Discussion Creative Writing Megathread

[Ladyybugged]

View attachment 183558

this made me cry, thank you <3

 

[deadbeatpoet]

King Nobody

I spent many long dark January days with
King Nobody, king of nothing
and laid in Nobody's King-sized bed
weaving my fingers through his graying beard
picking out the spiders that hung there
fat black burnt out lightbulbs
strung up reminders of a holiday
that ended two years ago

I would pluck them by their plump shining abdomens
and laugh and toss them into his mouth
he would chomp and grind them
between his ivory keys
where they would stick in chunks
painting sharps and flats
onto the white noise
that never ceased to pour from
his lips

Nobody's choir sang of nihilism
of nothing matterings
in Nobody's cathedral
you would tear off
a jagged piece of yourself
when the bowl came around
and every Sunday you left
with a little less of you

One day I took a spider for my own
from the body of King Nobody
and popped it into my own mouth
chewing and tracing its venom sac with sharp flicks
of my tongue
wondering how I had yet to be bitten back
in my feedings of King Nobody
who tunelessly clanked and clattered
outraged perhaps
that I could han
dle the poison
with more grace than he

 

[traumer]

at first all i heard was soft murmurs.
you crept into my floor, into my life
without leaving any clues.

after a while your gaze shifted,
your eyes started to act a little strange.
your teeth grew yellow, and sharper.

then i started waking up with headaches.
oops — you forgot your nails on my back,
buried down like a signature.

then i called it proof:
no name of my own, not even a roof.

i showed you my scars in hopes of being seen,
then i went back to exactly where i'd been.

i loved you like a dog,
and you betrayed me like a man.

 

[somethingsmthgirl]

Beauty isn't enough. She came slithering out in heaving motions in the back of her uncle's truck. One of her mother's tiny legs dangled down over the bedding as she laid, spread eagle, birthing her only child.
Years later she finds herself standing alone in green fields, the tall grasses whispering as they beat against one another to the arrhythmic current of the wind. She stares into them, into which descends a darkness where the shadows overlay one another and which may harbor animals and insects and all manner of life teeming in the dirt and the mud. A voice calls out to her and she turns to face her mother. She wears an oversized men's coat and has her arms folded over.
"It's fucking freezing, Sam."
Sam looks down. "Yeah," she says. Her little kiddie shoes are covered in streaks of green and her skin is sunburnt. She steps along in resignation and grabs her mother's hand.

 

[Tombadil]

kind of a long concept text i did. I realized i could never finish it as it did exhaust me a lot. I had the idea of making the main character an action hero in the course of the full story, but i realized there was not interest in this story. It is still kind of badly edited, i had no reason to go over it again like mentioned, but it gives me a fuzzy feeling it is at least anywhere.


Performances


Linn parked the car in the parking lot of "Mueller Import & Export GmbH". She got out and looked at the cold gray building that hid the company, like a sarcophagus in which a doomed giant had laid itself to rest.
I come back to this city and these companies like the lamb that is aware of the slaughter and yet finds no other way, Linn thought. She walked toward the building and it seemed to eye her with its cold gray glass eyes like a predator would its future prey.
Dark mist billowed from vents on the side of the building, a waste product of the production that lay in the hall next to the main building. Linn imagined the building exhaling its hatred. She had experienced enough the climate of fear and repression that prevailed in these companies.
Linn rang the front doorbell; the entryway was uninviting. She had seen a few entryways in the last few months, and they all looked almost the same by now. Uninviting, without any kind of decoration, the door locked. Abandoned and forbidding, as if any remaining employees had already left the building and one would be trespassing and unwanted.
Many companies had taken advantage of the pandemic to rid themselves of redundant jobs, and inflation had provided further opportunities to shed burdensome ballast and then refill the same positions with much worse conditions and much more workload.
For Linn, these entry points had become a symbol of the country's decline; the more run-down the jobs became, the harder the struggle for survival became for those who had always been on the wrong side of the fence.
Those who had jobs and wanted to keep them now had to jump through the burning hoop 3 times a day if they weren't dressed in pinstripes or were doctors.
For a long time nothing happened then the small communication system next to the door cracked and a less than friendly female voice asked," Yes please?"
"Linn Kaltwasser." Said Linn. " I have an interview with Ms. Denker in a few minutes."
The woman didn't say another word but the door buzzer could be heard and Linn entered.
No one came to greet her and the entire building was silent, another recurring experience over the past few months. A lot had changed in the corporate workspaces. Where once there had been bustle, Linn now found empty sparsely decorated hallways, and if anyone was to be found there, the person was unfriendly or annoyed.
Linn could see that there had once been a reception desk here, but there was no counter there anymore, and the door at the end of the room only allowed a view of a darkened hallway through the glass.
A staircase led up, however, and a note was taped next to the stairway.
"Please sign in on the top floor."
Linn went up the stairs and stood there again in front of a locked door. There was no doorbell.
She leaned against the railing and looked out the large window on the other side of the stairway.
Everything that day was gray. It had started to rain moderately and both the industrial area and the sky above it looked like something out of an old black and white movie. There was no one in the parking lots, but a few isolated cars were parked in front of a warehouse. Nothing was moving in the whole scenery, neither people nor vehicles.
She heard the door open. "Good afternoon," said a voice. What one would expect when one had spent some time in these companies, Linn thought. Not a friendly voice, slightly smarmy and not used to having to feign friendliness at all. The kind of man who always washes up in these companies and who is characterless enough to stay stuck there. Linn had expected nothing less.
Linn turned and extended her hand to the man:" Good afternoon, Linn Kaltwasser."
"Reinhard." Said the man coolly and shook your hand. "I'm the branch manager."
His hand wasn't dry or damp, but it was slippery in an unpleasant way. Linn was glad when he let go of her hand.
She eyed the man. Reinhard wore a white coat like a doctor or lab technician that stretched over his immense belly, his face had a stern and at the same time arrogant expression that made him seem like a caricature. On the basis of these personal details, Linn had already formed a picture of the company; it was easy to draw a conclusion about the company's structures from this. With the relevant experience, at least.


And most of the time she was right. Representing all others of his kind, he did not even bother to conceal the nimbus of fat, lazy arrogance.
Certain hierarchies bring certain characters to the surface, and many of the "leaders" Linn had encountered in these companies fit this mold.
It was Linn's experience that these characters were the rule rather than the exception in "leadership" positions. She felt a brief moment of sadness that she had not managed to escape these people and these companies, but did not let it show.
"and here we are again." She thought. "With the same friendly psychopaths as always."
The good thing was that she would never work in this company, because she already knew how the interview would go. She had some character traits that were very unwelcome in companies like this, and the worst was smartness.
Reinhard meant to follow her.
He led her into an office where three other people were already waiting, the personnel manager and two deputy managers.
After a brief round of introductions, the personnel manager, who introduced herself as Ms. Denker, began asking questions.
"How did you find us?"
"Through an ad on the Internet," Linn replied.
"How do you imagine your future work here?" the HR manager asked with a bored, somehow unpleasantly touched face. This woman was immediately unappealing to Linn, as were the rest of the panel. Just like Reinhard, she fit the cliché of the corporate apparatchik with important boredom as she dropped into her chair with a dismissive gesture. It must be hard to have to deal with the mob when you could also use the time to bend under the Ceoś's desk.
None of Linn's answers seemed to satisfy this woman, or maybe she just always looked like she had just eaten something wrong and was supposed to be somewhere else.
Then she asked, "You've had a lot of different jobs in your life. How do you explain that and how did it happen?"
Linn knew what this awful woman was getting at.
The question, though expected, always made her tired and frustrated, but She tried not to let it show. Life had been hard for her, the eternal victim, and that she was now sitting here in front of these people only meant once again that she had lost in the game of life once more.
"Some companies have outsourced departments," Linn said, "Unfortunately, many companies are laying off workers today, and much of the industry is migrating. You know yourself that this leads to fragmented and disparate resumes."
"So you think it's bad luck - bad luck and unrelated events that led to this. Or was it perhaps due to you? After all, that's quite a striking feature of your resume?"
Linn looked at the uppity woman named Denker and said, "Yes, that's exactly what I said. So if that's not the answer you're satisfied with, what answer would have been sufficient if not the truth?"
Fat Reinhard, who was sitting to Linn's right, laughed maliciously. Linn decided again that she didn't want to work in this company, not at the price of having to deal with these horrible people. And she was doomed anyway.
Linn gave the fatso a nasty look, feeling the hair on the back of her neck literally stand up because of the sheer disgustingness of these people.
The horrible Mrs. Denker made a face like a sour lemon and seemed to sink even deeper into her chair, her puffy face pulling the corners of her mouth even deeper down.
"I think we can certainly have this conversation by exercising a minimum of mutual courtesy." Said Linn.
"Very well," said Mrs. Denker with an introverted mischievous expression on her face.
Fat Reinhard laughed again in his smarmy way so that his fat belly and his entire body shook restrainedly.
"You worked at Walter Export for 2 years in 2005," said Frau Denker.
"Why was it only 2 years? Did SIe quit or was it at the request of the company? Or did the company go out of business by chance?"
Fat Reinhard was still laughing softly with the grin of a fatted hyena.
Linn sighed. She took a sip from the glass of water in front of her and bared her teeth as the cool water ran down her throat.


"OK," Linn said, glancing sideways at the fat Reinhard whose bulging belly still moved under the white absurdly stretched smock.
"I separated from the company because I didn't conform to internal developments." Said Linn briefly." "At that time, the warehouse workers were laid off and forced into severance agreements at conditions at which one could no longer live even then."
She threw a disgusted look into the round which showed openly what she herself thought of her interlocutors.
"But of course such procedures are completely foreign to you, good woman, so your question is of course more than justified." Said Linn venomously.
With tired and important gestures, Ms. Denker then asked in an even more aggressive tone, "You do write in your resume that you are good at languages."
The emphasis on "good" alone was probably meant to imply that this would be more than doubtful.
Linn looked briefly at her lap, where her hands were now clenched into fists.
"OKAY." she then said simply and continued, looking directly at her counterpart.
""I believe this is not going anywhere and we should break up on it now. We are not on the same level or anywhere near it and this is becoming a farce more and more. So I will just walk out of this door now to avoid either of us from stealing each other's time as I suppose we all have other things to do."
Fat Reinhard looked at her and now looked even more like a toad as he said with a surprised tone, "That's definitely honest."
Linn stood up and took her jacket off the back of the chair, knocking the glass of leftover water into fat Reinhard's lap as she did so.
"Oh sorry," Linn said. "How clumsy of me."
Then she left the room and walked quickly down the stairwell and out the front door to her car.
She drove back the way she had come, through the industrial area and the suburb of the big city called Horn. The city had been different when she had lived here, the decay was obvious. Even if life had always been gray, she thought. For her, it hadn't been much different.
Living in this land today was just a transition from a harsh land to an even more barren one, with even more rocky and hostile terrain. She could see from a distance the skyscraper in which her father had lived for a long time and in which he had made his final escape, like so many with a bottle beside him whose contents were slowly dripping onto the dirty carpet.


She left the city via Bundesstr. 61 and passed through rural suburbs. Here the wear and tear and decay were less visible because there was more money living here than in the suburbs. The further she drove, the more the clusters of houses became isolated and replaced by fields and forest. She stopped at a small rest stop and had a coffee and a few puffs on her e-cigarette. Then she continued her journey until she passed the large yellow sign with the inscription "Limburg 10 KM" near Asendorf.
She drove through the small town where her mother and brothers lived and to which she had never wanted to return. Just another place with bad people that had never been a home for a couple of kids who had already started with bad cards.


"This ugly little town is like a lake whose surface consists of blatant malice and poorly disguised degeneracy, so toxic to children who could have used help instead of violence that they can only sink in it," she said softly, quoting one of the first lines of the text she was working on.


last chance powerdrive


"The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance powerdrive".
Born to run, Bruce springsteen

Linn drove through the side streets to avoid the pedestrian zone that the former business street of the small town was today. There was no one in this town she wanted to see again anyway, so she avoided the busier areas of town.
Memories ran in her head like old movies she never wanted to see again. Maybe it was not a good idea to come back here. "Maybe living wasn't such a good idea after all," she whispered, lost in thought, as she drove down Wagner Street. She saw a little girl sitting scared in a doorway, silent and trembling with fear, then she was past and the Linn of her youth disappeared from her sight. She stopped on a parking strip on the side of the street and opened the glove compartment to take out a bottle of water. She had that bitter taste in her mouth again that she never got rid of.
She drove on and passed the town library where she had often escaped to in the past. John Steinbeck and Rudyard Kipling had been there for her.
She was glad when she left the center behind and arrived in the small suburb where her mother lived. Steinsee was not even a suburb, just two roads leading past many fields and no more than a handful of houses.
She drove her little VW Up into the driveway of the house where her mother lived. The front yard was well kept but not overgrown. The hedge that lined the driveway had grown considerably since Linn had last been here. It wasn't the house of your childhood, Linn thought, and none of you would have returned to it voluntarily. Her mother had moved here since the breakup with Linn's stepfather, enough miles away to escape at least a few memories.
She rang the doorbell and waited. Her heart pounded in her chest. No one answered. No sounds came from the house itself. Linn walked back along the small paved path from the front door to the driveway and along the side of the house, past a large shed with dry wood for the winter. She could see that the shed was no longer in the best condition, some boards were loose and hanging down the side and one corner seemed to be struggling to hold the weight of the roof. Overall, the house was still in pretty good shape, but when you looked closer it was obvious that it wasn't being maintained like it used to be.
Linn had recently spoken with her younger brother Jo on the phone and learned that their mother had declined in health.


She opened the door to the winter garden behind the house. The small passage behind it was narrow and crowded with garden tools. The conservatory presented the same picture. Decorative plates from the last millennium hung on the wall. She could see through the large panoramic windows into the garden.
The day was gray and the garden looked uninviting under the rain pregnant sky. Linn remembered how beautiful the garden could be when it was in full bloom and seemed to be straight out of a painting by Monet.
In one of the beds at the edge of the small pond in the middle of the garden, Linn's mother was weeding. She looked different than Linn remembered her, somehow smaller and slower.
Linn walked through the small wooden gate that stood at the end of the small path of cobblestones. In a few months it would shine in all colors like a wooden crown of flowers.
Her mother did not see her at first as Linn walked towards her, she had her eyes on the earth she had been tending and cultivating for more than 20 years. Then she looked up and saw Linn. "Mother," Linn said.
Her mother stood up and threw the weeds she had just weeded into the plastic bucket that stood next to her.
Her mother stood up and looked at Linn. "You look thin," her mother then said. Linn was startled by how old and tired her mother looked, as if the drawing of her features had been blurred by time and the world so that one could only guess at the woman Linn had known. "I'm fine," Linn said.
She touched her mother briefly on the shoulder. "The garden looks smaller than I remember."
"It's just fuller," the old woman said. "It's harder for me to keep up with the work some days, and I see a lot of things differently today." She looked at Linn with an expressionless face. "It doesn't matter if the garden looks a little wild. Who cares what the neighbors say."
Her mother patted the soil on her hands and slowly walked to the edge of the pond and looked in.
"I was surprised you called," her mother said.
"It's been so long."
"Now I'm here mum." said Linn.
Her mother washed her hands in the pond and said, "You need to eat something. It's not good to be so skinny. I'll make you some minestrone."
For a brief moment, her mother's image was overlaid by that of a younger, wirier woman washing her hands in the pond, and Linn heard her voice. "That's our family name, Kaltwasser. We have always lived by the water, as did my parents before the expulsion. The color of the water is unique to each stream and body of water and depends on what is floating in it. The more dirt that collects at the bottom, the darker it gets."

Linn followed her mother into the house. It was not the house she had grown up in; when her mother moved here, she was almost an adult. After she had separated from Linn's father-in-law. Linn rarely tried to think about the house of her childhood and youth, even though it was always in her thoughts. Sometimes before she fell asleep, in that strange strip of no man's land of the soul somewhere between sleeping and waking, she would creep anxiously through the lonely rooms of her childhood that smelled of violence and hopelessness, like the cold sweat of animals crammed too long in a dark room.


"Where are your clothes?" asked her mother. Linn went to the front door and opened it. Then she went to the car and got a big suitcase on wheels and a travel bag.
Her mother raised her eyebrow when she saw Linn's luggage but said nothing.
"I sold what little I owned on Ebay...or threw it away. It's okay."
A little bit of sadness reflected on her mother's face for a little bit of time before she wordlessly lowered her gaze and walked into the kitchen. She walked more stooped than before and slower.
Linn went upstairs to the upper floor and unpacked her things in the guest room.
She put her few clothes in the closet and her toothbrush and some personal hygiene products in the upstairs bathroom.
Then she took a small document bag out of the suitcase and sat down on the bed. She took off her shoes and leaned against the wall. Then she opened the document bag and pulled out some newspaper clippings.
On top was a full-page article from the regional newspaper. " Youth from Limburg missing for years found murdered in Romania."
And below the headline in smaller letters. "Heart, kidney and lungs were removed and the body thrown into the river in a garbage bag with stones."
Below that was a photo of a pale and rapt-looking boy with a handsome but strikingly narrow face. "Linn lightly stroked the faded ink of the print with her finger as if she could touch the person who no longer existed that way one more time. "I couldn't be with you," she said. "I had to go far away from here. And now I'm here again. And you've been gone for a long time."
Suddenly it was very cold in the room, and Linn could see in the corner of the room a girl sitting pressed against the wall with her head down shivering and a boy sitting next to her holding her hand.
She pulled her legs to her chest and buried her head between her arms and a few tears ran down her face and landed on the white bedspread.
After dinner Linn went for a walk in the forest which was only a kilometer away from her mother's house. Here she had often practiced shooting with the air rifle with Jo before she left Limburg for good and returned only rarely for a long time. She had hoped so much never to see all this again, this place and its people. She still found it surprising how there could be such a peaceful place only a few hundred meters from the subliminal and open violence of this city. She walked along the forest path, touching the trees that lined it with her hands.


It was already evening when she returned. The sky above the house was bathed in orange-red light as the coming darkness cast its shadow ahead. In the kitchen, her mother stood preparing dinner, and her brother sat at the kitchen table.
"Hello." said Linn.
"Well look what the wind brought in." said Jo.
Linn's mother gave him a stern look, but said nothing.
"Jo," said Linn.
Joachim said nothing, he looked at Linn and nodded his head slightly.
Linn sat down at the free place at the table where there was already a plate with place setting.
Her mother put the dinner on the table, there was poultry with rice.
Linn had the feeling of being a bit outside her body, half between this world and half between the past world.


Jo and Linn's mother talked about his job in the warehouse of a forwarding agency in the city, which absurd decisions the management had made again and which temporary wage slaves of the rampant temporary employment had already been disposed of.
Linn sat between her family and listened, she did not know what to say. There was a heaviness in the room that would always be there when they got together.
There were too many monsters creeping through their shared memories that had come long ago to stay. Most of the time they stayed hidden and could only be seen out of the corner of your eye in the shadows of a room sparsely lit by twilight, and if so only for a brief blink, but gone they never were.
Linn followed the conversation for a while without saying anything.
After a while, Jo looked at you and abruptly asked. "Why did you come back here?"
"Well, I told you on the phone that I lost my job," Linn said.
"We've been centralized, which means there's only one office in the whole country with 15 people instead of 300 who only handle what gets lawyered up. Everything else gets sat out if the AI can't get rid of it."
"Wait a minute." said Jo, confused. "Haven't you guys had fairly complex cases to work on? Surely no AI can do that?"
"That's not being processed anymore," Linn repeated.




Hermann Melville, "These days id prefer not to."
"Bartleby"


"It's cheaper to get life signs from the few claimants who have the guts to sue for their claims just in this case instead of actually employing people to process routine claims. Brave new world."
"Unbelievable." said Jo. "But the world is visibly changing in that direction for all who are not totally blind."
"The fewer jobs there are the harder the stand of each worker, the less customer friendly the companies the higher the profit. The more people looking for a job the lower the labor costs for the few remaining jobs. At least that's the calculation."
"I still have to try to find a job," Linn said. "I'm committed to it."
"You don't seem particularly enthusiastic," her mother said reprovingly."
Linn poked at her food.
"Yes and no." she said. "I can't be naive anymore. I wouldn't go back to the office in this country. It's a constant show and tell of sociopaths and narcissists, rewarded to whoever has the most toxic work atmosphere. In the end, only the pinstripes will win, everyone else is just there to wear out and applaud that. I am too old and know these structures too well to have any illusions. I have experienced too many of these "leaders". "


"It'll work out." said Linn's mother. "I'm sure it will." replied Linn.

After dinner, Linn sat on the porch with Jo and drank a beer. "Now you're here." he said again. "I didn't expect you to come back here one day."
"Neither did I," Linn said. "I guess it's better than ending up on the street. There's a housing shortage and I wouldn't have been able to pay for the apartment. Let alone heat it with the completely overpriced electricity and gas."
"Yes, of course it sucks that the company was sold - especially since you were able to get a foothold so late in life."
He took a sip of his beer and lowered his head so his hair fell in his face.
"I wish I'd been watching out for you. With what happened back then."
Now Linn could see how old he'd gotten since they'd broken up in a fight so long ago.
The beer bottle in her hand trembled and she felt a cold shiver run down her spine and the tinge of old-gone-but-never-shed shame, like a bad taste in her mouth that never really went away.

"I paid a high price for it," Linn said. "It defined my entire life. It still does."
"You mean finding a job again?" asked Jo.
"My life is fractured and fragmented," said Linn. "And I'm on the cusp of getting old and detached and cynical. I don't know."
She took another sip of beer.
"I have an interview at Dieseltrans next week," she said then." are you still working there in the warehouse?"
"For 12 years," Jo said. He looked worried. Then he said," I think I need something stronger tonight."
After a short pause in which he took another long sip, he looked at Linn from the side and said hesitantly:
"If I may give you a hint." Linn shrugged her shoulders, guessing what was coming now.
"I know that there are three people working there in the bureau who mobbed you hard.
Back then. I only much later realized how hard they tortured you. And what it would cost us all."

Linn looked at the edge of the forest some distance away, trying to ignore the memories that were just rising again from the temporary grave of displacement.
"You definitely shouldn't work there," Jo said, "They're still horrible people. And even if they weren't, after what they've done to you, catastrophic situations would be inevitable."
"I'm not going to work there," Linn said finally. "But please let's change the subject. Even after all this time, it hasn't gotten any better."
"I'm sorry." said Jo. "You got the worst of all of us. I can understand why you didn't really want to come back. You got your ass kicked by everyone, had to fight off Henryś violence at home, and were treated like scum by the only person who could have helped. You had every right in the world to be broken."
"You don't want to know how broken I was, and it doesn't matter anymore," Linn said shortly.
Jo set his beer bottle down on the wooden steps beside him and buried his face in his hands.
"I was hoping you could find a home somewhere." he said. "And now you're here and can't find a job because the people who tortured you back then work here in the companies. "
"It's nice when home embraces you when you return," Linn said bitterly. "Sweet sweet home."

"I stayed here and I see these people every day," Jo said.
"Your life was destroyed but these people persist and you are fine. Sometimes you could just throw up."

"I lived out there for some time," Linn said. "After a long time, it was possible. But as you can see, I couldn't permanently escape Limburg. Apparently, I wasn't the only one there."

"You also came back because of the death of Nicola Reiser?" asked Joshua.
That he wasn't surprised testified to his quick thinking. They had all been sold short in this life thought Linn.

"I came back because there was nothing else," Linn said. "I want to know what happened to my friend."
"Last chance powerdrive." said Jo, taking another sip of his beer.
"He was the only one there," Linn said. "I was an outcast and he was the only person who even talked to me anymore. The only one who treated me like a human being instead of fucking me or torturing me."
"I tried to keep an eye on him," Jo said. "He slipped away from me just as quickly." He spat some of his beer onto the dry grass. "This town ate him just as fast as it ate you. Every once in a while, the bloodlust of the fat well-fed suits in City Hall and their degenerate brats needs to be satiated. And your horniness, by all accounts." He sounded even older now.

"I've been their punching bag and piece of meat for everything long enough," LInn said.
"These days I would prefer not to."

The next day, Linn sent an email to Dieseltrans saying she had already accepted another vacant position and would have to cancel the interview. She thanked them for the invitation, although she had hoped that most of the people she had known would be dead.

Then she called her advisor at the employment office. "Good afternoon," she said. She had never spoken to the woman named Mueller, but she had received a notification that she was in charge of her.
"They sent me a job opening that I had to apply for," Linn said.
"Someone who works there warned me that there were several people working there who had bullied me a long time ago. It made me very sick for a long time," Linn said tersely.
"I just sent an email to the company for that reason with the false information that I had already accepted another vacant position," she continued.
"You can cancel any future claims I may have, of course, but it was the only option I had," Linn said."
For a short while, there was a confused silence on the line, then Ms. Mueller, the consultant, said uncertainly:


"In that case, we probably won't cancel any claims for you. Probably. Under certain circumstances. Please write us a mail and present the case again in detail. We will then discuss it in cooperation with the next level."
"Thank you very much." said Linn. "I will send you the mail today. Your mail address was on the notification, after all."

In the afternoon, Linn went back to the city. Every time she passed the first houses and the apartment complexes condensed into the place she knew, she felt sick. Not the kind that made her throw up, but the kind of nausea that felt like mild poisoning where the stomach itself tightened into a tortured little knot in her body. She drove to Zimmermannstr., also called the "ghetto" in LImburg. Here the apartments were cheap and the prospects poor. It was enough to say that one lived in Zimmermannstr. to be eyed suspiciously in the city.


She stopped in front of a gray house, remembering that the apartments here were subsidized by the municipality. The kind of house that would have been called a housing bunker in the past. She went to the door and pressed the button for the bell under the name "Reiser". Nothing happened for some time, but then the buzzer for the door went. Linn stepped into the stairwell. It was dark and gray, the stairs and floor were covered with the same squeaky laminate that had apparently always been used in these houses.


The stairwell smelled musty and old of stale and expired life.
She went up the stairs to the second floor.
The door next to which hung the sign "Reiser" stood ajar.
"What do you want?" asked a woman's voice from behind the door, as old and brittle as the stairwell itself.
"I'm Linn Kaltwasser," Linn said. "Could we talk for a minute?"
"Linn." said the old woman. "I remember you. Always so pale and scrawny."
Silence. "I'd heard you'd moved far away from here."
She opened the door a crack wider and Linn could see her face, gray and sunken. Once a pretty woman, Linn had visited the Reisers a few times.
The old woman slowly opened the door a step further and let Linn in.
She offered her nothing and walked down the hall into the living room. The rooms were not cluttered but the shelves and closets were filled with all sorts of knickknacks, from small carved wooden elephants to dolls of various brands. She sat down in the wing chair that stood in the center of the room in a combination with a small table and sofa.
In the corner, between woven baskets filled with old magazines, was a small dresser with pictures of Luka. Linn went to her and looked at the pictures briefly, a shot of Luka at school with a school bag and a shy smile on his face, the small satchel was next to him.
"That's all that's left," Mrs. Reiser said.
Next to a large partially burned candle was a photo of Linn with Luka. Both were sitting on a park bench next to each other, reading a book. It was one of the few photos of Linn that existed from that time and as far as she knew the only one with Luka.
"You weren't here." Mrs. Reiser said. "And I know you ran away from the same thing that killed him. The same violence."
"Maybe it would have been different if I had stayed," said Linn. "I couldn't stay."
"I know what happened then," Mrs. Reiser said. "The same thing that happened to Luka after that. What good would it have done if this town had killed you too?" she asked wearily.
"The only mistake is that you are here." said Mrs. Reiser now in a somewhat clearer, almost angry voice.
"This town wasn't good to kids like you then, It won't be good to you now."
Linn put the photo of Luka back on the small dresser and went to the window. She pushed aside one of the drawn curtains slightly and looked out the window.
A young woman was pushing a baby carriage down the street, smoking as she did so; otherwise the street was empty at this hour. The bright light of the summer day was clear and warm, making the scene of the poor street seem friendlier. Summer was coming. For a moment, Linn saw a young woman who had never existed with a child by her hand and a smiling, handsome man in a T-shirt and loose jeans walking beside her and talking to her. She blinked briefly and when she opened her eyes again the ghosts were gone and only the gray asphalt and empty street there.
"Why are you here, Linn?" asked Mrs. Reiser.


"I wanted to know what happened to the past," Linn said vaguely. /I have nothing left to lose,/ she thought.
"Didn't go so well, did it?" Mrs. Reiser laughed dryly and cynically. "Yes, that's how it is with the past, you carry it with you wherever you go. Luka couldn't run away from this city either, and God knows he tried."
"I read about Luka's death in the newspaper," Linn said. She pulled the curtain of the window slightly closed in a nervous almost unconscious movement, not knowing exactly why. Her hand trembled slightly.
"I was wondering if you could tell me what happened." She asked. Mrs. Reiser went to a dresser in the corner of the room and took out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from a drawer.
She held the pack out to Linn. "I don't smoke." said Linn, taking a cigarette from the pack and lighting it.
"Neither do I." said Mrs. Reiser and lit a cigarette as well.
Then she took another black object from the same drawer.
Mrs. Reiser opened the small leather bag and pulled out a small folder, also bound in dark leather. She opened it and carefully pulled out a piece of paper. It was a newspaper clipping on which it said:

"Teenager from Limburg found dead in Romania."

Linn took the small piece of paper and looked at it. A photo of Luka, if you looked closely you could see the rough print dots it was made of.

"When exactly did Luka disappear?" asked Linn.
"Pretty much five months ago," said Mrs. Reiser.

"It's been eight years since I've been here," said Linn. "He was 10 then, he was so young, but he was..."
"The only one who talked to you." said Mrs. Reiser.
"I remember that story. They avoided you like the devil avoids holy water because the sons of the important people of this fine town had chosen you as a victim." she continued.
"They were all too cowardly to do anything. Even enjoyed torturing you every day and watching you slowly go to the dogs. I, too, acted like I didn't know anything, never said anything. Every week you came by and tutored Luka and became more and more silent and pale. I always kept my mouth shut. It was none of my business. And then the brothers and sisters of the sons of the finest members of the city council did the same to him."
She coughed and took a deep drag from her cigarette. "He ran away from that," she said then.
"And died alone in a foreign land after being disemboweled like cattle."

Linn was silent and leaned against the windowsill, memories long suppressed swirling up in her mind like dust over a long forgotten grave in the desert over which a sudden wind was blowing.
It cost her almost physical strength to concentrate and push back the images of the past that had eaten into her mind.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," Mrs. Reiser said without any hint of sentimentality. "You hurt yourself when you came back here."
"I had to jump over my shadow," Linn replied. "What was left of it."


Linn handed the photo back to Mrs. Reiser. "Do you have any idea who might know more about Lukas' whereabouts and how he ended up in Romania?" she asked.
"He's been very withdrawn lately. "Mrs. Reiser said. "I had no idea what had really happened to him. What was done to him... at school. After he died, I talked to some people and apparently it wasn't a kid-on-kid thing, apparently he was tormented every day by people 4-5 years older than him." She hesitated. "I didn't understand it all at the time and I was still working and I should have taken him out of school. Then none of this would have happened. But I was too busy with work and ... life. And he never talked about what was ... done to him."
"The first thing they instill in you is shame," Linn said quietly, lost in thought. "So you don't talk about it. What does a child have to counter that?"
Mrs. Reiser nodded sadly and put the photo back in the leather folder.
"I didn't do any more research after that. I couldn't bear it. I heard that he was supposedly in Berlin for a while and took drugs, but I didn't want to know any more about it.
It didn't matter any more," she said. Her voice now sounded a little more like the voice of someone who had been locked up alone in these gray rooms with his thoughts for too long.
"I heard that Matthias Remmler was one of them," said Mrs. Reiser. "He's working today in a petrol station just before the exit to the B6. The petrol station belongs to his brother Ralf, who also has a garage there."

Linn looked at the window and looked out again so that Mrs. Reiser couldn't see the marks that the mere mention of the names left on her face. She gritted her teeth and said, "Thank you. Were there any findings from the police after Luka was reported missing?"
"He was a teenager from this street, this neighborhood," Mrs. Reiser said.
"The police apparently spoke to his teachers, who knew exactly how he had been tortured and had looked the other way the whole time because the Remmler family has seats on the city council. As before. Who of them wants to mess with high society? Certainly none of them."
"I know," said Linn. "I know these... people well enough." "Apparently they also told the police that he's a good-for-nothing who's also a drug addict. The investigators said something like that." She took a deep drag from her cigarette and exhaled the dark smoke.
"Everyone watched and when Lukas' performance got worse and worse, they just wrote him off even more."
"Yes," said Linn. "Nothing has changed."
"Apart from that, nothing ever came of the investigation," said Mrs. Reiser. "I kept asking, but there was never anything new. Until the news came that he was dead and his body had to be transferred from abroad."
She went over to the very old-looking cupboard behind the sofa and took out a bottle of cheap scotch and a glass. " I can't take any more Linn."
"Thank you Mrs. Reiser." said Linn. "I'm going to leave now. I'm sorry."
Linn looked back into the apartment once more as she closed the door from the outside. Mrs. Reiser stood in the living room, glass in hand, a gray haggard-looking woman in a gray room drinking alone in the early afternoon.
Linn left the house and went to her VW. She was glad to leave the heaviness of the big, poor building behind her, even if the conversation with Mrs. Reiser had taken a lot out of her.


She drove back to her mother's house at Birkenstrasse 12. Her mother was in the garden, cutting the hedge with a large pair of secateurs. "Hello dear," said Maria, which was her mother's first name. "Hi mom," said Linn. "You look tired." said Maria. "Where have you been?"
"I went to Mrs. Reiser's and offered my condolences," said Linn.
"I've seen you shopping a few times." said Maria. "It's no wonder she doesn't work anymore, who wouldn't get sick with what happened?"
"Yes, she's old... getting older." said Linn. "First your husband's death, then Luka disappears to... never come back."
"How old my girl looks." Maria thought at that moment. Linn had inherited the Kaltwassers' genetics, and the symmetrical, clear face shape with the intense green eyes and the coal-black silky hair.
The attractiveness that had developed over the years was always in contrast to her hardened expression, and only now did Maria realize how old her little girl had become in this pretty woman's body.
"I'm tired mom," Linn said. "I'm going to lie down for a while."


In her room, Linn stripped down to her underwear and sat on the bed.


She felt the leaden heaviness of the day, this city and the uncertain future on her shoulders, like a weight that pressed not only on her body but also on her soul. She ran her fingers over the glowing scar on her forearm.If you looked closely, you could see that there were letters carved deep into her skin, an L and a D.


In the mirror that stood in the corner of the room, she saw a woman in her underwear sitting on the edge of the bed and touching the scar on her forearm, which somehow seemed to glow an even more blood-red shade than usual today.
It was clearly visible on the back of her forearm, just before the base of her hand, where Linn would wear it for the rest of her life.
During job interviews, she sometimes pushed her shirt back a little so that the scar could be seen, because it would be noticeable later anyway. Presumably, in addition to her broken CV, this scar was also part of the puzzle that prevented her from finding work again.


13.1 The bones in your back.


In the mirror of memory, she saw for a moment an attractive middle-aged man and a slightly younger Linn. The man held her in his arms and ran his hand along the scar that formed an "LD". "What does it mean?" he asked.
"It's my other name," said Linn. "The name the world gave me."
"I know that story." said Ben, the artist. "It was the world that gave her that name and made her cut it into herself. And then it despised and condemned her for wearing it."
Remembering, Ben stretched her bare and flexible foot and kissed the scars on the sole of her foot.
"What did you do to yourself?" he asked. "Everything." she said curtly and sank deeper into his arms.
"You can make scars unrecognizable today." he said.
"Maybe one day." said the younger Linn in the mirror in the man's arms. "Who knows?"
"I'm sure you'll have a lot more names." said the memory in the mirror.
Linn lay down on the bed and covered herself up. After a while, she fell asleep in a curled-up position.

She woke up in the afternoon, got up and drew the curtains. The autumn light shone through the window and bathed the room in an orange pre-evening glow. She sat on the edge of the bed and thought about buying alcohol before what lay ahead of her today. Then she sighed and stretched. She combed her hair in front of the mirror. Then she began to practise her yoga forms, something she hadn't done for a long time. She warmed up her wrists and performed the crow in perfect balance, followed by the scorpion and the simple headstand. Then she opened the large sports bag and took out a Japanese wooden sword. She took a deep breath and performed a complete sword freestyle, finishing with slow meditation in the one-legged defense pose.
These forms had always helped her when the emptiness and the desire to disappear or hurt herself again became too strong. She had shown a talent for fighting, as she had for so many other things.
This time she didn't need the mirror to see Ben hugging her from behind as she slowly practiced her defensive stance, sword in hand. She could almost feel his hand on her trained shoulders and upper arms and hear him say." When I saw you fight, it was the first time I really saw you. How could you not fall in love with someone so fast, so beautiful and so broken?"
She kept her eyes closed for a while longer to hold on to the peace she had found in the form - and the memory of a past kiss at the point where neck and back muscles met, forming an almost artistic relief.

She traced the simple stroke patterns of the basic positions with slow, methodical movements, still standing on one leg. As so often, she drifted further into the past in meditation. Linn and Ben in his hut at the edge of the forest, a quieter, more broken version of herself that Ben had picked up like a stray dog.
She remembered the silence in the cabin, where he had taught her to speak long before she could even think of speaking for herself. She had often longed to return to the silence of that time. The only sounds there had been in the hut were the old analog Olympia typewriter and her drawing pens, the clashing of wooden training swords in the afternoon and the rhythmic, angry and passionately sweaty breathing in the evening as their bodies joined and became one.
As Linn continued to let her mind wander through the landscapes of the past, meditating in front of the mirror with the training weapon, she could hear Ben's voice again, almost as if he was with her now.
She saw them both lying naked on the bed and he was playing with her long black hair with one hand and running the other over the vertebrae of her back, which led to her neck like a bridge of bone between her pronounced yet feminine muscles while he softly sang a Bruce Springsteen line:
"And I watch the bones in your back like the stations of the cross."

....

-----------------------------------------------------
.....

Linn tried to ignore him, but even after all this time it hurt more than she had expected. She tried to let the mockery bounce off her but couldn't stop her compressed lips from starting to tremble.
"So that's Linny- Dinny." said Ralf. Paula laughed softly and smarmily and looked at Linn with blatant smarmy malice. "Matthias said that you were a crybaby and that it was great fun to diss you." He shrugged his shoulders. "You weren't there when I came to school so we had to make fun of your little friend." He laughed now too.
"He was just as much of a joke as you were back then, apparently."
"Oh yes, the skinny little spectacled gnome." Paula said with a grin. "My last will and testament, a man with glasses."

Linn clenched her fists. "Once again. I just want to know what happened, then I'm gone you wankers."
"Jesus, you never told me the old one was so annoying," Ralf said to his brother.
"No, that's new." said Matthias.
"What could have happened?" Ralf then asked Linn with a disparaging look on his face.
"He was just a loser. We may have beaten him up from time to time, but what else can you do with losers?
He was always crying too. Came to school more and more coked up at some point and wasn't so much fun to beat up anymore, but he was still funny enough to laugh about."
"But the beating up was still possible later," said Paula, taking a sip of her beer and then making a half-gurgling, half-whimpering noise with the drink in her mouth, whereupon she almost choked with laughter.
"At some point it was gone," said Ralf. "He died somewhere where junkies die. Where was that? Romania?"
He laughed again, chuckling. "Nobody cared, why should they? A couple of people halfway to the Czech Republic did another prank with the bum."
"What?" said Linn angrily. "What kind of scum are you? Where was that?"
Matthias glanced at his brother.
"Uäähhh scum now Linny - Dinny is getting angry, save yourself who can."
A car pulled up at the gas pump and he tightened up a little.
"Now fuck off," said Matthias. "There's nothing more to say. We've got customers in a minute."
Linn stood in the room with a trembling hand and looked like a beaten dog.
There was so much she had wanted to do in this situation, but now she just walked away with the spiteful laughter of these people at her back. She thought about what these people had done to Luka and felt tears welling up in her eyes at the thought of it.
She was glad that they couldn't see her face as she walked away.
She stopped short as she pulled the door open and Matthias called after her.
"You've turned out really pretty, Linny-Dinny. I can show you even more ways to get ready today than back then. You'll like it again. Come by again sometime."
The roaring laughter of the three of them followed Linn to the parking lot. She got in and drove off quickly, glad to be leaving this place. When the petrol station was out of sight, she turned onto a dirt road, stopped, put her head on the steering wheel and cried. After a short eternity, she took the Iphone out of her jacket pocket and pressed "Record stop."
Linn drove back into town, feeling empty and burnt out. "Why have I done this to myself again?" she asked herself, without the tear-stained woman's face in the mirror being able to give her an answer. On the way back, she drove straight through Limburg, avoiding the center as usual. She stopped in front of the shopping center that hadn't existed here before. She was glad that there was nothing familiar here, everything was new and free of memories. She tried not to look at people's faces and walked through the store with her head down so as not to have to endure mutual recognition. She bought a bottle of Kaliskaya vodka and a pack of razor blades and left the store as quickly as possible.
On her way back through the center to her mother's house, she passed the bus stop where she had often waited for the bus after school. Sometimes she had waited here before school and hid.
She stopped on the other side of the street and looked at the entrance to the house. A pair of frightened young eyes looked back over the abyss of years, pleading for help that would never come.
She buried her head in her arms and ran her hands through her hair, shivering, then reached for the bottle of Kaliskaya and opened it. She put the bottle on and quickly put it down again, shocked at herself. She looked back into the darkness of the dark entrance to the house that had burned itself into her soul. Then she took a small sip from the bottle, just enough to wet her tongue. She kept the liquid on her tongue for as long as she could, then stopped and just inhaled the scent of it.

13.2 Prelude: Limbo.


The girl is on her way to school, she is thin and pale and rarely speaks. "Hey Linny-Dinny, what are you doing here?" a vicious voice yells in the girl's ear. She says nothing and tries to walk on with a blank expression on her face, as if she wasn't even there. "Just look at the dwarf, she's trying to run away from us." Another spiteful voice yells at her from the side. This is how she will remember people for most of her life: distorted, hateful grimaces, shouting and laughing at her before beating her up. They call her a dwarf because she is small and thin for her age. That doesn't matter much, because her tormentors are almost adults and she is 4-5 years younger. One of the older teenagers gives her a push from the side and she trips over her own legs and lands on the floor. Just like one of the many days. "Oh, she fell down." One of the boys making fun of her stands over her, holding her down with his boots on her back.""I won't let you get up loose," he laughs. "I want to see you crawl away. Look at that, it's not a girl. It even crawls like a boy. " Tears well up in the girl's eyes. It's true, she's so thin and ragged that she hardly looks like a girl.


Then another woman's voice says: "Matthias, that's enough, she gets beaten up enough every day. The pressure from her back disappears and the girl hears the fading mischievous voice say, "You're lucky now, you loser. But I'll see you later."
He gets down on his knees. Other people and students laugh at her, but no one helps her. She looks down again so that no one can see her tears and stumbles to the entrance of a run-down store opposite the school. There she hides in the shadows for a while. After some time, she manages to go into the classroom and her teacher barks at her for being late and gives her another bad mark for the report card.

When the girl comes home after school, she eats a little and tries not to bump into her big brother in the kitchen. But that's not possible.
"Fuck off, Linny," says her brother and kicks her under the table, where he takes a seat opposite her. The girl's brother is strong and he knows she doesn't stand a chance: "I told dad you got another bad grade in math. Why are you so damn bad now?
The girl says nothing and stands up, trying not to look anywhere. She puts her dishes in the dishwasher and goes to her room. Her grades have dropped significantly since she's been bullied every day at school and at home. The older brother also started bullying her because he couldn't make friends at school because he was the brother of the school loser, i.e. her.
Her mother comes home late at night and then she is tired. She's never been one to pay much attention to the things going on around her. Her stepfather comes home early. The older girl has told him about the girl's bad grades and he trudges into her room where she is sitting on the bed staring at the wall.
Why did you get another bad grade in math?" he yells at her in his unpleasant voice. "As long as you're here in my house and not in a children's home, I won't accept this laziness. Just look at your brother doing that.... "As he talks, he has a habit of spitting, and the spit flies in the girl's face. That's one of the most important memories of your childhood. Someone yelling at her while spit flies in her face. After her stepfather leaves and slams the door, the girl is alone again, staring at the wall. There's not much on the wall. It's just white.

13.3 down the rabbit hole
Linn opened the front door to her mother's house and stepped inside. She could see through the window to the garden that her mother was working outside, but she didn't go out to say hello.
She went upstairs, took off her coat and sat down on the bed. Then she opened the rucksack she had brought from the car and took out the bottle of Kaliskaya, unscrewed the cap and took a big sip.
She shivered slightly, then it got better. She put the bottle back on and emptied a quarter of the bottle in one big gulp. Her body twitched almost as if it had spasms or was possessed, then it accepted what she was about to do to it again and reality became duller and softer and more bearable.
She stripped down to her underwear and opened the packet of razor blades. She placed her right foot over her left knee and applied the razor blade to the sole. She enjoyed how the blade slowly cut into the flesh.
There was a knock at the door. "Linn, are you there? Is everything all right?"
Linn said something she didn't quite understand herself. Her mother opened the door. "I'm sorry, I couldn't understand what that stammering was supposed to mean," she said and stood rooted to the spot.
It was as if she was seeing her daughter, this stranger, for the first time, and she wondered in horror who this almost naked beautiful woman with the teary eyes and the scarred soles of her feet and the deeply carved stylized scar on her forearm was.

"Linn." she said, shocked. "I was in Limburg, at my old school," said Linn, but all that came out was a stammer. Her mother overcame the stupor that had overcome her at the sight and took the bottle that was standing next to Linn and picked it up. Then she carefully took the razor blade from her hand.
"I need this... today." Linn said, stammering and awkwardly.
Marta turned around and put the razor blade on the dresser, out of reach.
Then she handed the bottle back to Linn. Linn took the bottle and hugged her with a trembling body and pulled herself back against the wall at the edge of the bed, Marta's heart almost broke when she heard the soft whimpering that Linn herself didn't even realize. Then she sat down next to Linn and took her in her arms.
"It was my fault, I didn't see it then," said Marta and took the bottle away from her. "Nor where it would lead us."
She held Linn in her arms for a while and stroked her hair. Then she got up and went to the toilet with the bottle. She looked at the bottle, took a big gulp and then tipped the rest down the toilet.
She went back and looked at her daughter, who was lying on the bed with her eyes closed and was now breathing more calmly. She lay down behind her and pulled the comforter over Linn. She sat there for a while, then went downstairs, folded the razor blade with the pliers and threw it in the bin too.

Linn slept for a long time, woke up briefly in the night and saw Ben in the mirror opposite the bed, and the younger Linn was with him. It had been the last day she had been drinking. Ben sat opposite her on the mat in the dojo of the house by the lake and briefly stroked the scars on the sole of her bare foot and the scar on her forearm.
"That's not you, little wolf," he said. In front of them lay the first sword he had given her that evening, with the name "Polaris I" engraved above the hilt of the wooden training sword.

The following evening, Linn parked in front of the Remmler brothers' petrol station. She waited until shortly before 10 p.m. As expected, the same people were sitting in the sales room as the night before, Linn could see this through the window in the dim lighting.
Her face was now hard and clear and carved like cold stone as she waited.
Then she got out and opened the trunk. She took off her jacket, wearing a tight tank top underneath that let her muscular and wiry shoulders and arms shine in the cold neon light.
She put the jacket in the trunk and took out the heavy hardwood baseball bat.
Then she walked through the darkness to the entrance of the gas station and pushed open the door.
The Remmler brothers and Paula looked at her in surprise, a broad grin stole across Matthias' face.
Linn took a chair and wedged it under the door handle so that it could no longer be opened from the inside.

Linn turned around as she heard the malicious voice of Stephan Remmler say: "Linny Dinny, how nice. You really want more of us? I can understand that well."
And Paula saying." Little Linny – Dinny brought a toy. Are you trying to scare us?" She laughed. "Don´t make a fool of yourself even more than you already did."
Linn went into the room going directly straight up to Matthias Remmler behind the counter.
"Don´t make me laugh, Linny," said the older one of the Remmler brothers. "What you gonna do with …"
Linn swung the bat in a wide and swift powerful motion and the hit connected directly to he side of his face, stopping him within the sentence and breaking his cheekbones, a fountain of blood burst out of his nose and sprayed directly onto her bare shoulders and the white tank top.
Ralf Remmler stood up from the same chair he had been sitting on yesterday and went towards Linn trying to swing his fist in a surprisingly sluggish motion, not using his body weight at all. He almost fell into Linns bat that had never stopped moving and hit his body with a swing from the left side as it had not stopped moving at all.
The momentum of the powerful blow and his heavy body in motion made him crash into a sideboard with one liter barrels of motor oil.
Still in one motion Linn brought the bat down in front of Paula on the table. It struck a deep score into the cheap wood and made the open beer cans on the table bounce upward, one tipped over and rolled fast over the edge of the table, striking Paula´s leg on the way downwards and leaving it soaked in beer.
"Shit goddamn are you crazy?" a wheezing voice came from behind the counter. The older one oft he Remmler Brothers tried to get up and his face came up behind the counter covered in blood that ran from his nose, his face looked somehow wrong and shifted to the left as his cheeckbone and inner eye cavity had been broken and dislocated.
"Didn´t you say there was something you wanted to show me?" Linn hissed at him.
"I came to show you this myself." And she brought the bat down upon his shoulder so that he
Collapsed tot he ground again.
Something hit her shoulder and bounced off without any impact, meaningless and just leaving an empty metallic sound as it hit the ground. Linn turned around and saw Paula standing there looking irritated and confused almost frozen in the motion as she attempted to try another can.
Linn stepped quickly forward and gave her a slap in the face with the bare hand, only just to watch as despite the limited force oft he blow she crumbled to the floor and tears began dwelling in her eyes.
Two sluggisch arms closed around Linn from behind and tightened to a bearhug. She struggled to keep the bat in her arms and felt how she was uplifted and her feet lost traction tot the floor. She held on tot he bat and swung the back of her head back, hitting Ralf Remmler with full force in the face. She heard snorting in the back of her head and a slimy fluid on the back of her head.
The grip around her instantly let go and she turned around and swung the bat another time, this time against the head of Ralf Remmler. He fell like a bag, suddely only consisting of dead weight.
"Just call the police." Matthias shouted from behind the counter.
"I´ll sue your ass to…" Linn kicked the phone out of Paula´s hands she was just about to grab.
She got her own phone and quickly typed on it. Then she got around the counter,
pulled Matthias upwards by grabbing his sleeve and held the phone in front of his bloodied face. Do you know this?" She asked him angrily.
He stared at the phone display with a bleeding face. There you could see him licking the belly of a naked girl who was fortunately just of age and on whom another female hand was pouring a glass of red wine. The girl was tied with her hands to the grate of a bed covered with black latex. Another male voice laughed in the background; Linn had heard this disgusting laughter in real life over the last few days.
Matthias Remmler looked dully at the screen and didn't move for a long moment until the stream of blood from his nose forced him to hold out his sleeve.
"Where did you get that from?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter." Linn said. "This is just the beginning of what we have. I've never been here tonight, if I hear anything else - whether it's from the cops or whoever - all this shit will be on the net tomorrow.
I'm sure your old man will be happy next mayoral election."
"You fucking hu..." He stumbled forward and tried to hit Linn with a weak swing, Linn smiled kindly as she quickly danced into his back and landed another blow to the back that sent him flying into one of the displays of fruit gum bags. He lay groaning among the bags scattered on the floor.
Linn went to the counter and reached under the sink for an old rag. She went to Matthias Remmler, who lay whimpering between the small pink and light blue bags, and pulled him up by his scruffy hair. Then she pressed the cloth into his face and held him in place with his own forearm.
Linn looked around again, Paula was sitting in the far corner of the room crying and watching the scene through matted hair, Ralf Remmler was groaning behind the counter. Linn went to have a quick look, he was just about to get to his feet. Linn went behind the counter, took out the baseball bat and hit him three more times. The fat man spat up blood and slumped down again.
Linn went back to Matthias and pulled him up by the hair again, he was still holding the rag in front of his nose with the last of his strength and it had turned very red.
"Here we go again, dirty pig," said Linn. "What do you know about the whereabouts of Luka Reiser? What did you do to him?"
"Because of that little loser, you're going to wreck the place?" Matthias coughed up blood and tried something that was supposed to be a contemptuous laugh but ended in an ugly gurgle that only brought more blood to light.
"I knew you were a broken little thing back then, but for you to go so crazy...."
Linn opened the hand that was holding him by the hair so that he suddenly fell and landed on his face.
There was a muffled cracking sound and a strangled scream that stopped abruptly.
Linn grabbed Matthias by the hair again and pulled him up by his greasy and bloody hair.
"I won't ask again," she said.
He roared and then said: "Dennis Kerner saw him in Karlsbad. He was out with his motorcycle club and saw him on the road. Did some shit with the loo... " he paused and spat blood for a moment." ... with him. I forget what and where exactly."
"Where can I find this Kerner?" said Linn.
"Has a Harley store in Oldenburg." stammered Matthias. "Under his name."
Linn let go of him a second time and he fell on his face again, you could hear his nose break a little more as he hit.
She put the baseball bat on her shoulder and walked to the door, through the destruction. At the door, she looked back again. Matthias was lying face down on the floor, but trying to sit up again. Ralf was groaning behind the counter but she could hear him moving, Paula was sitting in the corner crying.
She took the chair that had been holding the door handle and put it back in the corner of the salesroom.

13.4 Life during wartime
As she picked up the door handle, she could hear Matthias croaking. "Linny..." She looked back again and saw him leaning on his elbows, blood dripping from his mouth and his nose, which had been broken several times.
"You broke my nose, you crazy little bitch," he said hatefully.
"I'm going to get you and then I'm going to slit you from cunt to neck and break every bone..."
Linn let the door close behind her and walked to the car.


At dawn she sat on the steps outside the front door of Joś's house. She had two magazines of fully loaded 9mm cartridges next to her and was ammunitioning the last one as the sun rose beyond the fields, like a dark red harbinger of coming doom to awaken the still sleeping land on behalf of an angry god who craved revenge because his name had not been spoken for centuries.
She watched for a while as the sun rose higher and the first rays of sunlight cautiously began to conquer the battlefield of day against the darkness, a temporary victory, yet neither side ever gave up.
"They keep coming back." thought Linn.
She put the last fully loaded magazine in the pistol and the two spare magazines in her pocket.
Then she opened the door with her Mastercard and entered the house. She went up the stairs to the second floor and into Joś bedroom, he was still asleep. He yawned softly as she sat down on the bed and lolled over.
He looked at her, but didn't ask any questions. She put the Glock on the bedside table, as well as the two spare magazines.
"You're leaving again?" he said.
"I'm going east to try to find out what happened to Luka," she said.
He sighed and looked at the pistol on the bedside table. "You leave and what's left is violence."
She placed a cheap Android phone on the table. "If any of the honorable people here get too close to you...there's only one number saved."
"What did you do Linn?" he asked.
She squeezed his hand that lay on the bed, it felt different than before, strong and sinewy with veins carved out by time.
"Do you need money?" asked Jo. "I can manage for the time being," said Linn. She had told him that since she no longer had a job, she had hardly received any money from the office, there had always been some kind of dodge to avoid having to pay her the money. She had worked for 4 weeks in a haulage company in Bremen but had quit because the team leader had started to harass her after 2 weeks.
Then on Friday the office sent her a letter in a threatening tone, giving her 2 days to send back the reply, with copies of the termination agreement, Linn didn't even have a printer.
She had simply thrown the letter away and had not replied to it, so arbitrary was this pathetic demonstration of power not to have to pay out this little bit of money.
"You said that you wouldn't even get that little bit of money through some dodge," Jo said half asleep.
"Don't even warn me about dodges," said Linn. "Was even more pathetic."
She squeezed his hard knotty hand a second time. Then she got up and left the room.


Linn walked down the street. She had parked a few streets away. She buried her hands in her pockets and bowed her head, but didn't pull the hood of her hoodie over her head. She had a small weapon in her breast pocket that she always carried with her, carefully secured in the pocket so that it could be drawn quickly in an emergency without coming into contact with the razor-sharp point.
On the way to Schindlerstrasse, where she had parked, Linn turned into a small side street and deviated from her path. The figure following her at a distance hesitated briefly, then also turned into the small alley.
Linn made sure that the gun in her bag was ready to hand. She walked slower until she could hear the sound of other footsteps behind her.
She slowed her steps further, the footsteps behind her also slowed.
She had expected the Remmlers to send thugs to carry out Matthias' threat.
This was no thug, the person was too light for that. Probably no other kind of common hireling that the Remmlers could have organized quickly, because she didn't have a bullet in her back yet.
Linn turned just before the end of the small alley and walked towards the person.
Although the face of the slender little person was not visible through the hood of the dark windbreaker pulled over her head, it was clear that it was neither a thug nor a hireling, but a woman, probably a few years younger than Linn.
Linn stopped, the other one did too, so that they were now standing a few meters away from each other in the side street lined with garbage cans.
"Can I help you?" Linn asked coldly.
The person said nothing but glared at her.
"I don't have the nerve," Linn said and walked past the woman to resume her original route.
The woman grabbed her by the shoulder, and though there was nothing combative about the gesture, Linn reacted instinctively, flinging her around and pinning her head to the dirty brickwork of a building wall with her elbow.
She hissed angrily at the other and squeezed her neck.
"One more time before I strangle you," she hissed. "What do you want from me?"
The other coughed. Linn eased the pressure on her neck.
"You're the one who beat Matthias Remmler to a hospital bed," said a voice that was younger than Linn had estimated. "Why?"
Linn looked annoyed towards the ends of the alley to see if there were any spectators, then let go of the little one.
"Because they deserved it," she said curtly. "What are you, his fiancée?
The girl pushed back her hood to reveal a pretty young face. Under her right eye was a glowing blue and red violet and a wound on her lip had recently been stitched up.
Despite this, she was wearing a perfume that was far too bright, which she had made a poor attempt to cover up.
Linn stepped back and looked at the girl.
Torn jeans, bought cheaply in a discount store and trimmed to look sexy, the long blond hair showed dark strands where the tint no longer had any effect.
"Why didn't you kill her?" the girl asked in a slightly brittle voice. Now Linn heard the Eastern European accent in the soft voice.
Linn looked at her for a moment and then shook her head. "What are you doing here girl. I can't help you."
She turned and walked back to the end of the alley. She heard the girl running after her.
"Five thousand euros." she called after her. "That's all I have."


The next evening, Dennis Kerner was standing in the parking lot in front of his motorcycle store in Oldenburg. With him were 5 members of his club in their outfits. Some of them were sitting in the loading area of the pickup truck in front of the store and
drinking beer.
A slim, wiry woman whose face was hidden by the hood of her black hoodie stepped through the gate that separated the property from the street.
She walked up to the group who looked at her hostilely and said." I'm looking for Dennis Kerner."
The men laughed, one jumped off the loading area and stood in front of her. Linn took a few steps back.
"We were warned you were coming," said the big, burly man who had stood in front of Linn. "You've got a really small mum, but it's even stupider to show up here with a figure like yours. We both know how this evening is going to end."
He turned around and a no less muscular middle-aged man, who despite his strong arms had a considerable belly, said: " aquÌ." He threw a metal baseball bat at the man who must have been Dennis.
The logo of a Spanish motorcycle gang was emblazoned on his cowl.
Kerner caught the baseball bat and walked towards them. The Spaniard began to play around with a butterfly knife and smiled.
Linn put her hands in her wide pockets and pulled out a Beretta 93 in her right hand and a Glock 18 in her left.
She pointed the two silenced automatic pistols at the Spaniard and Kerner, the other men who had moved towards them stopped.
"I was told that you could tell me something about the whereabouts of Luka Reiser," said Linn.
"Oha," Kerner said, grinning." the cat has claws." He continued to approach her. "What are you going to do if I tell you shit? You don't really want to..."
Linn shot him in the knee. The silence afterward was almost louder than the shot itself for a brief moment.
Kerner writhed on the floor, his face contorted with pain. "Fucking bitch," he growled.
Although Linn kept the Beretta pointed at him, the Spaniard took another step closer, he swung the butterfly knife one last time and then closed it so that the blade remained in the handle.
Then he spoke with a heavy accent.
"Hija del, diablo." He laughed greasily." We saw your friend in Carlsbad. Dennis recognized him and we had a harmless joke with him, el perdedor. He was begging with a couple of adictos on the street, in the center. " He laughed out loud.
"A couple of compas made a joke and bought something to eat at Mcdonalds and put all the bags down for him as if there was something to eat. He was really happy until he saw that they had shit in them. Then he really started to cry. "
Linn had to control herself, it was exhausting to listen to the Spaniard stealthily taking another step towards her and keeping him in her crosshairs at the same time.
"And that's all, Puta." hissed the Spaniard. He grinned and took another step forward, the closed metal handle of the butterfly in his hand.
"Eso fue divertido. a veces hay algo de que reir en este mundo."
"Hay justicia en este Mundo." Linn said and shot him in the right shoulder. He fell to the ground, cursing, and tried to pick up the knife with a cramping hand.
Linn aimed at the remaining men, who stared at each other with hatred.
"Anyone else?" she asked.
She looked around briefly, then fired 2 bullets into the tires of the pickup. She saw 5 motorcycles in the parking lot, and she fired 5 bullets, one for each rear tire.
"Fucking whore," yelled an older guy in the club's robe, also burly but without the muscles of the other two now cursing on the ground.
Linn retreated, keeping an eye on her opponents as she saw the tumblehead stare at the magazine with a dull expression.
"Two standard double-stack magazines with 18 bullets, apparently automatic," she explained. "Don't get your hopes up."
The fat man stared at her uncomprehendingly.
"Forget it." Linn said and fired two more bullets, this time from the Glock.
"We'll get you, Kaltwasser." Kerner cursed. "You don't think you're going to survive this, do you?
The whole world will be your enemy by tomorrow at the latest."

Kind of like always, Linn thought, slightly amused.


Then she was off the plot and stepped through the gate next to the outer wall. She knew she was much faster than the ponderous, burly men and put the guns away after she had ejected the magazines in the barrel and put them in her breast pocket. She opened the car, quickly put the guns in the glove compartment and drove off.

1. 8 Que quieres a la vida?

Linn drove back to Limburg one last time and packed her things. She took provisions, her remaining money, clothes and weapons in 4 sports bags. She also packed 2 silver bars and checked that she had noted down the access data for her depot.
Then she drove off. Her route took her through Bachmannstrasse in the suburb of Ehrbeck. Here and there, at this time of day, you could come across a few kerb swallows who had never been allowed to learn to fly.
She saw a few figures in short skirts standing on the street, one of whom looked familiar. Ripped jeans, the same black hoodie, even if it was now open and revealed a cheap bra from the discount clothing store.
Linn drove past, accelerating to leave the city and everything connected to it behind her as quickly as possible.
She looked in the rearview mirror and saw young eyes with long blonde hair following her, the violets on her eyes shining even brighter in the cold neon light of the few lanterns.
Linn turned the corner and the image of the girl in the rear-view mirror had disappeared.

She slammed on the brakes and put the car into reverse.
Then she drove back and stopped in front of the girl waiting in the cold.
She opened the door.
The girl hesitated, then she got in.
The girl closed the door and looked out of the window. Linn drove off.
"I'm Emilia." the girl said.
"We won't be back for a long time, I might not come back at all. And where I'm going you don't want to be, but there are lots of places along the way that aren't here and where I can kick you out.
There are two automatic pistols in the glove compartment, loaded. If you play around with them and shoot yourself in the kneecap, I'll shoot you in the other one as punishment," said Linn.
Emilia nodded, closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window.




Linn stopped at a Mcdonalds on the way and ordered a wrap and a Coke with fries.
She gave Emilia a warm jacket and then picked up the food.
"For you," she said. "You look like you could use something to eat, and the wraps in this place are... at least edible. I'm Linn."
She handed the girl the food and drove off slowly.
"I'm Linn." she said.
They passed the sign "You are leaving Limbo, we look forward to your next visit."
"You're leaving Limbo." Linn whispered softly.
"...until your next visit to Limbo." Emilia added with her mouth full.
Linn looked at her briefly, then back at the street, and maybe she even smiled a little.
And so Linn and Emilia left Limburg for the east, never to return there again as the living.

 

[woofwag]

Shared this in a post but it didn't get any attention so hoping people can see it here because evidently I'm an attention whore :,)) it's a little disjointed, but it's something I am still proud of, especially the ending

shove me into a body i've never heard of
go ahead and turn your back
i'll make a pact without you
i hope i'll be useful to you now
you can rip off my flesh
use me to build a whole new town

seven years and not a cell untouched
i crave the sex i had when i was young
am i wrong to want what you want?
just to finish me off
so i can use you to hurt me
hurt me like i hurt you
i'm sorry that i bleed

i promise i won't forgive you
i promised myself
so why do i want to?
i betray my rage to love
run my chain around a tree
but you never tied me there
and yet, my collar tugs
i am the man who tried to kill me
please don't show him mercy
i hate you for your kindness
i hate how warm you are to hug

i see you as a god
so sex can be a prayer
and when you disappear i'll say
"my faith was never there"
the hook is out the loop
the yarn winds itself again
stitches in my wrists are loose
a god can't be your friend

when you remake the universe
can you leave me out of the fabric?
i'm only polyester
i'll turn your paradise to plastic