tanja

Installment #1

A wealthy British boy and a middle-class American girl together went to an international school in Europe. They would each, respectively, rise at the same time each day, from their beds in homes several kilometers apart.

His was a rented apartment from Germans untouched from the war, opulent and garish. He felt sometimes as though he would rather sleep under a bridge. The abnormally high ceilings didnt fool him; instead, they acted as a constant reminder that he was somehow trying to be fooled. Trying to be fooled by his surroundings and his hopelessly written parents, he would welcome the moment he would step out of the enormous doors, onto the street, and into the snow.

She would wake from her series of terrifying dreams, which would last all night long. Sometimes nicer dreams peppered her terror repertoire, or sometimes simply dream-like ones. But usually, she only remembered the nightmares. This dream was about her brother, who was born less than a year ago. She was holding him, and asking her mother, But what is he? And her mother would answer, He is Mark. I know he is a Mark, she would reply, but what is he? Even at the age of six, she recognized that she was trying to ask about Marks nature. That he was Mark meant as much to her as whether he was a boy or a girl. It was that obvious. What she wanted to know about him, nobody would be able to answer.