Erik

Erik runs.
The houses are passing by, blurring into long, washed-out streaks. The sun burns relentlessly on the asphalt and the air seems to shimmer. Birds are screaming and children are shrieking.
The boy with the pitch-black hair runs.
Past bushes, past houses.
His steps become faster, the air heavier. Then he turns around a corner, almost stumbles and continues his run.
Behind him are the children.
The children who are chasing him.
Erik glances over his shoulder and loses his balance. His legs lose their rhythm. He looks forward again, swings his arms to catch his balance at the last moment, and keeps running. The air pierces his lungs like a knife, and he gasps as if it is taking his breath away. His mouth is dry and sticky.
Someone grabs the back of his head.
The horizon tilts. A tremor runs through him. The air leaves his lungs. The pain rises. Palms, knees, cheek - everything burns.
Panting children are standing around him, staring. Some are startled, others whisper. Erik turns onto his back and stares up at the blue sky. But the pain continues to burn, intense and deep. The tears, thick and hot, mix with the blood dripping down his cheek.
It burns.
Everything burns.
His body trembles. He gasps desperately for air. The pain crawls through his limbs. He feels like he is trapped in a confined space where he can't breathe.
He looks at the children's faces. Some smile contentedly, others look terrified. Until one of them says, “What are you crying about? It's your own fault! We've told you a thousand times that you have no business on our street!”

Erik walks home the same way every day. From the school yard across the kindergarten playground, then a few meters along the main road and past a small kiosk. Behind the kiosk, he turns into a small side street that always leads him quickly to his destination. He takes the same route every day. But every time he steps out of the alley, he finds himself in the “forbidden” street. But this street doesn't belong to anyone, it belongs to the city.

But the twins from his class live in it.
The twins. The boys who are having fun tormenting Erik. Who always manage to chase him, take away his air to breathe. They make him feel small and helpless. They are the children who tell him that he is not welcome here.

The kind of kids who hide the sports shoes.
Who deliberately kick the ball at him and hit him.
Who make fun of him because he walks and looks different, doesn't respond to his name and talks funny.
Who spit at him after school, bump into him from all sides and shout at him.
They make a joke out of his pain.

“ The next time I see you on my street,” says one of the twins, leaning over and whispering in his ear, ”I'll kill you!”
A cold shiver runs down Erik's spine. The words cut into him, deep, deep. But he doesn't want to hear them. Not now. He has to get up, he has to leave. He has to get away, and quickly.

Some children start to leave, to back away. But the twins remain standing close by and watch as Erik repeatedly loses his balance and his knees buckle. “Come on, let's go,” says one. The other shouts: “Hey, Erik! Best just kill yourself, you retard!”

The words echo in his head. “Spastic!” roars the twin behind him. The insults penetrate his head like cold needles. Erik tries not to hear them, but they bore firmly into his soul. He knows exactly what these words mean.
They are the words of the man who is not his father. The man who sometimes calls him the same.
Erik draws in his breath, trembling, the pain running through his limbs. He slowly limps the last few meters to the building. And Erik wonders what he has done to turn the children against him like this.
What have I done wrong? Why is everything always so difficult and exhausting?

He unlocks the front door, his hands trembling. The key dangles from the metal chain hanging from his trousers. But his hands have hardly any strength left, he can barely hold the key. Trembling, he pushes open the heavy entrance door, goes to the elevator and presses the button.
Inside the elevator, the pain hits him again. The pain that feels like a fire burning inside him. He cries. The elevator starts up, and the noise in his head spins in circles until it becomes a roar.
When he opens the apartment door, cigarette smoke hits him. Two cats jump forward to meet him, meowing loudly, but he can't stroke them, his hands are hurting too much. He wishes he could just run away. Just disappear.
His mother comes out of the living room. A phone to her ear, her other hand with a cigarette. She pauses when she sees him. “Erik?”
But Erik doesn't want to answer. He walks on in silence, just wants to go to his room and hide. He wants to sleep and never wake up again. He wants it all to stop. But she reaches for him, grabs his arm. “Look at me when I'm talking to you!” she yells.
He lifts his head, but he can't look her in the eye. He just stares at the brown hairline that stands out under blond hair. “Hmmm...,” he mumbles and grimaces. His smile is forced, as if he wants to defuse the situation somehow.

But it doesn't work. The right side of his face is a single abrasion. The impact on the asphalt had left its mark.
“ Shit!” she mumbles and pulls him into the bathroom. She rips his dirty and damaged pants off and demands that he lift his feet. But Erik doesn't move. His body is too stiff, the trembling too strong. “Ma... Ma...”, he whimpers, but she doesn't listen. She takes a washcloth from the laundry, runs water over it briefly and wipes his face with a rough hand. He flinches, screams, backs away. But she holds him tight.
“ Hold still, damn it!” She slides after him on her knees, continues wiping with the washcloth until she can't take anymore. The ash from her cigarette falls onto the floor, but she ignores it. He struggles, wriggles, moans and tries to hit her.
“ If you don't keep still right now, I'll kick you out!”
Erik is quiet.
Very quiet.
The air is trapped in his chest.
Erik squeezes his eyes shut in silence.
He holds his breath. The room is too loud, too cramped.

And she begins to dab him again. With her other hand, she gently strokes his unharmed cheek. His beautiful, tender face, she thinks. That small, sad child's face that has been bruised so often. But he never had such an abrasion all over his cheek. A scratch here and there, the constantly inflamed scar above his lip, but he never looked so shattered. Madeleine can see how tense he is, how he is trying not to open his eyes, as if he could shut out the world.

“Who was that?” she asks quietly, rinsing out the cloth and carefully dabbing his hands. She slowly makes sure she doesn't touch him too much - touching him makes him nervous. Then she examines each wound, carefully plucking stones from the scratches.
The boy says nothing.
“ Talk to me,” she mumbles and pulls a stone from his knee. “Erik, I know you can talk, so don't test my patience any further.” She waits, but he doesn't respond. His eyes are still closed. He is not there.
His dinosaur sweater, like his jeans, is torn. She will never get the blood on the fabric out again.
Erik begins to sway restlessly, an almost imperceptible trembling of his hands running through them again and again.
“ Hold still. It's disturbing,” she says gently.
But he can't stop. The movements are uncontrollable. Erik feels so terribly trapped. His hands - they no longer belong to him. He only feels numbness, as if his body is moving away from him. The world becomes smaller and smaller, narrower.
He hits the toilet seat, the sound echoes in his head. The emotions inside him are like black tar, viscous and heavy, and they are tormenting him, mixed up, churning faster and faster and faster.

He wants to leave.
He has to flee.
But where to go?
He wants to scream, hit, run away.
Break something.
Make everything disappear.
Away with the shame, the chaos, the compulsion, the anger.
Just...
away.

Madeleine throws the cigarette into the toilet and grabs him roughly by the arms, holding him tight so that he doesn't hurt himself. She feels his body tense up, how he struggles against her, how he almost gets in his own way trying to move.
His lower lip trembles and thick, hot tears are rolling down his reddened cheeks. She hugs him tightly. Her embrace is calm and steady, in the hope that he can feel the closeness, even if he is unable to verbalize it.
His breathing slowly calms, becomes less frantic. The loud crying becomes a soft whimper as he finally relaxes into the embrace.
“ So? Who was it?”
Erik remains silent. The room is too much, the question too big. The words are stuck inside him, somewhere deep where he can't reach them.

She lets go of him, slaps her hands on her thighs and stands up. She roughly presses plasters onto the wounds, muttering angrily to herself. With one firm grip, she takes him by the wrist and drags him out of the bathroom. The boy stumbles after her, whimpering.
“ If you don't talk to me, there's no reason to feel sorry for you!” she says sharply.
They cross the corridor, and she opens the door to a small room. The third cat of the household scurries past them, meowing, and runs into the kitchen.
The room is small. A narrow, unmade bed stands against the wall. An old tape recorder, along with a few music cassettes, is scattered on the floor. A tattered cuddly toy seal lies on the bed. Next to the bed is a small, open children's chest of drawers. The drawers are half pulled out, clothes are tumbled around. The roller shutter is halfway up and has been broken for years.
She pushes him into the room, lets go of his wrist and slams the door shut.
He remains lying on the floor. He knows that if the door is closed, he can't get out. Otherwise, there's the wardrobe. One of the few things he can remember.

The last time he accidentally dropped a cup, the man had locked him in the wardrobe. He had been forced to sit there, forgotten, until his mother found him the next day. She was furious - mainly because he hadn't drawn attention to himself. But what was he supposed to do? He was told not to shout or come out, otherwise he would have a bloody reason to cry.

The carpet is dirty, the fibers are coarse and form small, fluffy bumps. Erik wearily runs his fingertips over the rough carpet. The texture is ticklish, almost a little painful. But very slowly the tension falls away from him. The world becomes quieter again, calmer.
He sits up, pulls the seal onto his lap and stares at it. “S... Sa... Sally...”, he stammers and hugs the cuddly toy tightly to him. “Wha... wha... why...?” he asks quietly, almost more to himself than to the seal.

He hears his mother's angry voice, even though she is far away.
“ Yeah... I don't know. He came home and now the new jeans are ruined too... No... He's not talking to me! He doesn't talk to anyone! ... YES, STILL!” Her voice gets louder. “As if he wants to punish me! That little bastard!” Her voice cuts through to him with bitterness. “Now we've finally had a few weeks of peace and quiet. I thought if he went to school, he'd be exhausted. Instead, he loses his school supplies, ruins his pants... and his sweater. He came home without shoes the other day.... CAN YOU IMAGINE??? HE LOST THEM! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!”
A tired smile spreads across his crooked lips, though he's not sure why. Maybe it's an attempt to block out the words circling in his head. He turns onto his back with the seal on his chest.
Stupid,
Stupid,
Stupid,
Erik.
“ Don't... Don't...” he whispers in the seal's ear. “Don't... ll... lost... not...” He presses his face into the soft fur of the stuffed animal. “N... not...” He knows exactly what happened to the shoes.
They had simply disappeared after the last sports lesson. Later he found the burnt remains in the forbidden street.