Pick Your Poison

Pick Your Poison(Lily Ada Fischer) The sky is grey above berlin. It always was, always has been. Before the war, it had been the backdrop to both overindulgent picket fences and crime-ridden neighbourhoods, to shopping malls full of those who found contentment in consuming and those who desperately sought to. It was a humble reminder that Germans could truly be from anywhere, Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, China, or any other place. They could be Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or atheist. The one thing one truly needed to be German, was an unrelenting pessimism and an unholy appreciation for sarcasm. Happiness doesn’t lie in having blue skies, but in the comfortable misery of hating the grey sky as a nation of unenthusiastic critics. Not to say people were unhappy, just that happiness seemed like more of a fluid concept back then. You could be happy and miserable at once, and somehow that used to make sense.
During the war, the sky was a grey backdrop to the insanity below. A return to tradition was promised, and posters of nuclear families under blue skies were distributed. This, in spite of the fact that Germany is the grey sky it laments.
‘If they make the sky too pretty, you won’t be looking when you trip over the beggars on the street. Best to keep the sky grey and help the beggars.’

That’s what Marianne used to say.

Now, the sky wasn’t a backdrop to anything. No symbolism was to behold in the colour of the stratosphere, because there was no need for symbols to fight for now. The sky could mean anything the sky wants to mean, the war is over; It may have been the nostalgic recollections of a time before brutality, in which the sky’s unfriendly nature seemed somehow endearing, or the sky captured in articles about the ongoing war effort, where it was a symbol of constancy, a goal to fight for, no matter how grey. Here, standing on cobblestones imprinted with the names of those fallen prey to a war long before even this one, the young man didn’t think the colour of the sky meant anything, besides him gaining the brief realization that it was about to rain, so he should probably get on with it.


In his office, a man worked. Rain began to fall. The footsteps outside had stopped a few minutes ago, with the origin of the sound likely being stuck debating whether or not he should come in. Now that the rain was falling though, the inevitable ringing of the doorbell would surely occur soon enough. Getting up before the familiar cacophony even began, he pressed the necessary bottom to let his newly fellow captive of domesticity in. A short while later, there was an unsure rasping noise on the door.
When he opened it, a young man matching the disruption he had been given was standing in the hallway. He had backed away since knocking, though he only had a few seconds to do so.
He was around seventeen and had dark hair and blue eyes. He wore scruffy clothes all in black, and looked shiftier than disheveled, though it was a good mix of the two. He had bags under his eyes and wore a patchy trench coat with patches all over. These seemed less an aesthetic choice, and more so one of comfort, as the thread work seemed as though it had been done with vastly different levels of competency. The still outstretched hand of the boy still had slight stab marks from what seemed to have been his attempt at sewing. He had a family.
And now all he has is an alcoholic roommate, who reached for and shook the boy’s hand.
“Hello Mr. Libelle.”
“Hello Dauber.”


The room was painted a blueish white, just like the rest of the apartment. There was a closet, a desk, a shelf, and a mattress on the floor. Stacked on the desk were a few used books, some about politics and economics, others about science fiction. The books had clearly all been read a few times over, but Dauber appreciated the gift nonetheless. Next to the books, there was a potted plant that was wilting a bit. It was in a white pot, on which “welcome” had been written in sharpie. It was all a bit haphazard, but it was clear that this was at the very least a peace offering, if not even a genuine show of care.
There was a window too, overlooking the street below. There were mediocrely held shrubs, cobblestone, weeds, a road, a few cars, and a telephone pole with wires that hung Infront of the window. The wires bounced against the glass occasionally, courtesy of the wind. Some of the grime that had been accumulating on the window was being washed off by the rain.
Dauber took off his coat, placing it over the back of the chair. He turned to his suitcase and looked at it for a bit. He rolled it next to the bed, then turned his attention to his backpack, out of which he pulled a tin of coffee and a box of Swedish licorice. The choice of licorice was deliberate, not inconsiderate. Dauber liked vegan licorice, and since it was something most people wouldn’t step within a two-meter radius of, he had a good chance of ending up being the one to eat the stuff, even if it had originally been a gift to someone else. This was a gesture, not a sign of friendship. Much like the books and plant had been, he reasoned.
Stepping back out of his room, he creaked his way along the hallway. He despised the sound but figured making a little noise would alert Mr. Libelle to his presence.
Dauber knew as well as anyone who survived the war how unwelcome the feeling of being startled was.

The older man sat at the small dining room table that occupied a fifth of the living room. He wore a thick white-grey flannel shirt, light pants, and silver glasses. His hair was combed back, and he was reading from a laptop. He had a face full of freckles, and earlier Dauber had noticed his eyes were green. He approached the table, hesitant to pull up a sit, but not wanting to stand while the other sat, as he didn’t want to come off as awkward or unsure. He settled on pulling up a chair, it’s agonizing creak making both people in the room cringe.
“Um… these are for you Mr. Libelle.” Dauber slid the coffee and licorice towards Mr. Libelle, who looked at the offering, then smiled wearily. “We’re both comrades here, just Libelle is fine. Thanks for the licorice, I’m a big fan. Not of coffee though, you can keep that if you want.”
Dauber kicked himself internally. Nothing he could do now.
The two sat in silence for a while, as Dauber eyed Libelle’s computer.
Picking up on this, Libelle spoke: “I was a journalist. Before the war. Since they want us to resume a normal domestic life, that’s what I do now.” As he spoke, he seemed a tad performatively exasperated, as if to say ‘What’s a man to do without adrenaline?’
“Oh. How interesting.” Dauber responded slowly, attempting to look casual. Then, he dropped the act, since he remembered the man before him was a former spy: “So what are you reporting on?”.
“A wasp infestation. Though they are likely reporting to their queen about me as well, so I’d call it even.” Green eyes looked intently at Duaber. The message was quite clear. He appreciated the older man’s roundabout honesty.
“Wasps aren’t known to follow their queen out of choice. Besides, humans and wasps are reactive creatures. Are both to keep their distance, all the queen shall hear of are a man’s silhouette, and all said man is to tell his paper of is a distant humming.” Dauber hated the way he sounded, pompous and unnatural, yet this topic couldn’t be treated with the candor he otherwise much preferred. He was being as direct as his flowery metaphors let him be.
Libelle gave what was almost a smile, then closed the laptop. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
Then, Libelle stood up, placing both coffee and licorice in a cupboard in the adjacent kitchen. “You will resume schooling sometime this year, though the formalities haven’t been cleared, mainly due to public outcry over safety concerns.” Both hostages of the conversation felt a bitter aftertaste left by the words: safety concerns.
“One would think anyone with a heart was a dissident before the new normal. How we are any different I can’t imagen.” Dauber spoke, though he knew quite well that in fact, not everyone with a heart had been an active member in a terrorist cell.
“Were everyone in Germany to have a heart, Adleman would not have been elected, and the last war would never have been forgotten in the first place.”
The solemn silence that followed was one shared no longer by forced flatmates. It now belonged to the only kind of person the two could view as truly human any longer: comrades.
“Teas in the upper left shelf if you want any.” Libelle interrupted their shared melancholy from within the kitchen.

As they had cryptically agreed, the flatmates held their distance. Libelle worked on his journalism, and the kid read. After their conversation earlier that day, Libelle had shown Dauber the bathroom, where he had told Dauber which towel was whose to use. Then he led Dauber to the fridge and said he could take anything in it. He made clear the only rule Libelle had was to wash any utensils on the day of use. The boy had simply nodded and remarked that he ‘wasn’t one to domesticate sentient oatmeal’.
Since then, Dauber had been to the bathroom once, and the kitchen twice.
Libelle didn’t like taking stock of that sort of thing, it was simply a force of habit. When he went to pour himself some milk after the boy had returned to his room, he found a roll of tape and a sharpie on top of the fridge. This observation was granted to him not by extraordinary wit as it usually was, but simply because he was tall enough to view the top of the refrigerator.
Upon opening the fridge, his suspicions were confirmed as several items now had a label on them reading ‘Dauber’. The case of tomatoes in the vegetable section was the exception, being labeled ‘Libel’. It seems the boy had miscalculated the amount of tape needed. Libelle found Dauber’s apparent dislike of tomatoes quite amusing.
In a different household, labeling foods with tape may have seemed rude, but this wasn’t a household, it was the pleasantly decorated innards of a U-boat, sealed off from the rest of the world, housing a duo of not-quite-fugitives too scared to surface, since though if they may be aimless in the depths, in the light of day all they would be is adrift. Better to be awaiting orders than to face the fact that they have no agency left.
In light of this, labeling the food seemed like a welcome disinvitation from the conversation they’d had to have had otherwise.

Libelle returned the favour by picking up the sharpie and marking the spots on the floor that didn’t creak. Once, Dauber opened his door to see what Libelle was up to in front of his room. When he opened the door, Libelle was keenly aware of the laptop he could make out on the desk behind Dauber. Once Dauber understood what Libelle was up to, they nodded at one another, then he closed the door once more, and Libelle resumed.

After he was done, he returned to the kitchen to finally get his milk. He now decided that some liquorice was due as compensation for the backache his sharpie escapade had resulted in. Upon opening the box he noticed half the content was gone. Under the box was a piece of paper, describing a fictional day’s events. It described Dauber and Libelle going to the museum, walking through a berlin city park, and getting groceries. The letter was signed by Dauber: A letter to the wasp queen, if both accounts follow this timeline little suspicion is aroused. Apologies for the liquorice.

Libelle appreciated the timeline, but more so appreciated the fact that he and Dauber saw eye to eye. The kid seemed to share his aversion to mutual reporting. It seemed just a bit naïve to expect a former terrorist and retired spy to spend their days snitching on one another.


The days passed slowly. Dauber used their weak internet connection to chat with friends and keep up with the news, but every now and again the router would give out, and they were stuck reading by the window or curled in on themselves in a corner with the blanket and pillow Libelle had given them.
The books he’d been given were good, though the intoxicatingly sarcastic way they were narrated constituted most of the value they had to Dauber. He hadn’t touched the books on politics or economics, instead reading ‘Der Schwarm’, a book by acclaimed German writer Frank Schetzing. It was a good book, though what had initially drawn Dauber to it had been the little annotations that filled every couple of pages. There were two sets of handwriting, seeming to be in a dialog.

The annotations ranged from engaged to amused, quipping jokes or making small observations about the characters. They seemed heartfelt and sweet, and Dauber suspected this had been Libelle’s outlet for genuine emotion. He imagined a man working as a spy might need a thing like that.
He suspected the second style of handwriting, the one that left little smiley faces everywhere; was the reason Libelle had given the books away.
He understood that feeling all too well.

The more he read, the more he felt he was getting to know the man. At one point, the annotations point out that the main character; an older man with white hair good taste in wine, and an advanced intellect as well as an inhuman charm to him, was a self-insert for the author.

Next to the annotation, was a doodle of Frank’s face, and an arrow pointing out his white hair.

He kept reading, making the occasional trip to the kitchen or bathroom, but not leaving the house much. His flatmate didn’t either, so they were running out of food. Still, they didn’t talk.

On the third day, his silent roommate slipped a piece of paper under Dauber’s door, which detailed the timeline of a day they had supposedly spent at the zoo together.

Reports were written, and the laptop closed. He unpacked his things, while the world turned dark outside again. Time had stopped mattering a while ago. A few more books were added to the shelf, a stuffed shark joined his pillow and blanket on the floor, as the bed still went unused. His clothes were housed in the closet, and his electronics found their home in the desk drawer.
Then, he sat.

He continued to sit.

He continued not wanting to sit but has no alternative.

He keeps sitting.

The silence closes in, and the stationary nature of his mind let the world sink in. Sink in too much. Too unbearably much.
He got up, and with the nonchalance of a desensitized mind he opened his backpack, pulled out his toothpaste, and churned the lid off carefully. In the lid, he carefully shook a spoonful of green powder from the tube. He set down the tube and threw back the contents of the lid. It hurt and tasted terrible, but it always did.

He always spent the fifteen minutes until it set dangling in limbo. Sometimes it’s a harsh feeling, sometimes one of anticipation. There is the question of whether the rush is happening yet always hangs above his head, but when it does hit, there’s nothing left to be unsure about.

With his headphones on, he sprawls over the bed and stares at the ceiling. It’s closer, yet further. It’s there, yet not. Or maybe he isn’t. Or maybe he’s not. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

It matters so little, that even mattering doesn’t matter. If mattering doesn’t matter, then there is no matter.
Here where nothing is everything and everything is nothing, he is anything anywhere without being alive or dead, or anywhere at all.
To this, he falls asleep peacefully, for the first time in a long time. Things are harsh out there, but not in his head since all that’s left is a train of loose thoughts passing through falling cotton.


Libelle wasn’t proud of it. He wouldn’t have indulged in his habit, when the war was still ongoing. He wouldn’t have been able to afford such slip-ups. Now though, slip-ups didn’t matter. In fact, the further away he came from not being allowed to make slip-ups under the threat of death, the more he saw the big picture. Said big picture didn’t seem like slip-ups bothered it all that much, on account of the fact that from rock bottom, the whole world looked like a slip-up.
The glass gave off a clink as his old wristwatch clanged against it. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. What was he missing out on by having a drink? There was nothing left. Nothing left of the world? No there was plenty of world left. Plenty of new things he could learn to love. The world kept spinning whether or not there was a war. Was it him then, was there nothing of him left? No, there was plenty of him there. He had all the memories in the world to remind him of that. Then what was it? What made the world feel so hollow?
The need.
The need was gone. It wasn’t that there was no world left, he simply didn’t have a need for the world left. It wasn’t that there was nothing left of him, simply that he had no more need for himself.
He did need a drink though, so no harm no foul.

He emptied the bottle in his office, then got up. There was a secret compartment in the bathroom floor, a pleasant surprise he found by dropping his toothbrush a couple of times over the floor. There had been a hollow point, and he had followed dents in the floor left behind by the last occupant of the flat and opened it.
A fun wartime relic, that now housed his Jägermeister collection. He was still German after all.
He didn’t lock the door. He hear no movement from Dauber’s room, so there was no need. He lifted the hatch, then sat on the floor for a good long while. He could stop. He could get up, go to his study, pull out his convertible bed, and try to sleep. He could stop.
But he didn’t.
Because he didn’t want to try and sleep, he wanted to sleep. The difference between the two was quite apparent when on any sober night he could hardly lay still.
His friends were there when he tried, he was convinced. That was purgatory. The in-between between sleep and lucidity, the falling sensation of them tugging on you. They scream some days, other days there’s blood. He can’t tell whose blood it is anymore. He can’t even see specific details, can’t hear specific noises, more so it’s just a cacophony, one he doesn’t know how to escape. It feels as though the walls are closing in on him when the memories get close. Closer and closer, until he can’t take it anymore, and opens the hatch in the bathroom once again.


He sat like this for a good long while, when he realized he wasn’t alone in the darkness. Dauber was standing in the doorway, holding a toothpaste cap with an unmistakably familiar smell to it.

They looked at each other for a long time, before Dauber reached for the sink faucet, and turned the water on. He drank using his hand as a makeshift cup, then washed out the cap and turned the water off again. He looked at Libelle as though he wanted to say something, then simply left it at: “Sleeping is hard. But you aren’t awake alone.”

Dauber stood for a few more seconds, then made his way silently back to his room. Libelle sat for another few hours, then went to his room.


They were miserable.
Dauber was stuck with the moody melancholy typical of a comedown, and Libelle was doing his best to nurse his headache with Tylenol. Both of them had encountered each other in the kitchen, both on the search for tea. After they both made themselves a cup, they paused. It had seemed wrong not to sit together after the events of the night before, so they did. Neither had spoken a single word, as they continued to sit in silence after migrating to the kitchen table.
Then Dauber broke the silence: “I think it’s in our best interest not to report on each other. Considering.”
Libelle looked up from his tea: “Agreed.” Then he spared a look towards the kitchen. “We can write a report about grocery shopping instead. We might actually be half truthful for once.” He looked back at dauber, who nodded.

Outside, the air was chilly. A typically German day, where the clouds are indifferent and the wind is uncaring. Charming if one is in the right mood for it.
Dauber and Libelle were not in the mood for it.

They walked in silence for a god while then Libelle spoke: “Are you still using supplies from the cell?” Dauber nodded at this. “They were easy to come by back then.” Libelle knew quite well how much of a role performance enhancers had played on both sides during the later days of the war. How effective they were remained to be questioned, though their prolificity did not. “We weren’t dumb. We only used them for night shifts and guard duty.” Dauber seemed uninterested in justifying the use of drugs, more so he seemed invested in the upkeep of his image as a responsible terrorist.
“I wasn’t dumb either. Nor are we dumb now. Personally, I’m simply desperate. You thought I haven’t made up my mind.” Libelle said with a stern face, then spore Dauber a sideways grin once he realized his joke may have been taken as an insult, just to be met with an elbow to the arm.

“They could just record and listen in on everything we do, you know.” Dauber said a few streets later. Once again, it was a statement, not a question. It wasn’t a grand revelation, just an obvious observation. “They could.” Libelle said, as both of them continued to walk. As they did, both separately reached into their pockets and powered off their phones.
“Did you shut yours off?”
“Yeah.”

They walked, as the grey sky turned greyer. Walking across the cobblestone, the pair were silent. An exception to their self-inflicted desertion of language was when Libelle dragged Dauber back by the arm; an action to which Dauber directed a short string of profanity. Before this lamenting of the gods (which apparently included Libelle) could reach its peak, Dauber was stopped as he looked along the trajectory of Libelle’s index finger. On the ground, there where he would have stepped, was an engraved cobblestone.

“Oh.” Dauber blurted sheepishly.

The two of them stood, then Libelle read the engraving aloud:
“Here lived Ida Arensberg, Born in 1870, deported in 1942, and murdered on 18.9.1942, Theresienstadt.”
Dauber was the first to raise his hand to his heart, where he let it linger for a moment. Libelle followed suit.
“My apologies, miss Arensberg.”
“Later tonight there will be rain. May you have shelter, wherever you are now.” Added Libelle.

Across the street, another pair of passers-by walked over a different set of engravings, without notice.


Libelle and Dauber walked on, reaching the butcher’s shop at the end of the block. Dauber held open the door, as Libelle nodded thanks before stepping in. At times meat had been scarce during the war. Then again, so had everything. When Libelle had eaten meat, it had felt more like cannibalism. The occasions had always seemed pompous, as higher-ranking officials or work “colleagues” had been the ones to host them.

It always felt wrong to be served beef by a pig.

Then, later in the war, it had felt wrong knowing the pig across from you was only theoretically eating beef.

In praxis, they were all eating people.
He hadn’t held down many of those meals.

Now, he was free. He could be a person. Not an ideal, not a judge, not a jury, not an executioner. Not a cannibal.
He was free.

When Dauber had eaten meat, he hadn’t had the luxury of considering the moral implications of his survival. Sometimes it was canned, sometimes it was smoked. Sometimes it was a donation, sometimes it was bought, and often it was stolen. Always, it had been necessary.
It had been natural to eat animals when the scarcity of food turned you into an animal yourself. It hadn’t even really been a choice, because choices were reserved for bullets back then.

Now, he was free. He could be a person. Not a hunter, not anyone’s prey, not an ideology, not anyone’s last hope.
He was free.

So, the two liberated free men stood freely, ready to put the free will granted by their free souls to use,

When a pig squealed in the back.

It was a faint sound, but it froze the air with anticipation. Then, the squeals increased in intervals, until a loud thud silenced them.
Apparently, the butcher was a humane one, as stated with great delight by one of the patrons who were free of the numbing static that engulfed Libelle and Dauber. He was an ethical butcher, who killed his pigs the week of selling, and got them from a local free-range farm. The pig had led a good long life, full of the everyday joys afforded to it by a post-war world.

But that wasn’t the issue.
The issue was, that it hadn’t been a pig at all that had been slaughtered. To Libelle and Dauber, the squeals had been those of nameless strangers, friends, acquaintances, comrades, and statistics broadcast over the radio.

The two pigs looked at each other, both seeing their own pink hide reflected in the other’s Rosey pink faces, and walked out.

Outside, it had started to rain. Maybe the cobblestones were crying, though it was hard to conceive they would have any tears left.
Some pains are too grand, too insurmountable to be squashed into tears. Instead, they were balled into Libelle’s fist, and Dauber’s coat muffled screaming sobs.
Some of our humanity is too big to be reduced to words, so instead, it held Dauber’s back as Dauber leaned against Libelle. Two figures, in this moment, are reduced to their silhouette under an unlit mid-day streetlight.

It took a while for their hides to turn back to skin.



Mashed potato, stir-fried Colliflower, and cabbage. That, and tea. Each of them sat in front of a plate, not knowing if they should wait for the other to start or start themselves. In the end, Libelle made the first move, and they dined in silence. After finishing though, both of them sat. They seemed both too awkward to start a conversation, yet desperately wanted to.

“Did you have a choice in this arrangement?” Dauber asked. “No, not really. Though I don’t know who we would even be capable of interacting with. In light of that, it doesn’t seem too bad of a fate.” Libelle replied.
“Suppose we’d be more palatable if we had energy for intonating our sentences.” Dauber remarked.
Putting a broader spin on this, Libelle added: “It’s a simpler matter to adhere to the aesthetic of nicely when one isn’t burdened by the reality of the choices which would truly put one’s character to the test.”
“Do you think we might just be too cynical? One can be a good person through everyday acts. Though most people view niceness as a game of optics and intentions, our insistence that the moral character of a person is solely reliant on their actions is biting us.”
“We are too cynical. We are self-righteous, and uninviting people. Our memories prove us to be good people, so we feel no need to prove our morality to others. But that comfort in the authenticity of our misery is what gives us the aesthetic of people who are apathetic.”

“Suppose apathy and exhaustion do have a lot in common.”

The two of them sat for a while after this exchange, then Libelle broke into a chuckle. “Just look at us. Were analysing why people are unwilling to talk to us, while speaking in prose without affect.”

Dauber joined in the chuckle at that, then leaned in a bit, smiling.
“No comrade, these optimists are all foreign plants, their sunny disposition gives it all away.” Libelle didn’t think the joke was all that funny. But he needed to laugh, so he did. Dauber knew it wasn’t funny, but he needed to laugh too, so they did.

“Do you have a power outlet out here I could plug my laptop into?”
“I do, why?”
Dauber took a leap of fate. He didn’t want to be hung over alone.
“Because I think you’d enjoy watching The Hunt For Red October with me.”


They had watched The Hunt For Red October, both finding themselves being thoroughly uninterested in the American capture mission, only truly caring about the fate of the Russians. When the film ended, both started talking about U-boats, which resulted in an extensive Wikipedia expedition, as Dauber tried refuting Libelle’s claim that “Hunting in wolf packs wasn’t effective by the end of the war anyway.”. Before they could conclude their argument in any meaningful way, the two idealists were sitting in front of the director's cut of Das Bot. Close to the end, Dauber wouldn’t let Libelle use the bathroom, because as he exclaimed exasperatedly: “It’s my favorite scene, look!” On the landing strip of the U-boat, a single soldier was dancing without music in the far background. Libelle found it amusing, whereas Dauber broke out into hysterical cackling. This Libelle did find quite amusing.
“You watch a depressing film about the futility of war, and your favourite part is a production error?”
“Error? How dare you call that an error!”
Libelle raised his hands at this as if to say ‘what’s a man gonna do?’
While Libelle was using the restroom, Dauber took the opportunity to put on Kursk. When Libelle came back, he was positively surprised by this, since: “It’s the only film that’s gotten me to cry in a very long time.”
They cheered for, laughed with, and cried over the crew of the Kursk. They held their breath with the men who dove underwater, then counted the seconds when they couldn’t hold it any longer. When the two men who had been diving made it to temporary safety, they cheered.
By the time they made it to watching Der Schwarm, which they both agreed was an honorary U-Boat film, mainly due to Libelle’s insistence, it was eight in the evening. Libelle sat dauber in front of the film, telling him he had already seen it upwards of three times, so he would make dinner while Dauber watched, as this was of imperative importance.
They ate sauerkraut and fried zucchini with rice, as the crew of the independence squabbled for the survival of humanity.

A few films later, Dauber brought the licorice he had taken out of the kitchen a few days ago out of his room to share, and Libelle made warm milk for them both. Another few films later, their eyes began falling shut.

Instead of going back to their rooms, Dauber fell asleep with his head on his folded arms, and Libelle slept as he sat, chin tilted forward.
They were both used to impromptu resting sessions after all.
Libelle woke up at some point, his lungs expelling all that was keeping him unconscious in a violent burst. His breathing slowed after a while. The floor was red here, just like it had been moments ago in his dream. Then, it had been blood, now it was the light of a red street sign that flooded the room. Red, like danger, like banners of iron fists and burning hospitals.
Red, like human hearts, like banners of resistance, like daybreak.
Colors mean quite little since evidently; they don’t care much about the meaning we assign them.
The colors, much like the memories, were simply there. They seem so insurmountable, yet Libelle was simply a memory himself. He was simply there. More importantly, he was a memory in the making. No matter what his thoughts made him relive, he was still here to relive anything at all.
The street signs' color meant very little since the existence of the sign was what mattered. The war was over. It was just a memory.

On the balcony, Dauber threw shadows. Libelle stood up and joined him in the cold.

“What if no one remembers them?” Dauber asked once they were standing side by side next to a humming heater vent.

“The people we lost?”
“The people who gave us the luxury of forgetting.”

Tentatively, Libelle put his hand on Dauber’s shoulder.
“We aren’t allowed that luxury. Where there are two, there are many.”

“I bet that’s what they thought after the last war too.”

“Well did you forget?”

Dauber looked confused for a moment, then looked at the cobblestone below.

“Suppose I didn’t. Even if I never knew them.”

Libelle looked down too, his gaze melancholically loving.

“But you do know them. You may not know their thoughts names or faces, but you know their determination. You know their songs. You know their hurt and their love. You know yourself, and so, you know them too.”

It started to rain again, and the puddles started to shimmer in the same red tint as Dauber and Libelle.

“Right now, the only thing I know is that Ida deserves more than a cobblestone.”

“So do the hands that stitched your coat.”
“And the annotations in your book.”
“So do you.”
“And you.”

“So let’s do something about it.”

The Tages Platz lay empty. After the violent takeover, it stood empty. The rebels and insurrectionists had set up the new parliament and temporary government on the museum's island further in the city. They had stayed there since the rebels agreed on the symbolism of protection of knowledge suited the new Germany better than the Tages Platz, where mass book burnings had taken place.

It was guarded, though not well enough to keep out an ex-operative, tipsy or not.

The sun was rising outside as they got to work. The fireworks had been easy enough to get a hold of, as most stores still had leftovers from the Silvester celebrations. The fascist government loved their fireworks, but only when they were used to celebrate the new state, as it was called.

That had to change.

Getting them set up had taken a while, with Libelle taking a nap sometime around noon, as Dauber worked on through the buzz he was in. They were done around eight that night, having set up a rudimentary trigger using an old alarm clock they bought in an antiquities shop on their way.

They snuck out around nine, by which point Dauber needed an urgent break, Libelle decided. He had made sure to ask the kid what day it was every hour or so, and by the third time he got it wrong, Libelle pulled the plug. They didn’t need to double-check a fifth time.

They waltzed through the street with an innocent gate, making their way to a building across town. Along the way, they stopped at a bakery, where Libelle gave in and bought them both a fancy coffee. They needed to stay awake for the show after all.

The roof of an office building would do just fine they decided. They spent the next half hour figuring out how they would smuggle a whole box of pizza to the roof with them. Another half hour later, the pizza was smuggled to the roof by way of being in securely hidden in their stomachs.


They stood, side by side, the way they had the night before. The stars were beautiful already, but little thought was given to them in favour of the constellations the two delinquents planned to add to the firmament.

Five to eleven.

“This is for Miriam. Miriam, Ina, Ana, Clara, Jan, Kristof, Nole, Evan and Nestor. All those who gave their lives to a cause, and their blood to my nightmares.”
“This is for Hanes, Julia, and Fin. This is for Karl, the man who gave his life to a cause and his heart to a bullet before I could give him mine.”

Three to Eleven. Dauber started singing.
“Wir sind die moorsoldaten,”
Three and a half to Eleven. Libelle joined in.
“Und wir zihen mit dem spaten ins moore.”
Five past eleven. Libelle checks the time and nods to Dauber.

The air above the tages platz exploded into sparkling, burning glitter, as the city woke up for a second time that day. From open windows below, they heard confusion, then a few cheers, as the cobblestones reflected the celebration above.

The sky is grey, just as we are, and somewhere along the way, we forgot if it is us who reflect the sky or the sky that reflects us within our own eyes. Humanity is simply a canvas for its stillness, as it is for our movement.

Right now, though, neither its meaning nor symbolism matters as much as its purpose, which in this instant is singularly to embrace this tiny burst of freedom. Shimmering in the exothermic heat of positivity, time stood still.

The war was over, the future had yet to begin, and since both of those terms were made up to describe constructs just as hollowly human, there was nowhere for time to go quite yet without the consent of the two silhouettes painted like oil over the tapestry of Berlin. They stood still in the knowledge that anywhere else, anytime else; they would be eternally out of place. Except here. Except now. All the pulsating neon blood of the world; the blood of the innocent, the blood of scapegoats, the blood of the altruistically sinful and the idealistically outlawed, had still been spilled, just as much as it had been yesterday, and would still be come tomorrow. Yet, right now, it was in the sky, far enough away to be its own entity, without having to feed off of Dauber’s daydreams or Libelle’s nightmares. For just a moment, they were who they would have been, had they not had to be everyone they lost instead.

Then, the moment passed, just as it had been just as much glory as it had been selfish, just as much beautiful as it had been selfless.

Two people who had lived years being painfully aware of how much everything mattered, were now faced with the frank realization that there was nothing wrong with them, nor the world; in the sense that nothing seemed to matter, though that simple luxury seemed yet again to matter more than the words one could have used to explain this contradiction.

The fireworks were gone, having only seen so little.
The stars are still there, being forced to see so much.

Two stars, with a cosmic distance between them, because not even stars can get too close to one another. They can, however, understand one another.

There are other stars. There are planets, moons, asteroids, and all that is yet to be known.

For now, though, they are busy enough teaching each other that they are not fireworks. Constellations can come later.

And yet, nothing truly changed. There was nothing that could bring back the fallen, or delay the future. Nothing that could save those who gave themselves over to desperation or nihilism. A few fireworks wouldn’t set the world right again, nor would they change the people who set said fireworks free. Nothing changed, but that was alright. The world had changed enough through the war, through the deaths, through the lives that hadn’t been lost and the bombings and the raids. Now, life wasn’t about grand acts of martyrdom anymore. Now, all that was left was to let time pass again, to live in the moment, with both feet on the ground.
Nothing had changed, except for the fact that Dauber and Libelle were allowed to move on.

“We can’t afford to forget them. But maybe we can afford to forget ourselves.” Libelle said, as they passed by Ina’s cobblestone.

“Maybe we can, Leo.” Dauber responded.
“Maybe we can, Felix.” Replied Leo.

Start.


Afterword:

The second world war lasted from 1939 to 1945, and it took the lives of an estimated 72-89 million people. These ranged from all the genocide victims of the Nazis to Allied forced to freedom fighters and civilians.

However, this figure doesn’t account for the surviving victims of Japanese experimentation programs, children born to the Lebensborn program, broken families, those who suffered lifelong PTSD after combat, those robbed of a childhood or parenthood, those who spent years of their life in POW camps, and all the other sufferers which, were I to list them all I would never be able to end. The cruelties and tragedies of war are too great for comprehension, not to mention human language.

Today, there is talk in Germany of lessening the amount of time spent in school covering the suffering of the war, as this is seen as too harsh a subject to force on children. There is a resurgence of republican and Nazi organisations, and the AFD is becoming more and more of a legitimate threat to democracy. This year of 2022 marks the first year Germany has engaged in any international conflict since the second world war, though this was due to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. These conflicts and Germany’s engagement in them will become more and more common in coming years, as the atrocities of the second world war fall further and further into the past. This is not necessarily negative or positive, yet it does beg the question:
How much are we willing to forget?

When one visits Berlin, there are golden and silver cobblestones engraved with the names of those who lost their homes, families, and lives to the unspeakable evils of the Holocaust. There are museums dedicated to the remembrance we owe those who lost their lives to senseless brutality. There are statues, and songs, and commemorative plaques. Though these aren’t worth much if we stop talking about the lives that were lost, and allow ourselves to forget the implications of our past.

We don’t have the privilege of forgetting those who were denied the right to live.