07-11-2025, 02:34 PM
Yesterday, Mirko came up to me and told me that he and his family had decided to move to the Ruhr region at short notice. That was a slap in the face for me.
My mood was in a complete slump that day. Mirko, on the other hand, was dancing on air. It was one big adventure for him. He was as excited as if Easter and Christmas fell on the same day.
I couldn't understand how he could be so happy. Is he happy to finally be rid of me?
“Hey, what's wrong? Why are you making such a face?”
“I just don't understand why you're so happy to get out of here! I just don't know how I'm going to kill time here without you.”
“Hey. Come on, be happy with me that I'm finally getting out of here. And why should we lose sight of each other. You just can't keep something like us apart!”
He tried to cheer me up with a little smile. But it didn't really work, all I got back was a pained smile.
“Promise me that you'll write to me at least once a week!” it shot through and straight out of my mouth.
“Of course, do you think I would forget my best friend? No way, you'll get so much to read from me that you'll kick yourself in the ass!” he promised and grinned cheekily at me again.
The last day wasn't exactly pleasant though. I sat there like a sip of water while Mirko and his family scurried around preparing the last bits and pieces for the move. The night before departure was cruel for me, I lay in bed and couldn't sleep a wink. I kept crying and I just couldn't imagine how I could go on living here without Mirko. It was simply cruel. And when the day came, I stood in front of Mirko's car with bloodshot eyes and dark circles under my eyes and said goodbye to him in tears.
“And you promise to write to me as often as you can?”
“Yes,” he replied, looking a little annoyed, ”I'll write as soon as we arrive.”
“Sorry to be a pain, but I miss you already.”
“I understand what you mean. At least I'll get out of this wasteland and you'll have to spend the next few years here. But I promise you, you'll hear more about yourself than you'd like.”
Then he and his family got into the car and drove off. I stood at the side of the road the whole time and waved after them. I stood there for quite a while and watched the car, I even stood there when the car was no longer visible.
The next few days and weeks were terrible for me. After school, I went home, sat in front of the TV and let myself be bombarded. And that went on for quite a while until I moved to grammar school and met new people and built up a new circle of friends ....
That was 10 years ago now. It was shortly after reunification and many families “fled” to the “West” in the hope of wealth, work, prosperity and probably also out of fear that the Wall would be built once again and they would be stuck in the GDR again.
Mirko's family was one of these families. Today we are both 18 years old and even if nobody expected it, the friendship still exists, we wrote at least one letter to each other almost every week and it was still like at the beginning, with every letter I receive, my heart beats with joy and does three somersaults.
Today is another one of those days. There was only one letter in the letterbox straight after school and this time it was another one from Mirko. I grabbed the letter and ran upstairs to my kingdom. I threw myself on the bed and ripped open the letter in a hurry. It wasn't really anything special anymore, because the letters were the norm, there were already more than 1000 of them on my desk, but I was still as happy as a little child and had to read them straight away.
As always, I carefully unfolded the letter.
Hi Gregor
What I have to tell you today will probably knock your socks off.
After 10 years you will finally see me again and this time not just for a few days but for a longer time.
My mom and dad have decided to move back to Mendelshaben (I hope the place doesn't exist) after all these years. After all these years, they want to go back home after all. It comes as quite a surprise to me and my brother. But I'm really looking forward to finally seeing you again. The time here wasn't exactly the best. I really missed the people from my old home. The move back is just as sudden as the move away. In just 3 days, my parents, my brother and I will be on our way.
I'm really looking forward to seeing you and everyone else again.
I hope you'll forgive me for writing such a short letter today, but all hell is breaking loose here because of the move. My mom is whirling around the apartment like a madwoman, trying to somehow bring order to this mess.
My dad helps her wherever he can and takes on the heavy lifting for her. And I'm jumping around the apartment like a lunatic and am really happy to finally be home again.
But I really have to stop now, otherwise I won't be able to pack and stow everything away.
This was my last letter to you, because from now on I'm going to tell you everything straight away.
See you in 3 days at 17:00 at our old apartment.
Mirko
Did I just get that right? Mirko is coming back? I just couldn't believe it. I read the letter over and over again. I have no idea how many times.
I just couldn't believe that Mirko, my best friend Mirko, was coming back.
When I realized it after ages, I jumped up and couldn't believe my luck. I jump around the room like a fool and dance like I'm on cloud nine.
“Oh God,” I think to myself when I see the postmark. It's arriving today, the letter has been on its way for two days. Oh my goodness. So fast. Shit, it's so sudden that I don't even have time to be happy about it, let alone prepare anything for him. When I look at the clock, it's already 4:30 pm.
“Shit again!” I gasp. I can hardly make it another half hour.
I run down the stairs as fast as I can, grab my bike and pedal so hard that my chain almost flies off right at the start. Luckily, our town isn't particularly big, it's more like a big village and everyone knows everyone else.
That often gets on your nerves. If you carelessly drop your fag in the street, it's in the local newspaper the next day. That kind of thing is really annoying, I'd rather have the anonymity of the big city. I know many people can't understand why people want to move to the city, but if you've lived in a small town for 18 years, you're happy to finally see something different.
Sure, there's a disco in our town, but what a disco. Only kids or those village bums hang out there. Not to mention that there's no decent music there at all. No, you're bombarded with stuff like Blümchen or N' Sync and I really don't fancy that. There's nothing else for young people in this town. Most of them hang out somewhere in the area and get high on alcohol or other drugs. Yes, that's right, there are drugs in the village too, not as obviously and excessively as in the big city, but they do exist. And they are mainly used to numb oneself from the dullness of the old people and the authority of the teachers and boredom.
But I'm getting too off topic again at the moment. God I wish I could get out of here. But all right. After about 10 minutes, I reach the old block of flats where Mirko and his family are apparently going to move back in. It's one of the old prefabricated housing estates left over from the GDR era. Not exactly the nicest place to live. But it was cheap housing. Low rent, low heating costs, low electricity costs. Years ago, I lived in a building like that, but then my family moved into their own house and since then it's finally been quiet.
You have to realize that the walls in such apartments are as thin as paper. You hear every noise from your neighbor, every argument and everything else you don't want to hear.
Of course, this also causes a lot of unrest in your own family, but since everyone has had their own realm, that problem has also been solved. I realize I'm distracting from the topic.
So I arrived on time after all. It was more than in time. About 5 minutes until they would show up. So I put my bike away and sat down on the steps outside the front door. The seconds passed like chewing gum, every second seemed like hours.
Finally, a car turns the corner with the license plate K. It can only be Mirko. I don't know anyone else who would drive here from Cologne. No sane person would do that.
As the car gets closer, I can see Mirko's dad behind the wheel. He seems to look the same, except that his skin is a little wrinklier and his hair has more gray strands. But otherwise the 10 years don't seem to have done him any harm.
The car stops right in front of me, braking abruptly. I jump up from the steps and my hands are damp, as if I'm about to go on my first date. Oh God, my heart is pounding as if it's about to burst, but luckily it doesn't.
The doors of the car open and four faces emerge. From the driver's side, of course, Mirko's dad, who, as I said, has hardly changed at all, except for the fact that his hair and skin have suffered a little over time. From the passenger side, Mirko's mom steps out onto the road. Unlike before, she now has a fashionable short haircut and has lost a few kilos over the years. She has become a real feast for the eyes for her age. You'd think she was just an aging model. It's amazing what miracles time can do, she must have lost at least 20 kilos. There's a happy sparkle in her eyes, as if she's seeing something today that she's been looking for for ages and never found.
Maik and Mirko get off at the back. Maik is Mirko's younger brother, although small only refers to his age. He is a good head taller than Mirko and is only about a year younger than him. If I'm not mistaken, Maik should be 17 now. So that's what the little pest from back then has become. A big, handsome boy. But he doesn't seem too happy. As if he's reluctant to go along with this. Which I can certainly understand. He stands forlornly next to the car with his head down, apparently not knowing what to do.
Mirko, on the other hand, jumps out of the car with a huge smile and immediately throws his arms around my neck.
“Home again at last!” He is really relieved to see his old home again and not have to leave.
I haven't seen Mirko since his last visit, which was 5 years ago. A lot has happened in that time and everyone has changed, including Mirko of course. His growth spurt must have stopped at some point. He's a good head shorter than me, I reckon he's around 1.70-1.75, but he's still the lanky guy he used to be. There's not an ounce of fat on his body, but no muscle either. Black hair and brown doe eyes. But he must have reported the beard growth twice when it was awarded. Either he hasn't shaved for the last two days or they're just shooting out of his face. I'm guessing the former - moving house is a lot of stress and it's easy to forget your daily routine.
Just as quickly as he threw his arms around my neck, he quickly detaches himself again and starts looking me over.
“Hey, what's happened to you? I almost didn't recognize you!”
“Why Mirko, who is that actually?” his mother now asks.
At that moment, I couldn't help but grin. It's nice when you can change so much that others don't recognize you.
“Ma, that's Gregor!” Mirko shoots back. At this moment, the jaws of the other three drop so hard that a magnitude 9 earthquake could have been measured.
“Don't be so jumpy, it's been five years since we last saw each other. And you've changed a lot, too!” I immediately reply to Mirko's mom.
“That makes two of us now!” she smiles at me. “But stop calling me 'you'! You never used to do that and don't start now, otherwise I'll feel so old. So I'll stick with Marion!”
“Okay, then I'll stick to Marion and you, sorry, YOU, of course, Gregor.”
Mirko now pushes me a little away from him and looks at me closely. To clear up this behavior:
It's actually quite easy to explain. About 4 years ago, I had a minor, or rather major, crisis. It was actually the trigger for me to change. I used to be a fat little chubby girl. Really, I was fat up to the top. And the crisis made me fall so low that I finally decided to make something of myself. So I started to lose weight, which unfortunately soon became almost pathological. I lost more than 30 kg in a very short space of time. But luckily people kept telling me how skinny I was and so I found myself again and put on 10 kilos. Today I finally feel comfortable with my weight and with myself. I'm certainly not a top model yet, but I certainly don't want to be. Otherwise I've just shot up and with my hard-won 1.92 I'm not exactly the smallest. I'm quite happy with that. At least I don't have to look up to others any more. At least I don't have to look up too often. To give you a complete description of myself, I also have green eyes and black hair, which has recently been cut short, and if it's still relevant, my shoe size is 43 and my trouser size is 32/33 ;-). And to define the crisis even more precisely. It was the time when I admitted to myself that I was gay, which hasn't changed to this day and to this day only my parents know about it.
Mirko took a few more minutes to look me over. Above all, I somehow feel like I'm sitting on a platter. It's not exactly a pleasant feeling and I quickly turn red. Maik and his father are still standing there with their mouths open, while Marion and Mirko have already gone back to normal
“As always, you're so kind and help us carry the last boxes up!”
Mirko still has a way of turning a request into an order. I'm normally a sloth and don't like to work. That's just the way it is, I prefer to have a good time and hang around stupidly. But I hate it like the plague when something is forced on me, like now. But this time, I don't really care. At least I can hang out with Mirko for a while. But in future he'll probably learn what it means to force something on me. And I can't really complain, as there are only a few boxes of personal belongings left to carry into the apartment. Apparently the removal men had already moved most of them into the apartment during the day yesterday.
“Of course I'm happy to help. It's no problem at all.”
“Still the Gregor from back then, can't say no to anything even today!” Marion grinned wryly at me from the side.
“Oh yes, I can say no. I've got myself under control so far. I think you'll have a lot of fun with my stubbornness in the future!” I grinned cheekily.
Even Mirko's father and Maik had their jaws dropped again and seemed to be back to normal. Only Maik hung his head again. He looked really pitiful the way he was standing there. Rolf, Mirko's father, regained his composure and went to the trunk and opened it. At that moment, I began to hate estate cars. They simply had too much storage space for me at that moment. There are at least 10-20 boxes all to carry upstairs. Oh God, what have I let myself in for!
Now I had already agreed and couldn't go back.
“And now everyone get to work on the boxes, standing around won't move anything!”
It seemed that it wasn't just me who wanted to leave the boxes in the car for the next few years, Maik and Mirko also looked like they'd rather hide away at the moment.
“Grab it!”, he told Maik and pressed two boxes into his hand. “Marion, will you go upstairs and unlock the door?”
“Already done darling!” Such harmony was almost unbearable ;-). It really seemed like it would have been best to go back.
“When did you start thinking about coming back?” I began to ask as we made our way up to the fifth floor with the boxes.
“For some time now! Why do you ask?”
“And why did you tell me about it three days before? I actually only received the letter three quarters of an hour ago! I must still be in shock. I don't think I've realized yet that you're staying here!”
“Ouch,” I cried out and almost dropped the box.
“You see, you're not dreaming and I've just pinched you. Wake up or realize that I'm staying here!” he grinned at me.
“You don't have to give me a bruise!” I grumble back. But I definitely don't mean any harm. I'm still too overwhelmed inside, I finally have him back.
“And you're so happy! Don't you miss your friends, acquaintances etc. from there? Don't you care about any of that?”
“Can we talk about it later, please? I'm just running out of breath with all this running around and I can't talk anyway!” Inwardly tense and curious about everything that has happened, I still have to pull myself together. I don't know how they managed to fit so many boxes into such a small van. In any case, after walking up and down at least 10 times, my feet are smoking. Up to the 5th floor, heavily loaded, back down again. Up to the 5th floor, back down again ...
I just let myself fall onto Mirko's bed and take a deep breath.
“God, I'm exhausted! Why did I come by!” I grin at him.
“Why do you think? Because you're just curious and want to be the first to know everything so you can gossip about it!” A pillow immediately comes flying off me and lands right in Mirko's face. Mirko staggers and falls backwards onto his backside.
As soon as he's caught himself again, he jumps up and comes straight at me.
A fierce tussle starts between us. I'm the bigger one, but he's still the stronger one, so at first it goes back and forth, sometimes he's on top, sometimes I'm on top. But in the end, he's the one who gets the upper hand. He pins me to the floor, so to speak.
His knees are on my hands and his bottom is on my stomach so that I can no longer move properly and only then does his real punishment begin. He starts to tickle me from top to bottom and I simply can't defend myself under his weight. I squirm under him. Squealing and screaming like a small child. But it's also really stupid in situations like this when your whole body is ticklish. I have to laugh and squeal so much that my stomach hurts and apparently I squirm so much under Mirko that he has to give up, even he starts to sweat.
Exhausted, we fell onto the bed next to each other and had to take a deep breath. I don't know exactly how long it took me, but I was gasping my lungs out.
“So why did you come back?” I asked, still out of breath.
“There are many reasons. The main one, of course, was that my father got a job offer here. He's starting as a roofer next week. It's tough over there when you have to get by without a job and without a steady income. But that's only been the case for the last few months, because my father wasn't earning too badly at the beginning. It's just that the company went bankrupt three months ago and he was out on the street!” He pauses for a moment and then continues.
“And, of course, because we all missed our old friends here!” He looked at me and gave me a smile.
“But don't you already miss all your friends from there?”
“What friends? They're all assholes, those Wessis. None of us over there have made any real friends!”
“Why should they be assholes? I never had any real problems with anyone from the former FRG. They were actually always super nice!” (*wink wink*chuckle chuckle*).
“You just have to talk to them. They think they've eaten wisdom with spoons. They don't accept anything else and believe their shitty capitalism is the best thing that has ever existed on earth. They don't even know how well off we were before reunification!” Did Mirko really just say that? Doesn't he know how bad it was before reunification? We were only 7 - 8 years old at the time. But neither of us should have fallen on our faces. The buildings were ready for demolition. You could hardly get anything sensible in the supermarket, which was still called Konsum back then. It was enough if you had to have Christmas written down to get one Santa Claus per child. Has he forgotten all that?
“They're just know-it-alls who can only grumble and think we're just there to take money out of their asses! Funnily enough, Maik was the only one who got on with them. He already had a huge circle of friends. But unfortunately it was the wrong one. They put bullshit fantasies into his head, which he of course believed. In the end, it was enough to make you tear your hair out, the things he let himself be talked into.”
“What was that exactly?”
“Don't be angry with me, but I don't want to talk about it. Sooner or later he'll realize what a load of crap he was talking back then and realize that it was best for him to come back.”
“But...”
“No, not another word about it!” There was a shadow on Mirko's face.
“So Maik was the big reason you came back?”
“If you want to know for sure. Yes!”
Shit, what could Maik have done? He seems like he can't hold his water.
“What's it going to be like here then? Are you going to chain him up all the time? He's 17, how are you going to keep him in?”
“He's still 17, so we still have a year to show him that he's done something wrong. And that's why he'll have to hang out with me for the next few years. If he wants to leave the apartment at some point. Otherwise he'll have to hang out in the room and as we'll have to share one again from now on, he won't be able to mess up here either!”
There is a shadow of worry on Mirko's face. There also seemed to be a bit of anger at the fact that he hadn't looked after him before.
“Let's change the subject instead!”
“Sorry. I'm afraid I can't! I have to go home, it's fucking school again tomorrow. You'll finally see your old friends again, at least some of them!”
“Will you pick us both up then?”
“Sure, no problem. Around 7?”
“Oki! We'll wait downstairs.”
I quickly went to the others and said goodbye and then disappeared.
I spent the rest of the day in a trance. I just couldn't comprehend that Mirko, my best friend, was finally back and would never leave again! I could jump for joy, but Maik kept pulling me back down to earth. Why is he causing his family so much worry? I would never have believed him capable of that. Back then, he was the tormentor who followed us at every turn, but not in such a way that he could have done anything to anyone.
I go to bed with a bad feeling and fall asleep with the same feeling
My mood was in a complete slump that day. Mirko, on the other hand, was dancing on air. It was one big adventure for him. He was as excited as if Easter and Christmas fell on the same day.
I couldn't understand how he could be so happy. Is he happy to finally be rid of me?
“Hey, what's wrong? Why are you making such a face?”
“I just don't understand why you're so happy to get out of here! I just don't know how I'm going to kill time here without you.”
“Hey. Come on, be happy with me that I'm finally getting out of here. And why should we lose sight of each other. You just can't keep something like us apart!”
He tried to cheer me up with a little smile. But it didn't really work, all I got back was a pained smile.
“Promise me that you'll write to me at least once a week!” it shot through and straight out of my mouth.
“Of course, do you think I would forget my best friend? No way, you'll get so much to read from me that you'll kick yourself in the ass!” he promised and grinned cheekily at me again.
The last day wasn't exactly pleasant though. I sat there like a sip of water while Mirko and his family scurried around preparing the last bits and pieces for the move. The night before departure was cruel for me, I lay in bed and couldn't sleep a wink. I kept crying and I just couldn't imagine how I could go on living here without Mirko. It was simply cruel. And when the day came, I stood in front of Mirko's car with bloodshot eyes and dark circles under my eyes and said goodbye to him in tears.
“And you promise to write to me as often as you can?”
“Yes,” he replied, looking a little annoyed, ”I'll write as soon as we arrive.”
“Sorry to be a pain, but I miss you already.”
“I understand what you mean. At least I'll get out of this wasteland and you'll have to spend the next few years here. But I promise you, you'll hear more about yourself than you'd like.”
Then he and his family got into the car and drove off. I stood at the side of the road the whole time and waved after them. I stood there for quite a while and watched the car, I even stood there when the car was no longer visible.
The next few days and weeks were terrible for me. After school, I went home, sat in front of the TV and let myself be bombarded. And that went on for quite a while until I moved to grammar school and met new people and built up a new circle of friends ....
That was 10 years ago now. It was shortly after reunification and many families “fled” to the “West” in the hope of wealth, work, prosperity and probably also out of fear that the Wall would be built once again and they would be stuck in the GDR again.
Mirko's family was one of these families. Today we are both 18 years old and even if nobody expected it, the friendship still exists, we wrote at least one letter to each other almost every week and it was still like at the beginning, with every letter I receive, my heart beats with joy and does three somersaults.
Today is another one of those days. There was only one letter in the letterbox straight after school and this time it was another one from Mirko. I grabbed the letter and ran upstairs to my kingdom. I threw myself on the bed and ripped open the letter in a hurry. It wasn't really anything special anymore, because the letters were the norm, there were already more than 1000 of them on my desk, but I was still as happy as a little child and had to read them straight away.
As always, I carefully unfolded the letter.
Hi Gregor
What I have to tell you today will probably knock your socks off.
After 10 years you will finally see me again and this time not just for a few days but for a longer time.
My mom and dad have decided to move back to Mendelshaben (I hope the place doesn't exist) after all these years. After all these years, they want to go back home after all. It comes as quite a surprise to me and my brother. But I'm really looking forward to finally seeing you again. The time here wasn't exactly the best. I really missed the people from my old home. The move back is just as sudden as the move away. In just 3 days, my parents, my brother and I will be on our way.
I'm really looking forward to seeing you and everyone else again.
I hope you'll forgive me for writing such a short letter today, but all hell is breaking loose here because of the move. My mom is whirling around the apartment like a madwoman, trying to somehow bring order to this mess.
My dad helps her wherever he can and takes on the heavy lifting for her. And I'm jumping around the apartment like a lunatic and am really happy to finally be home again.
But I really have to stop now, otherwise I won't be able to pack and stow everything away.
This was my last letter to you, because from now on I'm going to tell you everything straight away.
See you in 3 days at 17:00 at our old apartment.
Mirko
Did I just get that right? Mirko is coming back? I just couldn't believe it. I read the letter over and over again. I have no idea how many times.
I just couldn't believe that Mirko, my best friend Mirko, was coming back.
When I realized it after ages, I jumped up and couldn't believe my luck. I jump around the room like a fool and dance like I'm on cloud nine.
“Oh God,” I think to myself when I see the postmark. It's arriving today, the letter has been on its way for two days. Oh my goodness. So fast. Shit, it's so sudden that I don't even have time to be happy about it, let alone prepare anything for him. When I look at the clock, it's already 4:30 pm.
“Shit again!” I gasp. I can hardly make it another half hour.
I run down the stairs as fast as I can, grab my bike and pedal so hard that my chain almost flies off right at the start. Luckily, our town isn't particularly big, it's more like a big village and everyone knows everyone else.
That often gets on your nerves. If you carelessly drop your fag in the street, it's in the local newspaper the next day. That kind of thing is really annoying, I'd rather have the anonymity of the big city. I know many people can't understand why people want to move to the city, but if you've lived in a small town for 18 years, you're happy to finally see something different.
Sure, there's a disco in our town, but what a disco. Only kids or those village bums hang out there. Not to mention that there's no decent music there at all. No, you're bombarded with stuff like Blümchen or N' Sync and I really don't fancy that. There's nothing else for young people in this town. Most of them hang out somewhere in the area and get high on alcohol or other drugs. Yes, that's right, there are drugs in the village too, not as obviously and excessively as in the big city, but they do exist. And they are mainly used to numb oneself from the dullness of the old people and the authority of the teachers and boredom.
But I'm getting too off topic again at the moment. God I wish I could get out of here. But all right. After about 10 minutes, I reach the old block of flats where Mirko and his family are apparently going to move back in. It's one of the old prefabricated housing estates left over from the GDR era. Not exactly the nicest place to live. But it was cheap housing. Low rent, low heating costs, low electricity costs. Years ago, I lived in a building like that, but then my family moved into their own house and since then it's finally been quiet.
You have to realize that the walls in such apartments are as thin as paper. You hear every noise from your neighbor, every argument and everything else you don't want to hear.
Of course, this also causes a lot of unrest in your own family, but since everyone has had their own realm, that problem has also been solved. I realize I'm distracting from the topic.
So I arrived on time after all. It was more than in time. About 5 minutes until they would show up. So I put my bike away and sat down on the steps outside the front door. The seconds passed like chewing gum, every second seemed like hours.
Finally, a car turns the corner with the license plate K. It can only be Mirko. I don't know anyone else who would drive here from Cologne. No sane person would do that.
As the car gets closer, I can see Mirko's dad behind the wheel. He seems to look the same, except that his skin is a little wrinklier and his hair has more gray strands. But otherwise the 10 years don't seem to have done him any harm.
The car stops right in front of me, braking abruptly. I jump up from the steps and my hands are damp, as if I'm about to go on my first date. Oh God, my heart is pounding as if it's about to burst, but luckily it doesn't.
The doors of the car open and four faces emerge. From the driver's side, of course, Mirko's dad, who, as I said, has hardly changed at all, except for the fact that his hair and skin have suffered a little over time. From the passenger side, Mirko's mom steps out onto the road. Unlike before, she now has a fashionable short haircut and has lost a few kilos over the years. She has become a real feast for the eyes for her age. You'd think she was just an aging model. It's amazing what miracles time can do, she must have lost at least 20 kilos. There's a happy sparkle in her eyes, as if she's seeing something today that she's been looking for for ages and never found.
Maik and Mirko get off at the back. Maik is Mirko's younger brother, although small only refers to his age. He is a good head taller than Mirko and is only about a year younger than him. If I'm not mistaken, Maik should be 17 now. So that's what the little pest from back then has become. A big, handsome boy. But he doesn't seem too happy. As if he's reluctant to go along with this. Which I can certainly understand. He stands forlornly next to the car with his head down, apparently not knowing what to do.
Mirko, on the other hand, jumps out of the car with a huge smile and immediately throws his arms around my neck.
“Home again at last!” He is really relieved to see his old home again and not have to leave.
I haven't seen Mirko since his last visit, which was 5 years ago. A lot has happened in that time and everyone has changed, including Mirko of course. His growth spurt must have stopped at some point. He's a good head shorter than me, I reckon he's around 1.70-1.75, but he's still the lanky guy he used to be. There's not an ounce of fat on his body, but no muscle either. Black hair and brown doe eyes. But he must have reported the beard growth twice when it was awarded. Either he hasn't shaved for the last two days or they're just shooting out of his face. I'm guessing the former - moving house is a lot of stress and it's easy to forget your daily routine.
Just as quickly as he threw his arms around my neck, he quickly detaches himself again and starts looking me over.
“Hey, what's happened to you? I almost didn't recognize you!”
“Why Mirko, who is that actually?” his mother now asks.
At that moment, I couldn't help but grin. It's nice when you can change so much that others don't recognize you.
“Ma, that's Gregor!” Mirko shoots back. At this moment, the jaws of the other three drop so hard that a magnitude 9 earthquake could have been measured.
“Don't be so jumpy, it's been five years since we last saw each other. And you've changed a lot, too!” I immediately reply to Mirko's mom.
“That makes two of us now!” she smiles at me. “But stop calling me 'you'! You never used to do that and don't start now, otherwise I'll feel so old. So I'll stick with Marion!”
“Okay, then I'll stick to Marion and you, sorry, YOU, of course, Gregor.”
Mirko now pushes me a little away from him and looks at me closely. To clear up this behavior:
It's actually quite easy to explain. About 4 years ago, I had a minor, or rather major, crisis. It was actually the trigger for me to change. I used to be a fat little chubby girl. Really, I was fat up to the top. And the crisis made me fall so low that I finally decided to make something of myself. So I started to lose weight, which unfortunately soon became almost pathological. I lost more than 30 kg in a very short space of time. But luckily people kept telling me how skinny I was and so I found myself again and put on 10 kilos. Today I finally feel comfortable with my weight and with myself. I'm certainly not a top model yet, but I certainly don't want to be. Otherwise I've just shot up and with my hard-won 1.92 I'm not exactly the smallest. I'm quite happy with that. At least I don't have to look up to others any more. At least I don't have to look up too often. To give you a complete description of myself, I also have green eyes and black hair, which has recently been cut short, and if it's still relevant, my shoe size is 43 and my trouser size is 32/33 ;-). And to define the crisis even more precisely. It was the time when I admitted to myself that I was gay, which hasn't changed to this day and to this day only my parents know about it.
Mirko took a few more minutes to look me over. Above all, I somehow feel like I'm sitting on a platter. It's not exactly a pleasant feeling and I quickly turn red. Maik and his father are still standing there with their mouths open, while Marion and Mirko have already gone back to normal
“As always, you're so kind and help us carry the last boxes up!”
Mirko still has a way of turning a request into an order. I'm normally a sloth and don't like to work. That's just the way it is, I prefer to have a good time and hang around stupidly. But I hate it like the plague when something is forced on me, like now. But this time, I don't really care. At least I can hang out with Mirko for a while. But in future he'll probably learn what it means to force something on me. And I can't really complain, as there are only a few boxes of personal belongings left to carry into the apartment. Apparently the removal men had already moved most of them into the apartment during the day yesterday.
“Of course I'm happy to help. It's no problem at all.”
“Still the Gregor from back then, can't say no to anything even today!” Marion grinned wryly at me from the side.
“Oh yes, I can say no. I've got myself under control so far. I think you'll have a lot of fun with my stubbornness in the future!” I grinned cheekily.
Even Mirko's father and Maik had their jaws dropped again and seemed to be back to normal. Only Maik hung his head again. He looked really pitiful the way he was standing there. Rolf, Mirko's father, regained his composure and went to the trunk and opened it. At that moment, I began to hate estate cars. They simply had too much storage space for me at that moment. There are at least 10-20 boxes all to carry upstairs. Oh God, what have I let myself in for!
Now I had already agreed and couldn't go back.
“And now everyone get to work on the boxes, standing around won't move anything!”
It seemed that it wasn't just me who wanted to leave the boxes in the car for the next few years, Maik and Mirko also looked like they'd rather hide away at the moment.
“Grab it!”, he told Maik and pressed two boxes into his hand. “Marion, will you go upstairs and unlock the door?”
“Already done darling!” Such harmony was almost unbearable ;-). It really seemed like it would have been best to go back.
“When did you start thinking about coming back?” I began to ask as we made our way up to the fifth floor with the boxes.
“For some time now! Why do you ask?”
“And why did you tell me about it three days before? I actually only received the letter three quarters of an hour ago! I must still be in shock. I don't think I've realized yet that you're staying here!”
“Ouch,” I cried out and almost dropped the box.
“You see, you're not dreaming and I've just pinched you. Wake up or realize that I'm staying here!” he grinned at me.
“You don't have to give me a bruise!” I grumble back. But I definitely don't mean any harm. I'm still too overwhelmed inside, I finally have him back.
“And you're so happy! Don't you miss your friends, acquaintances etc. from there? Don't you care about any of that?”
“Can we talk about it later, please? I'm just running out of breath with all this running around and I can't talk anyway!” Inwardly tense and curious about everything that has happened, I still have to pull myself together. I don't know how they managed to fit so many boxes into such a small van. In any case, after walking up and down at least 10 times, my feet are smoking. Up to the 5th floor, heavily loaded, back down again. Up to the 5th floor, back down again ...
I just let myself fall onto Mirko's bed and take a deep breath.
“God, I'm exhausted! Why did I come by!” I grin at him.
“Why do you think? Because you're just curious and want to be the first to know everything so you can gossip about it!” A pillow immediately comes flying off me and lands right in Mirko's face. Mirko staggers and falls backwards onto his backside.
As soon as he's caught himself again, he jumps up and comes straight at me.
A fierce tussle starts between us. I'm the bigger one, but he's still the stronger one, so at first it goes back and forth, sometimes he's on top, sometimes I'm on top. But in the end, he's the one who gets the upper hand. He pins me to the floor, so to speak.
His knees are on my hands and his bottom is on my stomach so that I can no longer move properly and only then does his real punishment begin. He starts to tickle me from top to bottom and I simply can't defend myself under his weight. I squirm under him. Squealing and screaming like a small child. But it's also really stupid in situations like this when your whole body is ticklish. I have to laugh and squeal so much that my stomach hurts and apparently I squirm so much under Mirko that he has to give up, even he starts to sweat.
Exhausted, we fell onto the bed next to each other and had to take a deep breath. I don't know exactly how long it took me, but I was gasping my lungs out.
“So why did you come back?” I asked, still out of breath.
“There are many reasons. The main one, of course, was that my father got a job offer here. He's starting as a roofer next week. It's tough over there when you have to get by without a job and without a steady income. But that's only been the case for the last few months, because my father wasn't earning too badly at the beginning. It's just that the company went bankrupt three months ago and he was out on the street!” He pauses for a moment and then continues.
“And, of course, because we all missed our old friends here!” He looked at me and gave me a smile.
“But don't you already miss all your friends from there?”
“What friends? They're all assholes, those Wessis. None of us over there have made any real friends!”
“Why should they be assholes? I never had any real problems with anyone from the former FRG. They were actually always super nice!” (*wink wink*chuckle chuckle*).
“You just have to talk to them. They think they've eaten wisdom with spoons. They don't accept anything else and believe their shitty capitalism is the best thing that has ever existed on earth. They don't even know how well off we were before reunification!” Did Mirko really just say that? Doesn't he know how bad it was before reunification? We were only 7 - 8 years old at the time. But neither of us should have fallen on our faces. The buildings were ready for demolition. You could hardly get anything sensible in the supermarket, which was still called Konsum back then. It was enough if you had to have Christmas written down to get one Santa Claus per child. Has he forgotten all that?
“They're just know-it-alls who can only grumble and think we're just there to take money out of their asses! Funnily enough, Maik was the only one who got on with them. He already had a huge circle of friends. But unfortunately it was the wrong one. They put bullshit fantasies into his head, which he of course believed. In the end, it was enough to make you tear your hair out, the things he let himself be talked into.”
“What was that exactly?”
“Don't be angry with me, but I don't want to talk about it. Sooner or later he'll realize what a load of crap he was talking back then and realize that it was best for him to come back.”
“But...”
“No, not another word about it!” There was a shadow on Mirko's face.
“So Maik was the big reason you came back?”
“If you want to know for sure. Yes!”
Shit, what could Maik have done? He seems like he can't hold his water.
“What's it going to be like here then? Are you going to chain him up all the time? He's 17, how are you going to keep him in?”
“He's still 17, so we still have a year to show him that he's done something wrong. And that's why he'll have to hang out with me for the next few years. If he wants to leave the apartment at some point. Otherwise he'll have to hang out in the room and as we'll have to share one again from now on, he won't be able to mess up here either!”
There is a shadow of worry on Mirko's face. There also seemed to be a bit of anger at the fact that he hadn't looked after him before.
“Let's change the subject instead!”
“Sorry. I'm afraid I can't! I have to go home, it's fucking school again tomorrow. You'll finally see your old friends again, at least some of them!”
“Will you pick us both up then?”
“Sure, no problem. Around 7?”
“Oki! We'll wait downstairs.”
I quickly went to the others and said goodbye and then disappeared.
I spent the rest of the day in a trance. I just couldn't comprehend that Mirko, my best friend, was finally back and would never leave again! I could jump for joy, but Maik kept pulling me back down to earth. Why is he causing his family so much worry? I would never have believed him capable of that. Back then, he was the tormentor who followed us at every turn, but not in such a way that he could have done anything to anyone.
I go to bed with a bad feeling and fall asleep with the same feeling