Hitting the clubs on his own still feels strange, let there be no doubt. Meeting the Reporter on one of his single and lonely strolls would result in a strong denial over this as it is indeed the most natural thing a single guy with just a few friends (who further have few interests in clubs, so there’s no company available) can do – in a still foreign city, full of bars and clubs, open till the morning. It’s even preferable to doing it with a friend, specifically one without the proper enthusiasm on display, when the one goal in mind, maybe in a not yet so clear defined region of the mind, somewhere below the neck, is to find a girl because it’s been some time since you got laid, kissed, both; whatever some time means for you, people are different, the reporter reports, you judge.
Let’s have a look at the reporter’s personal situation, and let it be a kind one for the reporter works hard for a living, at least he pretends to do so, mostly to himself. Age began a low scale warfare on the reporter’s appearances some time ago and gained its first victories, leaving behind white stubbles on his often unshaved face. It’s only a matter of time till the defections will accumulate, the casualities mount up, a whole country of the reporter’s looks may be lost soon to Death’s messenger, Age. And how early it happens, the reporter’s not even turned 30 yet, but that symbolic date is approaching, inevitably, and things will change then even more, the reporter just knows, and this knowledge is but the fifth column of Age’s assault on the reporter’s hair’s dark-blondishness.
Still, Age it’s a least a thing that has come to stay, even friendly in it’s final predictability. If everything and everyone else will leave, he’ll still have Age… And the leaving had begun already, years ago. Leaving home, leaving a new home found in Campus Town (let’s call it that), seeing friends leaving the foreign city the reporter has moved to for job reasons. There’s not so much going on in the reporter’s life, much less than in the previous years, almost as less as in the somewhat lonely periods of the reporter’s childhood, an often self-imposed hermitage because of the reporter’s strange interests and passions that now come back to haunt him for how dear would he love to join a sports club, a tap dance group, a political party or youth organisation – there’s just the one fact that he despises those people doing such crap in their free time as he dislikes almost every hobby that requires more than two people coming together on a regular schedule. People are good to drink with, talk with (while drinking), fuck with (after drinking), but please, all those pretentions of doing something together so you can then engage in some of the fun activities with some of the people, how silly can you get, and besides, the reporter pretends to work hard for his living, often into the evenings, too hard to predict each day’s outcome, way too hard to analyse that as an obvious excuse for not trying harder to find new friends.
So that’s that, and so the reporter decides to go out again alone having no one to call that evening to join him. The last time he was out like this he had a good night – nice concert of a not so bad German band on its way to modest fame, found a girl, made out for a long time, saw that girl again on a later day, engaged in a not-clearly defined not so friendly but with benefits kind of relations with her although he couldn’t see much future in that but at least some presence. This should’ve given him confidence, for obviously he still had it, he had done it and could do it again, even on his own so he wouldn’t have to do the other thing alone and on his own.
Optimism is of course misplaced at this early moment for in every such operation there lies a multitude of frictions to prevent success, just like in war, and while it is no war out there, at most times not, it’s still a struggle, each man on his own, or actually not. Hardly proved that particular Saturday to be any different. The first friction lay just in the man himself, not even deep buried in his subconscious but right there, exposed to him and hardly unexpected, well known, often experienced. That day had left its marks on the reporter, the early get up in the morning, then biking to a nearby lake, swimming, resting in the sun for some time. It was the last day of summer, probably, and a small fog, high over the city, prevented the temperatures to reach the record levels of the past three weeks. It made a difference for on that small strip of beach the reporter was virtually alone, unlike on so many other days he had visited there: though it was generally a quiet lake there had always been other people, women in particular, and as it was Berlin, nude women, quite often young nude women, some of them even good looking. Not on this morning that proved so challenged to offer the required temperatures to get those women out to the lake although the forecasts were even grimmer. So the reporter returned home not long after noon, bought some food on the way, ate it. Then out again, driving through half of the city for his favourite sports bar where his football team’s game would be shown in full length. Somehow it felt socially acceptable to watch football alone, the reporter was not alone in that habit, but even that proved to be a bit disappointing this time. For one thing the reporter’s team, while being superior, better looking, and generally better adapted to ball games than the other team, and in all that not different to the reporter himself, could only gain a draw, hampered by bad luck and of course an abominable referee’s performance. Frictions, whereever you look. Further, that cute dark-haired waitress that was always willing to send the lonely reporter a smile on his first two visits to that bar was not there, unexpectedly not there, the first time she actually was expected although unknown to herself. More to the north, where the reporter turned then, he sat in a café, reading, drinking coffee against the beer he had had during the game.
In the evening the reporter is home again, in his small flat in Berlin’s old West. On the horizon there is the occasional lonely plane heading to Tempelhof, the old airport of air bridge’s fame. Slowly, the sky falls darker, the sun has set; it is dark now, and still is the reporter thinking. He has distracted himself for some time, but now a decision has to be made upon what to do with this Saturday’s evening. The day was busy till then, a little disappointing, too. Would it be worth to spend all the energy it would require to get up and get out? The time is going by, music tries to cheer the reporter’s ears and mind, quite on purpose he took up some reading to motivate him. There are no plans for the next day, that was okay for Sunday, nothing wrong about resting on the seventh day – it just feels like a waste when you start the day with nothing to rest from because you have shaken off the burdens of the week’s work already on Saturday. Time still goes by but time doesn’t count in the city, it’s even more alife in the late night than in the evening. That settles it, slowly, still with an inherent reluctance, the reporter gets up from his chair and heads to the bathroom, ready to make himself ready, gaining resolution with each step of his preparations completed.
Having shaved, dressed, styled the reporter finally leaves his flat for there is no way back from here that wouldn’t make defeat complete and so the yet untold story unfolds, though not that different from so many other stories already told.
Let’s have a look at the reporter’s personal situation, and let it be a kind one for the reporter works hard for a living, at least he pretends to do so, mostly to himself. Age began a low scale warfare on the reporter’s appearances some time ago and gained its first victories, leaving behind white stubbles on his often unshaved face. It’s only a matter of time till the defections will accumulate, the casualities mount up, a whole country of the reporter’s looks may be lost soon to Death’s messenger, Age. And how early it happens, the reporter’s not even turned 30 yet, but that symbolic date is approaching, inevitably, and things will change then even more, the reporter just knows, and this knowledge is but the fifth column of Age’s assault on the reporter’s hair’s dark-blondishness.
Still, Age it’s a least a thing that has come to stay, even friendly in it’s final predictability. If everything and everyone else will leave, he’ll still have Age… And the leaving had begun already, years ago. Leaving home, leaving a new home found in Campus Town (let’s call it that), seeing friends leaving the foreign city the reporter has moved to for job reasons. There’s not so much going on in the reporter’s life, much less than in the previous years, almost as less as in the somewhat lonely periods of the reporter’s childhood, an often self-imposed hermitage because of the reporter’s strange interests and passions that now come back to haunt him for how dear would he love to join a sports club, a tap dance group, a political party or youth organisation – there’s just the one fact that he despises those people doing such crap in their free time as he dislikes almost every hobby that requires more than two people coming together on a regular schedule. People are good to drink with, talk with (while drinking), fuck with (after drinking), but please, all those pretentions of doing something together so you can then engage in some of the fun activities with some of the people, how silly can you get, and besides, the reporter pretends to work hard for his living, often into the evenings, too hard to predict each day’s outcome, way too hard to analyse that as an obvious excuse for not trying harder to find new friends.
So that’s that, and so the reporter decides to go out again alone having no one to call that evening to join him. The last time he was out like this he had a good night – nice concert of a not so bad German band on its way to modest fame, found a girl, made out for a long time, saw that girl again on a later day, engaged in a not-clearly defined not so friendly but with benefits kind of relations with her although he couldn’t see much future in that but at least some presence. This should’ve given him confidence, for obviously he still had it, he had done it and could do it again, even on his own so he wouldn’t have to do the other thing alone and on his own.
Optimism is of course misplaced at this early moment for in every such operation there lies a multitude of frictions to prevent success, just like in war, and while it is no war out there, at most times not, it’s still a struggle, each man on his own, or actually not. Hardly proved that particular Saturday to be any different. The first friction lay just in the man himself, not even deep buried in his subconscious but right there, exposed to him and hardly unexpected, well known, often experienced. That day had left its marks on the reporter, the early get up in the morning, then biking to a nearby lake, swimming, resting in the sun for some time. It was the last day of summer, probably, and a small fog, high over the city, prevented the temperatures to reach the record levels of the past three weeks. It made a difference for on that small strip of beach the reporter was virtually alone, unlike on so many other days he had visited there: though it was generally a quiet lake there had always been other people, women in particular, and as it was Berlin, nude women, quite often young nude women, some of them even good looking. Not on this morning that proved so challenged to offer the required temperatures to get those women out to the lake although the forecasts were even grimmer. So the reporter returned home not long after noon, bought some food on the way, ate it. Then out again, driving through half of the city for his favourite sports bar where his football team’s game would be shown in full length. Somehow it felt socially acceptable to watch football alone, the reporter was not alone in that habit, but even that proved to be a bit disappointing this time. For one thing the reporter’s team, while being superior, better looking, and generally better adapted to ball games than the other team, and in all that not different to the reporter himself, could only gain a draw, hampered by bad luck and of course an abominable referee’s performance. Frictions, whereever you look. Further, that cute dark-haired waitress that was always willing to send the lonely reporter a smile on his first two visits to that bar was not there, unexpectedly not there, the first time she actually was expected although unknown to herself. More to the north, where the reporter turned then, he sat in a café, reading, drinking coffee against the beer he had had during the game.
In the evening the reporter is home again, in his small flat in Berlin’s old West. On the horizon there is the occasional lonely plane heading to Tempelhof, the old airport of air bridge’s fame. Slowly, the sky falls darker, the sun has set; it is dark now, and still is the reporter thinking. He has distracted himself for some time, but now a decision has to be made upon what to do with this Saturday’s evening. The day was busy till then, a little disappointing, too. Would it be worth to spend all the energy it would require to get up and get out? The time is going by, music tries to cheer the reporter’s ears and mind, quite on purpose he took up some reading to motivate him. There are no plans for the next day, that was okay for Sunday, nothing wrong about resting on the seventh day – it just feels like a waste when you start the day with nothing to rest from because you have shaken off the burdens of the week’s work already on Saturday. Time still goes by but time doesn’t count in the city, it’s even more alife in the late night than in the evening. That settles it, slowly, still with an inherent reluctance, the reporter gets up from his chair and heads to the bathroom, ready to make himself ready, gaining resolution with each step of his preparations completed.
Having shaved, dressed, styled the reporter finally leaves his flat for there is no way back from here that wouldn’t make defeat complete and so the yet untold story unfolds, though not that different from so many other stories already told.
