A classy whore who heaved herself onto the street despite a cold that made her feel shaky, suddenly saw that she didn’t care about being classy after all anymore. She remembered when she’d been a girl and strange as it seemed to her and maybe to you, she also remembered who she hadn’t been but who she could’ve been. At some point, as she was steadying herself against a black post, a customer approached her. She noticed his empty look, his expensive shoes, his manicured hands. He held onto her with these hands as she held onto the post. She found it peculiar, even laughable that this man, who seemed but a shell of a person and who probably had no idea why he was really here, held on to her when she was the sick one. Her illness became a crystal ball reflecting not just real images around her, but fantasies, too, and while armies of bacteria were swarming out boisterously playing attack and retreat with her blood cells, she began to expand her mind with colors that she hadn’t thought existed, and with words that hadn’t made any sense before this moment. “Why don’t you say anything,” said the man, and she became aware that he stood too close and was spitting in her face while talking. She didn’t like his voice, his shoes, his stance – and before she fell down at his feet, she thought it odd that her looks had concerned her for so long.

Previously posted at Nothing to Flawnt.

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Marcus Speh is a writer and professor who lives in Berlin, Germany.

Object(s) to bring back to life: “I miss a cake my mother made for me only on my birthday, called Frankfurt Crown Cake (‘Frankfurter Kranz’). Though when I’m honest, I don’t miss the cake itself as much as the sweetness of her smile when she showed it to me without fail. And she didn’t even like to bake.”