Zig Zag

I am in a forest, and after the phone call with Maxi, I switch my phone to silent. What I am thinking of is food, because I feel nauseous; because my fingers are somehow going numb. And I think of low blood sugar and that I should eat something soon.

The sun is shining. While going for a walk, I call Maxi and I am happy to hear her voice:
Do you have a few minutes? – No, I’m actually out and, you know me, already running late. – Okay, just one minute then? Because, what’s going on? Why all these emails? What’s wrong with Musaab? – Oh. Well. You haven’t heard? (Silence.) Musaab was stabbed to death on Friday. At the counseling center, where he worked. – What? Musaab? Our Musaab? – Yes. It’s awful. Really horrible. – Yes, yes. It is horrible. – But can we talk later? – Sure.

Something gets accidentally interlocked inside my head. Part of me knows very well that the one thing has nothing to do with the other. But I feel that both things are interlocking themselves. I feel nauseous and I am hungry. Can injustice cause nausea? I try not to think of the fact that Musaab was stabbed or that he is dead. Because when I think of it, I can imagine it too vividly and I don’t want that.

On August 29, 2015, Mussab wrote to us, the participants of the 2015 Summer School,
in an email:
LAST stands for »Landesaufnahmestelle für Flüchtlinge« (State Placement Facility for Refugees), or as some like to call it, camp. Some politicians (from the opposition) are against the term »camp« but it’s still used to show that the conditions here at the LAST are inhumane enough for the word to fit. The other politicians (of the governing parties) are against the word and don’t want other politicians to use it, because, they say, by using the word, the opposition are dehumanizing the inhabitants and are making it sound like the former work camps. When you ask the inhabitants of the LAST where the »Landesaufnahmestelle« is, they don’t know – but they sure know where the camp is.

On July 19, 2017, the day of Musaab’s memorial service in Berlin, I wrote to a friend:
Maybe it’s not stress, but rather waves of sadness that roll up and hit me with the fear of volatility. I think, up until yesterday, I didn’t fully grasp that Musaab is irrevocably gone, that I won’t meet him at the Summer School and won’t work with him on his new play for »Szenogramme.« I can’t really put it into words. But the anxiety that a life can so suddenly slip away runs through me and pierces my heart.