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Document Type

Creative Work

Abstract

[First paragraph]

Oh, August remembers, hears both girls whisper the diminutive word, over and over, as if wanting to weigh it. It hardly agrees with the heavy air in the Schandfleck [i], with the dense cigarette smoke and the babbling voices August feels are penetrating him. One of the regulars squeezes by the table, haggard old guy with a floppy hat and the drooping eye, his three-legged dog limping behind him. August's eyes follow them, the dog adroitly avoiding the beer puddles through which his master wades carelessly. No latte macchiatos here says the writing on the wall, there are flyers on the tables, the customers all talk at once, the room is theirs, on six days music blares, until Wednesday at midnight, when, on the seventh day, Silent Thursday, the music shuts down. August feels inside the pocket of his jacket for the tie he is hiding, two shirt buttons are undone, all to make him less conspicuous; his shoes are dusty, after work he walked for hours until the rain came down and, almost home, he landed here. The Schandfleck has lodged itself in a dilapidated house, behind crumbling plaster and dense ivy: the last of the dives in this freshly spruced up street, cracked elephant skin in a long row of pastel colored façades. Susanne hates the Schandfleck, even the ivy is shabby and half dead, she once said, look at the sickly color, maybe it was poisoned by the Eastern or prewar plaster, in which it is still rooted, or else by the smoke that oozes out. And inside, well, that pack, those mutts, how can you. Susanne dislikes everything that is left over and has not been modernized; Oh, and you don't, she once asked him, don't you prefer parquet in the apartment to rats? Parquet. August had hoped he would feel comfortable in the Schandfleck, where time and air stood still. But now he finds that being there is only tempting as long as you are not there, the standstill is merely sticky, he feels beleaguered by talk and smoke. He would like to do something with himself, maybe make himself weightless, or at least his head empty; then suddenly he remembers

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