Summer in Shittown

My exams went well. I could relax and enjoy the summer. But first I had to survive Shittown for two whole months.

Walking down the street here in my pitch-black outfit, alone with a book in my hand, was just asking for trouble.

People didn’t get that here; someone who wanted to sit quietly alone in a café and read a book, dressed like a stray goth, was immediately labeled a weirdo. They thought I was some kind of priest carrying his Bible, when I was actually reading Kafka.

Along the terraces, I was confronted by a group of conformist bar-goers—those who engage in group sex without realizing it. They laughed at me and shouted something in an indistinct dialect; I responded, briefly and wittily.

The communication was so poor that one of them had to repeat to everyone at the round table what comment I had made to them—a comment that is irrelevant here—but they clearly didn’t get the sarcasm.

I don’t want to judge or condemn, since others already do that enough, and I fully understand the need for social contact, for a circle where you feel comfortable, and that you then have to tolerate outsiders who are a little different within your group—but then they shouldn’t judge me either. Or that they do it in silence; everyone seeks their own environment, everyone has different qualities and flaws, but they should just leave me alone here for a moment.

I wished I were back in the city and could start the real work after my studies, as a writer and screenwriter, first for TV series and then, perhaps, for film.