Das Fieber

Ich bin viel krank gewesen. Daher stammt vielleicht, was andere als Geduld an mir bezeichnen, in Wahrheit aber keiner Tugend ähnelt: die Neigung , alles, woran mir liegt, von weitem sich mir nahen zu sehen wie meinem Krankenbett die Stunden. So kommt es, daß an einer Reise mir die beste Freude fehlt, wenn ich den Zug nicht lange auf dem Bahnhof erwarten konnte, und ebenfalls rührt daher, daß Beschenken zur Leidenschaft bei mir geworden ist; denn was den anderen überrascht, das sehe ich, der Geber, von langer Hand voraus. Ja, das Bedürfnis, durch die Wartezeit so wie ein Kranker durch die Kissen, die er im Rücken hat, gestützt, dem Kommenden entgegenzusehen, hat bewirkt, daß späterhin mir Frauen schöner schienen, je getroster und länger ich auf sie zu warten hatte.


Aus Berliner Kindheit um 1900 von Walter Benjamin

Steglitzer Ecke Genthiner

Die Ecke zählt zu denen, die der Wandel der letzten dreißig Jahre kaum berührte. Nur daß in dieser Zeit der Schleier, der sie mir als Kind verhüllte, fiel. Denn damals hieß sie mir noch nicht nach Steglitz. Der Vogel Stieglitz schenkte ihr den Namen. Und hauste nicht die Tante wie ein Vogel, der reden konnte, in ihrem Bauer? Stets wenn ich ihn betrat, war er erfüllt vom Zwitschern dieses kleinen, schwarzen Vogels, der über alle Nester und Gehöfte der Mark, wo seine Sippe einst verstreut gesessen hatte, hinweggeflogen war und beider Namen - der Dörfer und der Sippschaft-
die so oft genau die gleichen waren, im Gedächtnis hatte. Die Tante wußte die Verschwägerungen, Wohnsitze, Glücks- und Unglücksfälle all der Schönfließ, Rawitschers, Landsbergs, Lindenheims und Stargards, die einst als Vieh- oder Getreidehändler im Märkischen und Mecklenburgischen gesessen hatten.


Aus Berliner Kindheit um 1900 von Walter Benjamin

..when there is..

I was still at that age when you do not form friendships but are formed by them, when there is no difference between having good friends and being a good friend.



Taken from The Colour Of Memory by Geoff Dyer

..What shall we do this evening..

'What shall we do this evening?' I said after a while.
'What´s Steranko doing?'
'He´s having dinner at his brother´s . He won´t be back till late.'
'So shall we do something?'
'Yes.'
'What would you like to do?'
'Let´s go out dancing.'
'I knew you were going to say that.'
'What´s wrong with that?'
'I hate discos.'
'We wouldn´t go to a disco,' Foomie said. 'We'd go to a club.'
'All clubs are really discos.'
'Have you ever been to one?'
'Several. Hundreds. Years ago I went to loads and I never had a moment´s pleasure in any of them. All I did was watch people having what I thought was a good time but which I realise was simply a highly ritualised form of boredom. Besides I´m allergic to clubs.'
'What shit,' Foomie said, laughing.
'It´s true'
'I swear. . .'
'I swear it´s true. I get neon rash, strobe sickness, bass-induced vomiting, funk giddiness, flash-outs, bouncer paranoia. . .

Taken from The Colour Of Memory by Geoff Dyer

..There were all sorts...

We spoke in that relaxed and highly conventionalised way that the friend´s lover and the lover´s friend tend to when they find themselves alone. We were eager to like each other and laughed too quickly at each other´s jokes. We talked about Freddie and about Belinda but the conversation was all the time revolving around Steranko. He both restricted our intimacy and made it possible.
There were all sorts of other things we could have said and we avoided all of them.
Instead, Foomie asked what I wanted to do, what kind of work I wanted. I said I didn´t know, that for as long as I could remember I had been living from one conversation to the next, going nowhere slowly.



Taken from The Colour Of Memory by Geoff Dyer

...so many afternoons still ahead...

Standing there, waiting for the lights to change, I felt a strong sense of converging definition.
It was one of those moments which, even as experienced, is obscurely touched by the significance with which it will be invested by the future, by memory: this is how we were; this is how we spent our time, wasting whole afternoons and not caring because it was winter and there were so many afternoons still ahead.


Taken from The Colour Of Memory by Geoff Dyer

..and he knew he was drifting..

Al was drifting, and he knew he was drifting, and where it was all going to end he could not guess at. But he was beginning to feel he was losing control over everything. Everything. Recently, too, he had caught himself thinking about old asge after he´d been constipated a few days - an affliction he had always associated with the elderly. Then there was the matter of the tiny bald spot and of his having just begun to wonder how he would comb his hair a different way. What was he going to do with his life? he wanted to know.
He was thirty-one.



Taken from Jerry and Molly and Sam, Short Cuts - by Raymond Carver