He was late for school once, finding locked gates as he skidded to a halt on his rubber-soled shoes on a pavement dusted with ice and with snow. He slings his orange satchel across his shoulders and decamps to the park across the road, climbing a piece of steel playground equipment that looks like the … Continue reading Lost between strange worlds

The corner of Wellington Street and Dandenong Road at 4am is bathed in a sea of flashing blue lights. He thinks they might be stars exploding, a final farewell to the night sky that has been their home for billions of years. Or, they might be from a police car. He can’t be sure. He's … Continue reading 4am, St Kilda

It didn’t take long for The Man to become bolder. After that first encounter, his Saturday mornings are increasingly filled with pornography. He doesn’t want to like it, but his awakening sexuality invites, almost compels him, to take in the images, to allow fantasises to play out in his mind. The Man watches. The first … Continue reading Polaroid

The first time it happens, his body reacts in a way he’d never imagined. He works in the bookshop every Saturday morning, has done for several weeks now. His job is to unpack the boxes of second-hand books, deceased estates usually, and classify them by genre, little piles of Crime Fiction, Romance, Literature, History, and … Continue reading Porn

There are deep hollows in the 533 steps leading to the top of the Kölner Dom’s south tower, deep imprints in the stone stairs, a gradual wearing down taking shape over centuries. The Dom is almost 800 years old. He can’t imagine anything being nearly 800 years old, can’t conceive of the number of people … Continue reading Dicker Pitter

He loves the anonymity of Karnival, held every February around his birthday. It feels like the city is celebrating him. Children dress up in costume. Adults too, play dress-ups, masked and hiding behind false faces that strike fear and laughter in equal measure. Millions of people in hiding, for a single day. He loves dressing … Continue reading All the colours of the universe

The occasional trips to Bückeborg to visit his great-aunt, Tante Anna, were filled with wonderment and joy. His Oma’s sister, also a survivor, lived in the small town, east of Köln, about halfway to Berlin. There’s a castle in the town, Schloss Bückeborg, that always fascinated him, its pale yellow façade lined with more windows … Continue reading Rain in summer

He saw an old newsreel once, a short 90-second clip he found on YouTube, that recorded the moment in 1955 or ’56 when the last 5000 German prisoners of war were repatriated to Germany after years in Russian captivity. His Opa, long thought dead by those who loved him a nation which no longer needed … Continue reading Fresh bread

He finds it strangely soothing, peeling his morning hard-boiled egg. From the initial crack to the slightly obsessive game of trying to remove the rest of the shell in one large piece, the process helps him forget. His fingers burn slightly at the touch of the hard shell, fresh out of the saucepan that sits, … Continue reading Who will buy her the newspaper when he is gone?