"Just... just leave me alone, for a while."
* * *


"No wonder cameras aren't allowed in this place," said F. We were in the mid-level bar at Berghain in Berlin. "It would be flashing here the whole time." The industrial baroque is beautiful, and it's difficult to describe this indoor concrete city-within-a-city cement-scape. It is a drug. Music is a drug in Berlin; the mafia could get a hold of it, and of all the money that flows through it.
Luis had gone back down to pick up some friends at the door, to make sure they got in. We met them a few minutes later in the Panorama Bar upstairs.
"I'm J.," said the young woman. "Do I know you? From one of the art salons?"
"I don't think so," I said.
"Yes, we did meet. Back in the fall. I thought you looked familiar," and I realized she was right. Oops, forgot that face.
"Here is my boyfriend, R.," she pointed to the young man next to her.
"Ah, the writer. I have met him already somewhere else."
Damnit, such a small world. That feels so empty.
Bye, again. And see you next year.