2025-07-12, 11:37 AM
WHOOP. The light comes on. Everything is suddenly bright. The air, already far too stuffy, gets even hotter—it almost shimmers. The light is blinding.
A good two thousand eyes stare at the small, slender boy with blond curls and nut-brown almond eyes, who stands so lost on the stage - expectantly and critically observing every movement in his face.
Time stands still and there is a tense silence - only a quiet cough can be heard from one of the last rows.
Shaun starts to stutter. Suddenly it's dark again.
Beep, Beep Beep, Beep Beep Beep.
Shaun turns on his mattress and, confused, slaps the alarm clock with the palm of his hand, which instantly goes silent. He rubs his eyes and squints out the window. The sun is already shining brightly.
He rolls off his mattress into the chaos of his room and crawls toward the water bottle. In doing so, he kicks his cat, Thies, who begins to hiss indignantly and almost scratches the last of the sleep sand from his eyes.
"Hello, Mom." Shaun comes staggering down the stairs in boxer shorts and a long T-shirt.
"Morning, honey. You have rehearsal today, don't be late again."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Where's the sugar?" Shaun asks irritably.
"You left it in the living room again."
Shaun takes his tea, adds a splash of milk, and wanders into the living room, where he throws two lumps of brown sugar into his morning pick-me-up.
Then he takes an apple from the fruit bowl, peels it with his T-shirt, and takes a hearty bite. He picks up the daily newspaper and scans the headlines. In the culture section, his eye falls on a small item in the margin:
"On Saturday, the premiere of the self-produced drama 'Mother!' by the Goethe-Gymnasium theater group will take place."
Below are four stars for 'worth seeing'.
Shaun sighs and pushes his cup aside.
MICHAEL shouts: "Okay, now the scene in the park. Jonathan! And where is Shaun again?"
"There he is, just coming," a girl remarks. "His bike was late again." She giggles at her own joke. Shaun comes whizzing into the auditorium.
"Sorry, Micha, I'm late again," he gasps.
"All right. Now hurry up. Let's get on stage. Jonathan! Where is Jonathan now?"
The girl hesitates. "He left. He says he can't play the role."
Michael stands still for a moment. Then he throws his notepad to the floor with a loud crash.
"Man, I don't know! This shitty play! We're five days away from the performance, right?! And nobody wants to play this stupid role. I know it's not easy, but theater isn't easy. Take Shaun as a model. He doesn't exactly like it either."
Michael pauses and looks around accusingly. No one says a word.
"Well, let's leave it then. If you can't get this right, I'll cancel the play," he says, irritated and offended.
"I'd do the role," Colin says.
He smiles irresistibly at Shaun. He shows all his perfect white teeth, and his full lips form beautiful curves. He brushes a strand of dark brown hair from his pale face. Shaun tries to smile too.
"Hey, it's a good thing Colin is playing the gay guy," the girl interjects, "he doesn't have to act anymore."
Once again, she giggles stupidly at her remark. "Yeah, you see the advantages of being gay. And you get to kiss hot guys like Shaun," Colin says sarcastically, stroking his hair.
Shaun still has his fake smile on. He must have forgotten to relax his face. In any case, he doesn't look hot at all.
"All right. No time for nonsense! Now let's go. You know what to do, Colin?" Michael asks, receiving a nod from Colin.
Colin is sitting on a bench, with Shaun sitting down next to him. Colin looks at him cautiously from the side. Shaun stares up.
Then he turns his head and looks Colin in the eyes. He moves a little closer to Colin. Colin leans slightly toward Shaun. Both hesitate.
Shaun leans forward slowly—very slowly. He meets Colin's lips with his—gently and carefully. Colin closes his eyes, his lips part, and then Shaun's do too, and their two faces merge into one.
Shaun now closes his eyes as well. Colin moves even closer to Shaun. Then he places one hand on his thigh, pulls Shaun's head toward him with the other, and strokes his neck.
"Great!" Shaun breaks away from Colin and moves aside. "Perfect! If you play like this on Saturday, nothing can go wrong. I don't think we need to practice it again. As far as I'm concerned, you can go. But remember the rehearsal tomorrow morning. Okay, and the rest of us will do the scene with the mother again," says Michael, makes a note on his pad, and then starts bustling around the stage, moving things around.
Shaun grabs his shoulder bag and hurries out of the auditorium. "Hey, wait a minute!" Shaun doesn't turn around and continues walking undeterred. Just before the bike racks, Colin stands in front of him. "What do you want?" Shaun grumbles. Colin bares his teeth again and his blue eyes sparkle. "Don't you think we should rehearse the scenes again today? At my place at five o'clock?"
"Forget it! Besides, I have a date with Tom." "Oh! You lucky man. A date!" Colin's left eyebrow rises.
"Tom is tutoring me in French. You know what I mean!" Shaun states dryly.
"Aha, French tutoring." Colin's eyebrow twitches a few more times and he grins suggestively.
"You perverted faggot, just leave me alone. And if you stick your tongue down my throat like that next time, you'll be in for a treat!"
"Uhuuu. On what?"
"Watch out, Colin," Shaun hisses, "I don't want anything from you. Just because I'm playing this stupid role doesn't mean I'm gay. I'm only doing it because otherwise I won't get stood up. So leave me alone and get lost!"
Shaun turns around again.
"Stupid faggot!" he grumbles, swings onto his bike and leaves Colin standing alone.
Colin's smile slowly fades. He lowers his head. A ball rolls to his feet. He kicks it angrily, muttering, "Shit." He hits the ball so hard that it flies into the street. A boy calls out, laughing:
"Look, that faggot plays football even worse than a girl."
"Tom called. He'll be here fifteen minutes later. Can you hear Shaun?!" He grumbles something.
"I baked a cake. And how much does Tom get again? €10 is enough, right? Tom's finishing high school, right?"
"Yes, Mama.", whispered Shaun.
"Well, we're in a good mood today. You'd better get some sleep, otherwise Tom will have to put up with you being so grumpy."
Tom is lying on Shaun's bed looking at pictures. Shaun is sitting at his desk among French books, exercise books, and texts, working on a worksheet.
Tom babbles: "I heard you're in the new play now?! I think that's cool. - Is this your girlfriend?" He holds up a photo of a blonde girl in a deck chair and, without waiting for a response, continues, "She looks very nice. So? What's your play about, anyway?" Shaun looks up.
"Excuse me?" asks Shaun, who apparently couldn't quite follow.
"So, what's your play about?" "Oh, right. Um, it's about a boy whose mother is a lesbian. She wants nothing more than for her son to become gay, too. This puts a lot of pressure on him. At one point, he decides to meet up with a classmate he knows likes him. They kiss, and the boy realizes he just can't be gay. So, in the end, there are two broken hearts. One is the boy's, who was just taken advantage of, and the mother's—yes—that sort of thing."
"Wow, really brave to do something like that, right?!"
"Well, I have no choice. I need some good grades, otherwise I'll fail."
"Well. With my help, you'll get a good grade in French, too." Tom grins.
"You'll let me know when you've finished filling out the form, okay?"
Tom stands up and sits on the chair next to Shaun.
"Have you ever slept with your girlfriend?" Tom asks cheekily. Shaun looks at him, slightly confused.
"So, have you had sex yet?"
Shaun turns red and mutters:
"Hmm, no."
"Then you're pretty late, little one." Tom ruffles Shaun's curls, and he turns bright red.
"Well, I have a song by Edith Piaf here. You can sing it after you've slept." Tom grins and pulls the lyrics of 'Non, je ne regrette rien' out of his papers.
Shaun looks at him venomously.
"Okay, okay!" Tom reassures him, "let's get back to business. Now, please read the text aloud. Then we'll translate it if you don't quite understand it yet."
Shaun takes the piece of paper with the text and starts reading:
"No! Nothing at all...
No! I don't regret anything.
Nor the good that has been done to me
Neither evil nor all that matters to me!"
"Haha. You talk like a little French faggot," laughs Tom. Shaun angrily pushes him off his chair. Tom falls and hits his head on the corner of a wooden box on the floor. He then lies motionless and twisted. Shaun jumps up, startled. He runs over to Tom and asks, "Tom," and again, "Tom." Then he carefully picks up Tom's head to check for injury.
Tom jumps up and laughs: "The little French faggot is scared for me, too." Shaun kicks him in the shin.
"Stop it, Tom. You know I'm not gay!"
"Okay. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Peace, joy, pancakes?"
"Okay, let's get in the shower, guys! Training's canceled next Wednesday. This week's still normal, though."
The boys stroll slowly, deep in conversation, from the football field to the small house on the side of the pitch.
"Hey, Shaun! What did I hear? You're in that theater group now?" a boy laughs.
"Yeah. I need it for my report card, right?!" Shaun hisses.
"Yeah, yeah, it's okay. I didn't say anything."
"So? What is your play about?" asks another.
"Oh, it's just an old love story. Nothing worth watching. It's all full of shit anyway. It's full of freaky girls or faggots. That Colin guy is especially bad. Have you ever seen him?" Shaun laughs.
"And how he always walks!" Shaun struts through the shower with his arms bent and his wrists bent, causing general hilarity.
"You wouldn't believe how he lashed out at me." Colin sits on his bed with his phone to his ear. "Well, after what he said, I definitely don't stand a chance with Shaun."
"Hmm. Weird, actually. I could have sworn he was gay. You just have to watch him play soccer. He's always looking at the other guys' butts, and when the team goes out on Saturdays to pick up girls, he doesn't come along."
"Yeah, you idiot, because he has a girlfriend! See, another counterargument. And the other guys look at each other's asses sometimes, too. That really doesn't mean anything. Oh, I'll just have to accept it."
"Nonsense, the girlfriend is just a cover!"
"Never mind, Nicole. I'm going to destroy my 'bikini' figure with a large tub of depressing vanilla ice cream." Colin laughs bitterly.
"Oh, Colin. Don't be sad. There's plenty more fish in the sea."
"What? You know I'm rubbish at English."
"Oh yeah. Um, I was saying, other mothers have beautiful sons too. Would you like to come over tomorrow evening? We can watch a DVD."
A good two thousand eyes stare at the small, slender boy with blond curls and nut-brown almond eyes, who stands so lost on the stage - expectantly and critically observing every movement in his face.
Time stands still and there is a tense silence - only a quiet cough can be heard from one of the last rows.
Shaun starts to stutter. Suddenly it's dark again.
Beep, Beep Beep, Beep Beep Beep.
Shaun turns on his mattress and, confused, slaps the alarm clock with the palm of his hand, which instantly goes silent. He rubs his eyes and squints out the window. The sun is already shining brightly.
He rolls off his mattress into the chaos of his room and crawls toward the water bottle. In doing so, he kicks his cat, Thies, who begins to hiss indignantly and almost scratches the last of the sleep sand from his eyes.
"Hello, Mom." Shaun comes staggering down the stairs in boxer shorts and a long T-shirt.
"Morning, honey. You have rehearsal today, don't be late again."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Where's the sugar?" Shaun asks irritably.
"You left it in the living room again."
Shaun takes his tea, adds a splash of milk, and wanders into the living room, where he throws two lumps of brown sugar into his morning pick-me-up.
Then he takes an apple from the fruit bowl, peels it with his T-shirt, and takes a hearty bite. He picks up the daily newspaper and scans the headlines. In the culture section, his eye falls on a small item in the margin:
"On Saturday, the premiere of the self-produced drama 'Mother!' by the Goethe-Gymnasium theater group will take place."
Below are four stars for 'worth seeing'.
Shaun sighs and pushes his cup aside.
MICHAEL shouts: "Okay, now the scene in the park. Jonathan! And where is Shaun again?"
"There he is, just coming," a girl remarks. "His bike was late again." She giggles at her own joke. Shaun comes whizzing into the auditorium.
"Sorry, Micha, I'm late again," he gasps.
"All right. Now hurry up. Let's get on stage. Jonathan! Where is Jonathan now?"
The girl hesitates. "He left. He says he can't play the role."
Michael stands still for a moment. Then he throws his notepad to the floor with a loud crash.
"Man, I don't know! This shitty play! We're five days away from the performance, right?! And nobody wants to play this stupid role. I know it's not easy, but theater isn't easy. Take Shaun as a model. He doesn't exactly like it either."
Michael pauses and looks around accusingly. No one says a word.
"Well, let's leave it then. If you can't get this right, I'll cancel the play," he says, irritated and offended.
"I'd do the role," Colin says.
He smiles irresistibly at Shaun. He shows all his perfect white teeth, and his full lips form beautiful curves. He brushes a strand of dark brown hair from his pale face. Shaun tries to smile too.
"Hey, it's a good thing Colin is playing the gay guy," the girl interjects, "he doesn't have to act anymore."
Once again, she giggles stupidly at her remark. "Yeah, you see the advantages of being gay. And you get to kiss hot guys like Shaun," Colin says sarcastically, stroking his hair.
Shaun still has his fake smile on. He must have forgotten to relax his face. In any case, he doesn't look hot at all.
"All right. No time for nonsense! Now let's go. You know what to do, Colin?" Michael asks, receiving a nod from Colin.
Colin is sitting on a bench, with Shaun sitting down next to him. Colin looks at him cautiously from the side. Shaun stares up.
Then he turns his head and looks Colin in the eyes. He moves a little closer to Colin. Colin leans slightly toward Shaun. Both hesitate.
Shaun leans forward slowly—very slowly. He meets Colin's lips with his—gently and carefully. Colin closes his eyes, his lips part, and then Shaun's do too, and their two faces merge into one.
Shaun now closes his eyes as well. Colin moves even closer to Shaun. Then he places one hand on his thigh, pulls Shaun's head toward him with the other, and strokes his neck.
"Great!" Shaun breaks away from Colin and moves aside. "Perfect! If you play like this on Saturday, nothing can go wrong. I don't think we need to practice it again. As far as I'm concerned, you can go. But remember the rehearsal tomorrow morning. Okay, and the rest of us will do the scene with the mother again," says Michael, makes a note on his pad, and then starts bustling around the stage, moving things around.
Shaun grabs his shoulder bag and hurries out of the auditorium. "Hey, wait a minute!" Shaun doesn't turn around and continues walking undeterred. Just before the bike racks, Colin stands in front of him. "What do you want?" Shaun grumbles. Colin bares his teeth again and his blue eyes sparkle. "Don't you think we should rehearse the scenes again today? At my place at five o'clock?"
"Forget it! Besides, I have a date with Tom." "Oh! You lucky man. A date!" Colin's left eyebrow rises.
"Tom is tutoring me in French. You know what I mean!" Shaun states dryly.
"Aha, French tutoring." Colin's eyebrow twitches a few more times and he grins suggestively.
"You perverted faggot, just leave me alone. And if you stick your tongue down my throat like that next time, you'll be in for a treat!"
"Uhuuu. On what?"
"Watch out, Colin," Shaun hisses, "I don't want anything from you. Just because I'm playing this stupid role doesn't mean I'm gay. I'm only doing it because otherwise I won't get stood up. So leave me alone and get lost!"
Shaun turns around again.
"Stupid faggot!" he grumbles, swings onto his bike and leaves Colin standing alone.
Colin's smile slowly fades. He lowers his head. A ball rolls to his feet. He kicks it angrily, muttering, "Shit." He hits the ball so hard that it flies into the street. A boy calls out, laughing:
"Look, that faggot plays football even worse than a girl."
"Tom called. He'll be here fifteen minutes later. Can you hear Shaun?!" He grumbles something.
"I baked a cake. And how much does Tom get again? €10 is enough, right? Tom's finishing high school, right?"
"Yes, Mama.", whispered Shaun.
"Well, we're in a good mood today. You'd better get some sleep, otherwise Tom will have to put up with you being so grumpy."
Tom is lying on Shaun's bed looking at pictures. Shaun is sitting at his desk among French books, exercise books, and texts, working on a worksheet.
Tom babbles: "I heard you're in the new play now?! I think that's cool. - Is this your girlfriend?" He holds up a photo of a blonde girl in a deck chair and, without waiting for a response, continues, "She looks very nice. So? What's your play about, anyway?" Shaun looks up.
"Excuse me?" asks Shaun, who apparently couldn't quite follow.
"So, what's your play about?" "Oh, right. Um, it's about a boy whose mother is a lesbian. She wants nothing more than for her son to become gay, too. This puts a lot of pressure on him. At one point, he decides to meet up with a classmate he knows likes him. They kiss, and the boy realizes he just can't be gay. So, in the end, there are two broken hearts. One is the boy's, who was just taken advantage of, and the mother's—yes—that sort of thing."
"Wow, really brave to do something like that, right?!"
"Well, I have no choice. I need some good grades, otherwise I'll fail."
"Well. With my help, you'll get a good grade in French, too." Tom grins.
"You'll let me know when you've finished filling out the form, okay?"
Tom stands up and sits on the chair next to Shaun.
"Have you ever slept with your girlfriend?" Tom asks cheekily. Shaun looks at him, slightly confused.
"So, have you had sex yet?"
Shaun turns red and mutters:
"Hmm, no."
"Then you're pretty late, little one." Tom ruffles Shaun's curls, and he turns bright red.
"Well, I have a song by Edith Piaf here. You can sing it after you've slept." Tom grins and pulls the lyrics of 'Non, je ne regrette rien' out of his papers.
Shaun looks at him venomously.
"Okay, okay!" Tom reassures him, "let's get back to business. Now, please read the text aloud. Then we'll translate it if you don't quite understand it yet."
Shaun takes the piece of paper with the text and starts reading:
"No! Nothing at all...
No! I don't regret anything.
Nor the good that has been done to me
Neither evil nor all that matters to me!"
"Haha. You talk like a little French faggot," laughs Tom. Shaun angrily pushes him off his chair. Tom falls and hits his head on the corner of a wooden box on the floor. He then lies motionless and twisted. Shaun jumps up, startled. He runs over to Tom and asks, "Tom," and again, "Tom." Then he carefully picks up Tom's head to check for injury.
Tom jumps up and laughs: "The little French faggot is scared for me, too." Shaun kicks him in the shin.
"Stop it, Tom. You know I'm not gay!"
"Okay. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Peace, joy, pancakes?"
"Okay, let's get in the shower, guys! Training's canceled next Wednesday. This week's still normal, though."
The boys stroll slowly, deep in conversation, from the football field to the small house on the side of the pitch.
"Hey, Shaun! What did I hear? You're in that theater group now?" a boy laughs.
"Yeah. I need it for my report card, right?!" Shaun hisses.
"Yeah, yeah, it's okay. I didn't say anything."
"So? What is your play about?" asks another.
"Oh, it's just an old love story. Nothing worth watching. It's all full of shit anyway. It's full of freaky girls or faggots. That Colin guy is especially bad. Have you ever seen him?" Shaun laughs.
"And how he always walks!" Shaun struts through the shower with his arms bent and his wrists bent, causing general hilarity.
"You wouldn't believe how he lashed out at me." Colin sits on his bed with his phone to his ear. "Well, after what he said, I definitely don't stand a chance with Shaun."
"Hmm. Weird, actually. I could have sworn he was gay. You just have to watch him play soccer. He's always looking at the other guys' butts, and when the team goes out on Saturdays to pick up girls, he doesn't come along."
"Yeah, you idiot, because he has a girlfriend! See, another counterargument. And the other guys look at each other's asses sometimes, too. That really doesn't mean anything. Oh, I'll just have to accept it."
"Nonsense, the girlfriend is just a cover!"
"Never mind, Nicole. I'm going to destroy my 'bikini' figure with a large tub of depressing vanilla ice cream." Colin laughs bitterly.
"Oh, Colin. Don't be sad. There's plenty more fish in the sea."
"What? You know I'm rubbish at English."
"Oh yeah. Um, I was saying, other mothers have beautiful sons too. Would you like to come over tomorrow evening? We can watch a DVD."