on the bench

Run, baby, run! You're late for your deutchkurs. Six fucking minutes until the next train? What will I tell this new teacher? I need to convince her I am the best student. How do you say excuse my tardiness in german? Ouf! The class is closed. There is no course today. Fuck me, how could I forget? I'm turning into a piece of the german machine.

What do I do next? Go to a museum? Lie down in a park and read this heartbreaking cross generational novel? I rest on a bench and think.

She drags her luggage behind her. Is she looking at me? Yes she is. She's even talking to me. She yells maybe you can help me. People don't talk much to strangers here. At least that's my view as someone who lived till the end of his twenties in Egypt. She casually sits next to me, I need to find a cheap hostel, she says, less than 20 euros.

I work my smart phone without much questioning. I am curious of course. Here's this hot blonde in hot shorts, just next to kurfurstenstrasse, the sex work neighborhood, with a bag and nowhere to stay. I don't ask where she's from. I don't ask about her job. Why the hell am I wondering if she's a sexworker? Hold your assumptions. I try to bury them.

Oh god, another stranger is talking to us. He comes and sits next to us on the bench with a glass of wine in one hand and a hash joint in the other. He waves the joint, and asks if we would like to share it, since we're sitting on the bench he likes to sit on. Without hesitation, I say thank you that would be great. She declines when I pass it on. He heaps on her advice and suggestions from his old experience as a Berliner.

He gets a call. It's my therapist, he says. He wants to change our appointment. He goes to talk to him. The therapist certifies his 'mental illness'. He gives the papers to the concerned authority. The authority decided he's not eligible to work. Another authority decides to keep him on state support. It's not much, he says, but enough to keep me alive and happy.

Is he homeless? I don't know. What's the fuck? Stop it with your silly assumptions. It's his rebellion against the horrible society that forces people to work and not live their lives fully, he says. He says he has friends on the streets, he goes to this and that bar, he takes coke or hash, no herion, and he's a fan of mushrooms, comparing the European varieties to the Mexican ones. Something about 

Grandmother and Grandfather shrooms. Sharing is wealth, he says. If you don't have someone to share with, you're a poor man.

He pulls the where are you from question though. The bubble breaks. The girl is  Polish. I am Egyptian. He says, a beautiful woman like you won't have trouble finding a place to stay. She says she's been to sharm el sheikh! Who is this girl? And why is she getting closer to me on the bench? Is she coming on to me? And why do I find this guy suddenly attractive? When he mentions his wife and lovers, I ask him how many are they.