I’m not lost. Just trust me. I lead Lionel down concrete steps
to a featureless door, tiny neon humming. I feel smug. Inside
is bright and not-cold with long, shared tables like we’re in Munich
or something. I drink Panke Gold, a citrusy kick, he, a Roter Wedding
that’s boring. Red beers are boring; fight me. The next bar is
named after vagabonds. He sips a Schwarzfahrer, some dark stout,
talks about Ireland, jumping in a freezing Loch Lomond at 3am
that I don’t remind him is Scottish. I, a bittersweet DIPA, and
talk about Canada, the time we did Centurion with Blue Buck shots
and I kissed Mae as soon as we got to the party, on the stairs, her knee
between my legs. We sneak Flensburger bottles onto the bus.
They have flip-top lids that plop open and fit the inner pocket of a
Levi’s jacket. Me and Lionel both like no-nonsense north German
beers; we like to think ourselves stony-faced fishermen on harsh
Baltic Sea beaches. Next, in a twenty-on-tap kind of place, I take
a smoked beer that reminds me of cheese and the firepit at Kath and
David’s, and how I hope they have kids soon. He takes a frothy
Belgian Dubbel that any Englishman would ask to be filled to the rim.
Our last is a something-or-other on a corner doorstep. We watch
some poor bastards head to work. A white puppy sniffs our feet.
Yellow trams jangle. Laughter comes from black-clothed shapes over
there. We cheers and clink and talk of nonsense til the bus arrives.
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Ceri Savage is a British, Berlin-based writer with a BA in English Literature from the University of Exeter. Her writing is published in The FU Review, The Honest Ulsterman, and ASP Literary Journal. Ceri is the founder of Savage Edits, an editing business that provides self-publishing services to indie authors. Follow Ceri @cerisavagewrites or www.cerisavage.com.
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