I enter the corridor. It is the corridor of my memory. Here, places, experiences, anecdotes, books, conversations, and feelings are piled high, with plenty of half-baked ideas scattered about.
My eyes land on our time together: those moments shimmer and sparkle with mystery, as if glowing from within. I turn around. I enjoy being here, but I don’t want to stay. There is still room in the corridor. I want new memories to fill it. And most of all, more memories with you.
I enter the—corridor might be the wrong word here, since it suggests this passage is intended for human use. Though I wish that were the case, it’s not true of a canal, or more precisely, a sewer. It is a man-sized brick tunnel where other canals converge from both sides—a tunnel network beneath the city.
A deceased human body may decompose in a few weeks or months, depending on external conditions. With the metabolism of a city made of stone, metal, glass, and the artificial materials of its time, it takes centuries or millennia for nature to completely reclaim what humanity had wrested from it.
They call us corpse scavengers—and indeed, we like to compare the object of our investigations to a body, a human body. Since the city has been abandoned for a long time, it is a dead body. In essence, we perform an autopsy akin to pathologists, albeit without investigating the cause of death. That is apparent. We are searching for any viable organs that might remain.
The city’s sewer system, my field of expertise, serves as its excretory organ. No wastewater has flowed through its intestines, hidden deep in the ground, for a long time. That’s why it doesn’t stink here anymore, as some might think, who turn up their noses at my task. I know I’m not exactly well-regarded. But I take my task seriously and do my best.
It’s always the same. After a long march, we suddenly arrive, the whole troop. We encounter no resistance—aside from overgrowth and buildings on the verge of collapse. We noisily invade the otherwise silent city, reach its center, disperse, each assigned to their personal task. A few hours later, we gather again in the main square, and shortly afterward, the dilapidated city lies dead again, as if we had never been there.
A living body requires air and sustenance. Nerve pathways, veins, and a lymphatic system run through it. Food is digested, producing energy used for activities and communication. An immune system and various repair mechanisms fend off foes, resisting decay, wear, and excessive growth for as long as possible.
All this applied to the grand cities as well. In homage to ancient healers who once specialized in the various organs and systems of the human metabolism, we have given ourselves names, nicknames referring to our respective specialties. I am the “Proctologist.”
The old cities are considered cursed places, and that curse clings to us, the corpse observers. We are outcasts, accused of being in league with demons. Therefore, we’re forced to keep to ourselves. At times, we plunder women. Even I am reaching the age where I should start a family. I’ve set my sights on the “Neurologist.” But how can I impress her? I would need to make a significant find, yet what can be discovered in the sewer channels?
We seek unique artifacts, objects whose meaning and purpose are lost to us. From each city, we take only one of these items and, often through perilous routes and great efforts, bring it back to our fortress. There, in the mountain, we’ve established a vast underground museum, where these objects, labeled with the city of origin, are displayed—and no one but us knows about it.
Despite being seen as mere plunderers and cursed with vile names, we are, in truth, custodians, holding great reverence for the dead cities and their former inhabitants—the creators of all the wondrous yet enigmatic devices that our expeditions uncover.
I’ve been walking through the channels for many hours now. It’s time for me to return. My unerring sense of direction is why I’m tasked with traversing the drains and catacombs of the dead cities. I’ve never gotten lost, and even if my torch were to extinguish, I would find my way back.
There! In the flickering light, I spot something I must have missed on the way in. It’s a metal frame with a handle made from the past ones’ artificial materials. It’s black, pliable, and feels surprisingly pleasant, almost how I imagine a woman’s skin feels. I stand the frame upright, its short crossbars holding it steady on the ground—similar to one of those pedal-driven contraptions the past ones used. But it has no wheels or saddle. Even so, it looks like something you could climb on: two platforms, slightly larger than my feet, are fixed side-by-side at the bottom. Apparently, you’re meant to climb on while holding the tall handle. I’m excited; I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it dangerous? Recklessly, I step onto the footboards. My breath catches in my throat with fright: They move—one tilts away, simultaneously pushing the other upwards. The frame creaks. I put my weight on the raised foot, and its platform sinks slowly and heavily, while the other foot rises.
I can walk on it—walk in place! Weird. But a great find. I have no idea what it’s for.
It is heavy. I shoulder it and make my way to our meeting point. It makes me proud to bring something back from my excursions.
Our Elder examines the artifacts. He lingers in front of mine for a long time. Then he gestures for me to demonstrate it. I step onto the platforms and slowly start moving them with my feet, shifting my weight. It creaks as I start walking in place, like I’m climbing stairs. I hear murmurs from the others but only have eyes for the Neurologist, who regards me and the device with astonished glances—and smiles when the Elder makes his choice. She smiles at me! I step off and feel as if I am floating.
Our Elder crafts a small plaque in the dead language and script, which I’m allowed to attach to my find. “Berlin.” We set out. The Neurologist helps me carry the artifact. From the hushed whispers of the others, I realize they’ve noticed whom she’s chosen. The “Proctologist”—who’d have guessed?
In any case, I proudly carry the device with her—the one you can walk in place on. We have a long way to go, but I feel light and full of energy. I’ve found a museum piece… and a companion!
I enter the corridor between the herbaceous perennials and the ornamental trees. In our outdoor area, plant enthusiasts can fulfill almost any desire. From water lilies to border perennials, our range of products presents itself to them as vigorous, blooming, and brimming with sap and strength. Maintaining such an extensive inventory is quite a Herculean task for us garden center workers. Nevertheless, during my internship, I’ve often found time to observe, mesmerized, how the plants find their buyers.
The customers stroll around, inspecting our offerings, and then at some point, something clicks—a plant has found a new home and owner. Whether it’s something chemical, pheromones perhaps, or a form of magic, I haven’t been able to figure out yet. Home gardeners and weekend warriors may think they are the ones making the choice, but in truth, they have no control over their purchase; they are entirely under the spell of the flowers, perennials, and ornamental shrubs that impose themselves upon them. And these plants are quite choosy. Granted, there are also customers absolutely immune to the signals of botany, simply grabbing what’s on their shopping list. But they are rare.
A fat man, who has combed his remaining hair over his bald spot, pushes his cart through the pallets. His gaze wanders as he rolls leisurely past the princess tree. In his cart, he has a tabletop fountain with a dragon tree and a radiator plant. If I were a plant, I’d make myself small and inconspicuous and let him pass by—anyone who wears a white T‑shirt stretched over a belly and covered in stains of dubious origin isn’t going to care for his plants properly.
He stops and examines the princess tree. I watch him through the branches of a dappled willow. What does he want with our Paulownia? She looks a little haggard; a few of her leaves are browning as if she’s suffering from a fungal infection. No one is interested in her. For months, she’s stood unnoticed on the pallet next to the golden privet: a real dud. But the fatso actually puts her in his cart. I hurry over immediately.
“Are you familiar with the care of a Paulownia? She is very temperamental.” That’s meant to scare him off. But the guy just grunts and pushes his cart along. I follow him.
“Oh, look. She’s sick. Wait, let me check our stock to see if I have another specimen for you.” We don’t have one, I don’t even need to check, but I could certainly palm off a northern catalpa on him; they’re often confused with the princess tree. But the fat bald guy shakes his head irritably and snatches the plastic pot back out of my hands. He sets it next to his tabletop fountain, casts a lovestruck glance at Paulownia, and leaves me standing there.
“Excuse me,” I call after him, “that tree is already sold!” She belongs to me! I want to add, but I see the boss’s daughter watching me. She’s standing by the silver willows with the hose.
The overweight man turns toward me. I only have eyes for my Paulownia. She shakes her leaves and stretches to her full height. She wants to leave me. She wants to throw herself at this slob in his greasy T‑shirt; she wants to be his and trample everything that had developed so tenderly between us!
The boss’s daughter approaches the tubby man: “Everything is fine with the little tree.” Then she turns to me. She’s always had an axe to grind with me: “I think our orchids need misting again.” But I already have the large pruning shears in my hand. I’m not letting this fat pig take my Paulownia!
I lunge at him in a rage. After a brief scuffle and a few shrill screams for help from the boss’s daughter, I am able to shove the man aside and find myself standing before the treacherous tree. With my hands on the grips, I open the hedge shears. Paulownia seems to recoil, her branches trembling; she seems to beg me not to take it to the extreme. She wants to make amends, to stay faithful to me for a lifetime, to be at my service, to read every wish from my lips! Pah! She can’t fool me anymore…
Later, I learned that the “lightning” that struck me in that moment and sent me hitting the floor was one of the stainless steel watering cans for $94.99, which the boss’s daughter smashed over my skull. The stunt earned me a painful lump, a mild concussion, and, of course, immediate termination. My Paulownia was gone, sold, by the time I came to. The fat guy had loaded her into his station wagon and driven off. Because of the “unpleasant incident,” they gave him the tree for free and deducted the price from my intern salary.
So, she officially belongs to me now, right? After all, I paid for her. And I’m going to get her! Janine from the register, with whom I’d occasionally shared a secret smoke behind the greenhouse by the compost bins, gave me the name and address of the fat customer. The boss had written them down in case there was a legal aftermath.
Oh, yes. There will be an aftermath! This time, I’m bringing the chainsaw…
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 ceiling—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.) “What’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 insight—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!”
