I was born in Western Germany on a cold, rainy day in October 1986. My mother once told me that she had to travel to the hospital all alone in the pouring rain that night, as my father was at work – as usual. He was always working, day and night. His days were spent at the timber works, and at night he worked as a warehouse operative. Of course, on such a schedule, he didn’t have time for his family. As for my mother, she wrote for the local newspaper, giving tips on how to build relationships or grow gladioli. She was a perfect example of how you can give advice without actually being a specialist in anything. In our family, everyone was on their own. We were not even a family in its primary sense, just a collection of people under one roof.
It’s no wonder I became a troubled teen. I wasn’t a brawler or a drug addict, oh no. I studied well and came home on time. My “problem” was that nobody knew how to communicate with me. People around seemed so boring that I stayed silent most of the time, simply not understanding why anyone would bother to discuss such mundane things as weather, football or a film they watched last Sunday. In a way, I was a rebel, as I didn’t give a damn about public opinion. I was living in my own world by my own rules. I did what I wanted, the way I wanted.
The only person who could tolerate me was Sunny. His real name was Robert, but nobody called him that, not even his parents or teachers. I don’t remember how he came to be known as Sunny. Maybe it was because of his red hair and freckles.
Sunny pretended to be a pacifist and always avoided conflict. It was so important to him that everyone adored him. And people did adore him. He was positive, friendly, a ray of sunshine in this grey world. But I knew that this was only pretense, the mask he wore.
Nobody understood his relationship with me. It seemed to outsiders that we had nothing in common, but that wasn’t so. Our imaginations ran wild together, which troubled his parents. They scolded him, put him under house arrest, banned him from hanging out with me, or watching TV. My parents, on the other hand, had little interest in my life. Nothing was said as long as I came home before dinner, or at least before breakfast.
We lived in a small house in the suburbs at the edge of the forest. There, Sunny and I spent our childhood. At dawn, we would ride our bikes into the woods to our homemade hut filled with dishes, blankets and even food. We’d make a fire and cook fish that we’d caught in the Danube. Once, after reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” we built a raft to journey down the river, but it fell apart after a couple of miles. It was a miracle that we managed to get back to the shore. I remember being afraid of the water for at least a month after that.
Thinking back, we did many crazy things. We dared each other to jump off the roofs, and always seemed to have skinned knees and elbows. We rode our bikes like madmen trying to find out who was the fastest. We hunted birds with catapults. Once, Sunny took his father’s air rifle, and we shot a thrush. It was so small, so defenseless. I still remember that first acquaintance with death very well, and that uncomfortable feeling of pity and frustration. Why? Just like that? For fun? But I didn’t find it funny. It seemed too cruel. We buried the thrush and never hunted animals again – at least not together as children.
Sunny was undoubtedly the leader, but I tried to keep up. Looking back on those days, I realise that he was always walking a tightrope. Always tempting fate. I wonder what were his chances of growing up.
When we were a little older, we started playing football in the school playground with other guys, but I found it boring. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t really interested in kicking a ball. I much preferred sitting on the rocky shore of the hazy Danube early in the morning and dreaming about the future.
