We sit on the edge of the Brach looking out over the Spree and talking. I tell her that I want to see if the constant low level endorphin rush that I get from being here in Berlin, here in Kreuzberg, here in Wrangelkiez, might somehow be reality. I tell her about the electrical storm I saw last night bisecting grey clouds at Kottbuser Tor.
I tell her that I want to fall in love to see if holding hands might double the power of this hallucination. I tell her that I believe in chaos magik.
At this moment a flare appears in the air above Friedrichshein and then another and another. An impromtu firework display, the dusk smeared with neon. A cheap sprinkle of glitter transforms the night. She tells me about, after even all these years, the city still talks to her as well. She tells me about camping by the lake. I tell her about the man who survived a lightning strike.
Earlier on Wrangelstrasse a man in a white tuxedo jacket with an unlikely looking rose in his buttonhole had weaved his way across the street holding an ice cream. I tripped on a black rag.
She tells me about Luther and hearing voices.
On the opposite shore a paper lantern is lit. The fire heats the helium and it takes to the air. As it floats upward, reflected in the water in front of a backdrop of dramatic clouds it is joined by another and so on until, already having reached a dizzying height, five new stars disappeared into the atmosphere.
