You weren’t a weirdo. You weren’t even a little bit crazy. You weren’t beautiful or interesting or remarkable in any other way. You were normal. I never understood how it was pos­sible for you to happen to me. You said, come on, I’ll buy you an ice cream. It wasn’t even properly spring yet. Afterwards, we went to yours. It was nothing special, and you had ten pale blue shirts hanging in your wardrobe. I don’t know why we met up again, or when exactly everything changed. When did you say it for the first time? When did I hear it for the first time? When did I start doing everything in my power to touch your heart? Perhaps it was just loneliness. Perhaps it was your arms. I can’t say for certain. Do you know? If you know, don’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t tell anyone!

Franz Straubein

A house. Four floors. Forty-­eight stairs. One doormat: Welcome home. One table with knotholes. Two televisions (one black and white). One painting of sea, clouds and fishing boat. One other painting, of wildflowers. Twenty-­two ring binders. One box with (approximately) three hundred photos. Nine windows, no curtains. Three antennas. One bird skeleton. One single look into the distance. Six degrees below zero and the heating gone again. One pale blue cup. Four tiny, delicate cracks. A lot of broken pieces. Two hundred and fifty square metres of garden. Eighty square metres of concrete. Three cars. Six insurance policies. No payout. Twelve times in hospital. Seventeen relatives. Three wives. One love. One son, who doesn’t know me. Sixty-­eight years and three months. One entry in the town records. One name. Two—

Karl Jonas

‘There’s going to be rain.’ We all raise our heads and see the big black cloud approaching. Its shadow falls across Father’s face, across the house, across the flat land beyond. I think the landscape goes on like this for ever, and it all belongs to us. I am five or six. We go on working in silence. Father leads the team pulling the potato spinner; the older men dig the potatoes out of the ground with forks and hoes. We younger ones and the women collect them in baskets. We’re all sweating, especially the horses. The air is damp and warm and weighs heavily on the fields. And then it starts to rain. We run towards the house, and I’m laughing, holding my mother’s hand, because the big, warm drops are splashing onto my forehead. When I look back, Father is still standing in the field. He is holding the reins in his fists. His face is upturned to the sky, rain pouring down his cheeks.

Later, at table, he’s angry. He curses the rain. And he curses our land. He says it’s no good. The earth swallows the water and spits it out again at will. It lacks solidity, it’s just a sandy sponge riddled with marshes where nothing but flies’ eggs grow. He bangs his fist on the table. Then he falls silent, and we all fall silent, and outside in the darkness the rain sweeps over the fields.