe­ver, were sud­denly floo­ded „with imme­diate effect“ by signals of an appar­ently intel­li­gent nature from our galac­tic neigh­bor­hood, even if none of the mes­sa­ges our newly dis­co­vered neigh­bors were bea­ming into space could be decoded at first. The galac­tic radio fre­quen­cies were sud­denly fil­led with an incom­pre­hen­si­ble bab­ble of a thousand voices, which came as a shock to many—and per­haps even a healthy one.

*

The expe­ri­ence of hea­ring a for­eign voice inside one’s own head was a trans­for­ma­tive event for most peo­ple, and in its wake, things hap­pened that many—​mys​elf include​d—had thought nearly impos­si­ble: huma­nity pul­led tog­e­ther and, with a shared goal in sight, worked unbu­reau­cra­ti­cally to solve our pres­sing glo­bal pro­blems. I, too, was quickly swept up by the new enthu­si­asm. New hori­zons had ope­ned up, and terms like „exo­so­cio­logy“ or „Kar­da­shev scale“ soon rol­led effort­lessly off my ton­gue.

Of course, almost ever­yone wan­ted to know who was behind this tight-lip­ped „Galac­tic Fede­ra­tion“ that had pre­su­med to put us in qua­ran­tine for cen­tu­ries. And natu­rally, we were curious about the alien civi­liza­ti­ons we were sud­denly lis­tening in on with our radio telesco­pes.

The qua­ran­tine was lifted, but nobody said hello. So we deci­ded to reach out and greet our cos­mic neigh­bors our­sel­ves…

♫ Secret Mat­ters ♫

192/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor in the crew quar­ters and close the door behind me to the small com­part­ment hol­ding my bunk. A sign on the out­side reads my name with the addi­tion: „Xeno-Lin­gu­ist.“ When­ever my eyes fall upon it, I still feel the urge to rub them in dis­be­lief. What incre­di­ble twist of fate brought me all the way from Papua New Gui­nea here aboard a rese­arch space­ship that has left the solar sys­tem and is on the verge of making cont­act with an alien civi­liza­tion?

Out of nowhere, the words „Tea nubunubu mataa“ come to mind. Ten years ago, I was a lin­gu­ist working with end­an­ge­red lan­guages. Then came Decem­ber 21, 2012, and after that, ever­y­thing hap­pened at breakneck speed. One moment I was tra­ve­ling through Ocea­nia with a voice recor­der and a lap­top, and the next, or so it felt, I was laun­ching toward distant stars and pla­nets on behalf of huma­nity, ser­ving as a trans­la­tor for first cont­act with alien civi­liza­ti­ons.

The Cos­mic Bea­gle embarked on its jour­ney five years after the qua­ran­tine was lifted—an extra­or­di­na­rily short time­frame to plan and build an inter­stel­lar space­craft. Aside from the mas­sive effort to curb cli­mate change, it was huma​ni​ty’s first truly uni­fied pro​jec​t—​bar​ring a handful of pro­test­ing fun­da­men­ta­lists and con­ser­va­ti­ves.

The fact that I am actually on board still has­n’t fully sunk in. But of course: they need a lan­guage expert. Ins­tead of a soli­tary Dar­win, an entire team of spe­cia­lists is en rou​te—​plus a cat, Lady Wow, named after the Wow! signal of 1977, that little fore­taste of what awai­ted us once the qua­ran­tine was lifted.

*

Lady Wow is more than just a mas­cot to us: in my opi­nion, she saved all of our lives on board. We actually had our first encoun­ter with extra­ter­restrial life as we were lea­ving our solar sys­tem and pas­sed Voy­a­ger 1—a route cho­sen purely for public rela­ti­ons. The space probe Voy­a­ger 1 was up to that point the far­thest object huma­nity had ever sent into space, and some believe it was the cata­lyst for lif­ting the qua­ran­tine. After 35 years of tra­vel, the probe rea­ched the helio­pause (ano­ther word I would­n’t have drea­med a decade ago I’d not only use, but actually know what it means). It may have col­l­i­ded with the shell or bar­rier shiel­ding us humans from the radio signals of other civi­liza­ti­ons, trig­ge­ring the fil­ter to shut down. But why that hap­pened on Decem­ber 21, 2012, of all dates—​the infa­mous dead­line from the Mayan calen​dar—​no​body can explain. Coin­ci­dence? Fate? A self-ful­fil­ling pro­phecy? At any rate, it was­n’t the end of the world for us, but a new begin­ning.

The Ter­mi­na­tion Shock was alre­ady well behind us. We sent pho­tos of our approach to Voy­a­ger 1 back to Earth. And then, while I was sit­ting at break­fast with Lady Wow in my lap, a cold chill spread inside me, free­zing me in place. It felt as though I were stan­ding naked beneath a micro­scope with thou­sands of eyes, dis­sec­ting me pore by pore in a frac­tion of a second and scan­ning me inside and out—​coldly, wit­hout a shred of emo­tion or huma­nity, except that it was hun­gry. Very, very hun­gry.

Lady Wow hissed and bared her teeth. She leapt from my lap and dar­ted fran­ti­cally bet­ween the chairs as if hun­ting an invi­si­ble mouse. The cold, inhu­man gaze that had been dis­sec­ting me alive vanis­hed all at once, and I thought I caught a lin­ge­ring trace of reg­ret. Then it was gone.

Lady Wow came back over to me, cur­led up on my thigh, and pur­red. I was shaken to my core. The voice of the Galac­tic Fede­ra­tion ten years ear­lier had felt gentle, almost empa­the­tic. This thing, wha­te­ver it was, was a pre​da​tor—and I was its prey. I have no idea how Lady Wow mana­ged to scare off the entity, an imma­te­rial crea­ture or per­haps one com­po­sed of Dark Energy, roa­ming the inter­stel­lar space bey­ond our solar sys­tem.

Or was it the qua­ran­tine shield its­elf, or rem­nants of it? Opi­ni­ons among our crew remain divi­ded to this day. And we cer­tainly had ple­nty of time to debate the expe­ri­ence, which each of us had per­cei­ved dif­fer­ently.

*

In my pre­vious life as a lin­gu­i­stic rese­ar­cher, I did­n’t care about sci­ence fic­tion in the sligh­test. But how else was I to prepare for first cont­act with ali​en​s—​which, until it actually hap­pens, is not­hing more than fic­tion? So I began stu­dy­ing ever­y­thing wri­ters had ima­gi­ned about encoun­ters with extra­ter­restrial beings.

And do you know wha​t’s strange? Among all those sto­ries, I found one where a cat named Cap­tain Wow fights off inter­stel­lar dra­gons that she per­cei­ves as rats. In doing so, she saves the space­fa­rers who would other­wise lose their minds upon encoun­tering these „star dra­gons,“ because those crea­tures hun­ger not for flesh, but for the mind.

A strange coin­ci­dence, isn’t it?

I haven’t men­tio­ned any of this to the others on board, but I’m a little afraid of our return in twenty years. Will Lady Wow still be alive then? Her natu­ral life­span will be dra­wing to a close. But per­haps froli­cking in the ship’s zero-gra­vity zone has mana­ged to slow down her aging pro­cess a bit. I cer­tainly hope so! Because the Dark Dra­gon will still be wai­ting at the bor­der of our solar sys­tem, hung­rily lying in wait…

♫ Anāt­man ♫

193/398

II enter the cor­ri­dor with slum­ped should­ers. It’s dreadful to have dis­ap­poin­ted the mas­ter. He put such effort into me, try­ing again and again to disci­pline my mind and make it clear to me that ever­y­thing I expe­ri­ence is mere illu­sion, a mirage, the froth of all things.

Yet I sim­ply can­not get rid of the illu­sion that I, I mys­elf, the focus of this expe­ri­ence, am real. That I really exist. I do think, I feel, I have expe­ri­en­ces! How could I not exist and be mere ima­gi­na­tion then?

What has the mas­ter not alre­ady tried with me?

From

• logic (there is no con­scious­ness in the plu­ral),
• phi­lo­so­phy (Atman and Brah­man are one),
• para­dox (the kōan of the one hand clap­ping),
• dream yoga (the mas​ter’s visits in my dreams to show me that I too am just a dream, dre­a­ming its­elf),
• sci­ence (Susan Black​mo​re’s Grand Illu­sion videos),
• mys­ti­cism („In You, this honey is dis­sol­ved, O milk of life, so mild, so fine!”)

to

• medi­ta­tive disci­pline (sit­ting for days in a state of non-thin­king),
• sur­rea­lism (Jim Hen​son’s The Cube: straw­berry jam) and even
• vio­lence (unex­pec­ted pun­ches to the face, which are said to have brought some adepts enligh­ten­ment)

and on to

• a „snooze but­ton“ for my thoughts (which he sought to anchor in me through NLP),
• per­sis­tent igno­ring (not only of my ques­ti­ons, but also of my incre­asing hun­ger),
• exten­sive man­dala con­tem­pla­tion (M​.​C. Escher tes­sel­la­ti­ons with the ques­tion „Where is the cen­ter?“), and even
• Bud­dhist dark the­rapy.

Yet my sup­po­sedly illu­sory self remained unim­pres­sed by all this. Not my idea of being an indi­vi­dual crum­bled under this ons­laught, but my idea that there was some­thing like a solid world around me.

Finally, my mas­ter gave up his efforts. I had alre­ady seen it coming that he would even­tually send me to the legen­dary place of which his stu­dents only speak in hus­hed tones: the cor­ri­dor of the fail­ures, the cor­ri­dor of the solip­sists. It is said that no one ever retur­ned from this pas­sage which the water of the small river had eaten into the belly of the moun­tain, where it then dis­ap­pears wit­hout a trace.

I too will dis­ap­pear wit­hout a trace. For a few days, maybe weeks, my fel­low pupils will still speak my name, in hus­hed tones, as a cau­tio­nary tale of someone stub­born, unte­acha­ble, someone clinging to the great illu­sion and sim­ply unable to let go. But soon, soon I will be for­got­ten and gone.

The des­cent into dark­ness is dif­fi­cult. I am alre­ady com­ple­tely soa­ked; the cold seeps into my core. My whole body trem­bles, also because mor­tal dread grips me. That the self can­not die because it does not even exist can­not com­fort me, not even now. I hear despe­rate wai­ling, and after some time I rea­lize it is coming from my own mouth. I fall silent.

From the sound of the water I can tell that I am ente­ring a large cave. I think I per­ceive a glim­mer of light high above me. Is that a stair­case car­ved into the rock face? It leads up, towards the glim­mer. I sit down in lotus posi­tion on the bare rock and close my eyes. Maybe the years of trai­ning have somehow paid off after all.

It won’t be me clim­bing those steps and ascen­ding. Not me.

♫ Lost in an Aqua­rium ♫

194/398

II enter the cor­ri­dor. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I climb the Che­ops pyra­mid. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I hurry into the cli­nic. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I squeeze mys­elf into the kiosk. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I wade knee-deep into the Cas­pian Sea. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I stroll through the colon­na­des. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I curve through Cape Town on my KTM. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I pay the crea­mery a brief visit. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I take ano­ther look into Kafka. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I climb into the canoe. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I stag­ger into the can­tina. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I kneel in the cathe​dral’s nave. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I crawl into the cat box. Kil­roy was alre­ady there. I come, con­s­ter­na­ted, into the kit­chen. Kil­roy is spraw­led on the couch, sur­roun­ded by cra­cker crumbs, cat­ching Kar­da­shi­ans on the tube, and asks: „Yo, woman, what took you so long?“

♫ Dream Ques­ti­ons Med­ley Eo ipso ♫

195/398

I enter the Kor­ri­do­rium dou­ble-decker bus for the fourth time now. Its round trip through the Ger­man coun­try­side leads to my small town once a month, and part of the ser­vice is that you regis­ter online or by phone, get picked up from home late in the evening, and get drop­ped off there again the next mor­ning.

It’s simi­lar to the shut­tle buses for club nights in Ber­lin, except that here, the bus its­elf is the club. Every month the ques­tion you embark with on your nightly jour­ney chan​ge​s—and, of course, so does the route, con­ti­nuously picking up dif­fe­rent pas­sen­gers along the way. Once all tra­ve­lers are on board, the bus parks some­where out­side of town—at least tha​t’s my impres­sion from the first three trips. You can crack the win­dows open a bit to let in fresh air, but they are opaque, so I can only go by sound.

The first time, it could have been a high­way over­pass: dri­ving noi­ses from cars and trucks kept blen­ding into the soft ambi­ent sounds. The second time, I think I heard a river, alt­hough I don’t actually know of any­thing around here that bab­bles so cheerfully. That was the trip with the ques­tion, “What is dream (and where to, once I awake)?” I can’t remem­ber rea­ding it on the Kor­ri­do­rium blog, but the­ma­ti­cally, it fits, of course.

On the third trip, I dis­co­vered that you can lounge on cushions in the back of the bus. Tha​t’s where the DJ sits all night long, illu­mi­na­ted only by the pale light of his lap­top and the blin­king LEDs of his gear. Tha​t’s also where the woman with the ther­mos sits down occa​sio​nal​ly—​the one who walks around the bus asking us tra­ve­lers the ques­tion of the night and refil­ling our tea.

The music, the con­ver­ted, almost com­ple­tely dar­kened bus, and the ques­tion whispe­red over the loud­spea­k­ers again and again create a very pecu­liar and spe­cial atmo­sphere. I’ve tried tel­ling fri­ends about it. One lis­tened, shaking his head, and at some point sum­ma­ri­zed: “So, a self-dis­co­very trip!” I did​n’t want to con­firm or deny that. After all, I’m floa­ting almost all night in the inter­me­diate realm bet­ween sleep, dream, and intense thoughts. “But did you ans­wer the ques­ti­ons?” he asked. Did I? Hard to say. The third one was “Where does con­scious­ness take place (and what do I get out of it)?” and yes, somehow I found an ans­wer. It was com­ple­tely silent around the bus until a rich cho­rus of bird­song star­ted up in the mor­ning. Appar­ently, on the third trip, it was parked next to a patch of woods. And tha​t’s when an ans­wer came to me. Not really to this ques­tion, and I can’t really put the ans­wer into words eit​her—​but an insight came to me that made a night of barely slee­ping more than wort­hwhile.

Are there drugs? Sex? Is it a cult? My fri­ends find the “mobile music medi­ta­tion” sus­pi­cious, and they’re loo­king for the catch. Ulti­m­ately, what tips the scale is that none of them is wil­ling to forgo their pre­cious sleep.

So, I embarked on the nightly jour­ney alone again. I nestle into my berth, enve­lo­ped by soft har­mo­nies into which a voice whis­pers: “Where does sound lead (and into what reso­nance, silence)?” Strange ques­ti­ons, these, that let the Kor­ri­do­rium bus glide through the night. In my half-sleep, they take on a wild life of their own and pro­vide me with valuable insights—​just as, at night, things go on in my head that I pre­viously had no inkling of.

♫ Song of the Spec­tres ♫

196/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor that ope­ned up after an ear­th­quake in Psy­chro Cave. Armed with a powerful flash­light, I feel like Car­ter when he step­ped into Tutank​ha​mun’s tomb in 1922, or Wool­ley when he dis­co­vered the burial cham­ber of Queen Puabi. The oppor­tu­nity to enter a site untouched by human eyes for cen­tu­ries or mil­len­nia is a rare pri­vi­lege for an archaeo­lo­gist.

This cave in Crete is legen­dary and is con­side­red tho­roughly explo­red. Howe­ver, the ear­th­quake has reve­a­led a new pas­sage. Where might it lead? To the birth­place of Zeus, as legend has it, or to ano­ther Minoan cult site, like the ones my col­le­agues have alre­ady unco­vered here?

An old man emer­ges from the depths of the cave, squin­ting into the beam of my flash­light. I am so stun­ned that I stand there open-mou­thed, let­ting him pass by wit­hout doing a thing.

Once I regain my com­po­sure, I fol­low him out of the cave. In our tent, he gob­bles down a mas­sive break­fast, explai­ning to us inc­re­du­lous rese­ar­chers with his mouth ful​l—in Anci­ent Greek, no les​s—t​hat he must have slept for quite a long time. His name, he claims, is … Epi­men­i­des.

Mean­while, the man is being exami­ned at the hos­pi­tal in Hera­klion. Some of my col­le­agues think he’s a fraud; others take him for a mad­man. I’m not so sure. Sure, Epi­men­i­des, the legen­dary inven­tor of the plow, is said to have lived here some­time bet­ween the seventh and fifth cen­tu­ries BC, and he’s even quo­ted in the Bible for his epi­gram that all Cre­tans are liars. But you can’t just sleep for a few mil­len­nia and then gorge on break­fast to your hear​t’s con­tent, can you? On the other hand, the​re’s that strange story from the Cave of the Seven Slee­pers about an alle­ged eighth slee­per who only recently came to light.

In any case, I went back into the cave later that night to push fur­ther into the unknown areas alone. The cor­ri­dor winds through the moun­tain and ends in a stone alcove. Sud­denly, I am beco­ming very, very tired, and I decide to rest a little on the anci­ent ram’s fleece lying right there …

♫ Ásko­run ♫

197/398

“I enter the cor­ri­dor,” read the index card I drew. Pas­cal had labe­led ten index cards and fan­ned them out for me, face down. The sen­tence stood there scraw­led and unfa­mi­liar to me. Pas­cal and I had alre­ady put away a fair amount of the hotel wine he’d brought, and I’d been bor­ing him with a long mono­lo­gue about wri​ter’s block and crea­ti­vity, cul­mi­na­ting in the claim—​pro​ba​bly alre­ady slightly slur​re​d—t​hat you could over­come any crea­tive block sim­ply by deman­ding fifty or a hundred ideas from yours­elf ins­tead of just one per­fect one. Pas­cal laug­hed at me.

A bit pissed off, I gave him examp­les. Once I strug­g­led to come up with a sui­ta­ble award speech for a pigeon bree­der. Even­tually, in despe­ra­tion, I hit upon the idea of tricking mys­elf into wri­ting ten ver­si­ons of the spee​ch—and just star­ted wri­ting wit­hout taking mys­elf or the sub­ject too seriously any­more. After the sixth ver­sion, I rea­li­zed I just had to com­bine the third and fifth, and I got exactly what I had envi­sio­ned. Tha​t’s how I’ve done it ever since when I have wri​ter’s block.

Pas­cal see­med uncon­vin­ced.

“Ins­tead of put­ting the one right thing out into the world with full qua­lity stan­dards, you force yours­elf to pro­duce a bunch of mate­rial first. And sud­denly, it flows. Sure, a lot of it is crap, but if the big win glim­mers some­where in there, it’s alre­ady been worth it, right?”

Tha​t’s when Pas­cal came up with the bet. He remin­ded me that I’d been mea­ning to write a coll­ec­tion of short sto​ries—​partly to reflect on my some­ti­mes bizarre expe­ri­en­ces as a pro­fes­sio­nal speech­wri­ter, and partly to move away from these pre­sen­ta­tion texts con­stantly deman­ded of me under pres­sure by poli­ti­ci­ans, CEOs, fathers of the bride, event hosts, and so on—you know, how it goes when you offer your ser­vices online and work remo­tely. The requests come from ever­y­where, even Malay­sia once.

“Weren’t you going to write a dozen or so short sto­ries to make a name for yours­elf as a bel­le­trist? And then fol­low up with a novel—or maybe seven like Row­ling?” I spared mys­elf the nod and took ano­ther sip of red wine. “So, how many of those short sto­ries do you have alre­ady?” Pas­cal asked as inno­cently as pos­si­ble. I knew that look of his and coun­ted on my fin­gers. “One,” I said, then cor­rec­ted mys­elf, “Half of one.” Pas­cal grin­ned, “So, basi­cally none.” I nod­ded resi­gnedly and took ano­ther sip. I kind of knew what was coming.

Pas­cal: “Why haven’t you applied your ama­zing wri­ting-flow prin­ci­ple to that?”

Me: “It’s not really wri​ter’s block. But it would faci­li­tate the pro­cess, of course.” The lat­ter with a tone of con­vic­tion, except that my ton­gue stumb­led a bit over the word “faci­li­tate.”

Pas­cal: „I don’t believe that. How about a bet?“

And so, it sud­denly came down to four hundred short sto­ries. I’d bar­gai­ned him down from five hundred, and shorter vignet­tes were also allo­wed. And to give the whole thing a frame­work, he scribb­led some­thing on the index cards, shiel­ding them from my view.

“I’ll write down a few first sen­ten­ces for you. Ever­y­thing always has to start with the same sen­tence.“

„What?!“ I cried out. But Pas­cal grin­ned at me, remin­ding me of a mono­lo­gue I’d given last month or the month before about wri­ting and crea­ti­vity in gene­ral – con­clu­ding that it is only cons­traint that brings forth true art. Those who have all free­doms lose them­sel­ves in the​m—I had mused, per­haps also influen­ced by the absinthe we indul­ged in that evening.

Now my ver­mouth-bles­sed insight came cras­hing back down on me: “I enter the cor​ri​dor”—as the ope­ning sen­tence for four hundred sto­ries. Ouch.

What might the other ope­ning sen­ten­ces have been? Pas­cal pul­led his hand with the index cards back​.​I mana­ged to grab two more. Pas­cal could​n’t pre­vent me from rea­ding them. „It all went downhill after that.“ And: „One Cali­for­nia Maki, please!“

„I could have done so much more with those!“ I pro­tes­ted. Pas­cal non­cha­lantly shook his head: „The choice has been made, the die has been cast.“ I imme­dia­tely picked up on the phrase: „Even that would be bet­ter! I can’t write four hundred first-per­son pre­sent-tense sto­ries about someone wan­de­ring around in buil­dings…“

But I’d alre­ady agreed. The bet was on.

And today is the dead­line. Pas­cal will call any minute now to ask how his four hundred short sto­ries are coming along. „I enter the cor­ri­dor“ – back then the sen­tence was unfa­mi­liar to me. And today? What can I say? I’ve mana­ged close to two hundred and eighty. At first I thought I would­n’t even come up with twenty. But then I had a few unu­sual ideas and lear­ned to view the sen­tence and my task from many dif­fe­rent per­spec­ti­ves.

So, I stand by it. If you can’t get that one thing done: Take on so many working ver­si­ons of it that the task seems sim­ply impos­si­ble to you. And then get star­ted.

By now, I want to know mys­elf: Can I reach four hundred? The num­ber still seems tre­men­dous and unat­tainable. But tha​t’s how I would have felt about two hundred. Or even just one hundred.

I’ve lost the bet, and of course, Pas­cal will get his bot­tle of sin­gle cask bour­bon. Howe­ver, I’ll keep wri­ting, even if it now com­ple­tely con­su­mes my free time—​which Pas­cal might not like, since I still won’t have time for our spi­ri­ted get-tog­e­thers.

♫ Happy Happy Bir­th­day ♫

198/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, flick on the light switch, and, to my sur­prise, find mys­elf facing a whole crowd of fri­ends thro­wing strea­mers, blo­wing noi­se­ma­kers, and shou­ting, “Happy Bir­th­day!” Awk­ward Peter is even wea­ring a colorful paper party hat. I play along, clin­king the cham­pa­gne glass they press into my hand against ever­yone else’s, and ans­wer the ques­tion of how old I’m tur­ning now with a wink: “Youn­ger and youn­ger, of course, youn­ger and youn­ger.”

They stay until nearly mid­night. Somehow, I did​n’t really feel com­for­ta­ble with the whole thing. And sure enough, loo­king at my docu­ment fol­der as the clock strikes twelve, I rea­lize they made a mistake. My bir­th­day isn’t until today. There is still some cham­pa­gne left in my glass. I raise it and toast mys­elf.

♫ Nel mezzo del cammin di nos­tra vita ♫

199/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. (Pre­viously on…: Many dif­fe­rent cor­ri­dors have been ente­red by various per­sons of all gen­ders, in dif­fe­rent eras, and for a multi­tude of reasons.) I was told I’d find you here. (Some of the sto­ries end well, some badly; many are barely sto­ries at all, and some have open endings.) Sure enough: Behind a pla­s­tic sheet on some scaf­fol­ding, I see a sil­hou­ette. (Bes­i­des his­to­ri­cal figu­res, a handful of extra­ter­restri­als, ani­mals, and non-phy­si­cal beings, num­e­rous first-per­son nar­ra­tors appear whose iden­ti­ties remain dubious.) A paint­brush moves ste­adily across the cei​lin​g—​the cor­ri­dor is recei­ving a fresh coat of blue. (The nar­ra­tive style shifts from fac­tual to exu­berant, from docu­men­tary to fairy­tale and sur­real, from word­play to exis­ten­tia­list; included are sati­res of cur­rent pop-cul­tu­ral phe­no­mena.) And there you are: It’s you wiel­ding the brush, with blue flecks in your ash-blond hair, hum­ming our song, obli­vious to the world. (For regu­lar rea­ders, num­e­rous hid­den cross-con­nec­tions bet­ween the cor­ri­dors emerge in this frac­tally frag­men­ted blog-novel…) I take you in my arms, and you blissfully close your eyes. (…and in a cer­tain way, it seems to be about dif­fe­rent aspects of one thing, or stages of a par­ti­cu­lar quest.) „Wha​t’s your name this time?“ I ask. (It could be about the search for the blue flower, the Grail, or the Snark; for hap­pi­ness, love, mea­ning, myth, or insigh​t—and per­haps this will be reve­a­led as the story pro­gres­ses.) „Red Naia,“ you giggle, swin­ging the paint­brush like a sword. Not to be out­done, I bare my hairy chest and thun­der: „Then I am Tino Urmaus, the Bar­ba­rian!“

♫ The Wee Small Voices ♫

200/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, and as hoped, silence sur­rounds me. This is the only place in the insti­tu­tion where the voices in my head fall silent. They always start scree­ching some­thing awful the moment I head this way. „Don’t do it!“ – „Loser­lo­ser­lo­ser­lo­ser.“ – „Do you want to kill us all? Run­ning into your doom with your eyes wide open?!“ – „Nono­no­noNO!“ – „What are you try­ing to prove, huh?“ – „Oh, please don’t, be reasonable, you don’t even know what you’re doing!“ – „Peo­ple think break­fast is easy!“ – „Don’t run away now, it was just get­ting cozy.“ – „Yes, just go. Just go! Out of the direct sun­light… You’ll see! You’ll be ter­ri­bly lonely and soo­ner or later you’ll go crazy! Crazy, do you hear? Crazy!“ – „You’re evil, evi­le­vil, you are evi­le­vi­le­vi­le­vil!“

Now it’s quiet in my head. No screa­ming child­ren, no whis­pe­ring old women,no drill ser­geant with his ras­ping tone of com­mand, no dea­fe­ning non­sense colo­ra­turas from the soprano, no „dear Nia“ year­ning for a night of love with me, no mis­an­thro­pic sophist bad­ge­ring me with his dia­bo­li­cal, mer­ci­less logic…

It’s quiet.

Not the sligh­test whisper.

Silence.

Almost a bit eerie.

It makes me feel com­ple­tely strange. I quickly head back to the TV room.