Manfred I learned very early in life to minimize input and maximize output. Other children may have mistaken this for laziness, but I would call it strategy, and The Mayor, asking the questions, seemed to understand that childhood games were never just games. They were early laboratories for power, efficiency, and plausible deniability. Football was…
When Ritesh appeared on the screen, the first thing was not really the subject of the meeting. It was darkness. The Mayor joked with him, asking if his wife was planning some romantic evening with candles, but Ritesh explained it was not romance. It was a power cut. He was in his native place, not…
I found this conversation more difficult than I expected. Part of it was the language, of course. When I speak English, I can say what I mean, but sometimes I need time. I search for the right word. I start a sentence, then I stop, then I try again. Some topics are easy because they…
Monday, eight o’clock in the morning, and the day was already gone. Finished. That is what I said to The Mayor when we started our weekly meeting. Monday was there, yes, but in my head it was already running away from me. The week had begun, the work was waiting, the normal things were standing…
I heard the song on the radio on my way to go grocery shopping. Not a dramatic moment. No thunder. No cinematic lighting. Just me, the car, the road, and the ordinary little mission of buying whatever needed buying. Bread, milk, sensible things. The kind of things that do not usually rearrange your thinking. And…
A Peeling Potatoes reflection on childhood games, memory, and belonging There are some conversations that begin with a simple topic and then quietly open a door to somewhere much deeper. This one started with play. A new month. A new theme. The first of May. International Labour Day, which of course meant that everyone was…
The conversation began with a very Sarah-style emergency: a forgotten laptop, a long weekend, and the calm reassurance that everything was safely locked away at school. But very quickly, the real headline arrived. Sarah had received her marks, and the results were worth celebrating. A 13 in math felt especially satisfying because, according to Sarah,…
In Babette’s house in Germany, the day began with a very special guest: birthday girl Hannah. Janita, joining from South Africa, started the conversation with a cheerful birthday song, and suddenly the lesson felt more like a party than an English conversation. There was excitement in the air, because Hannah had a busy birthday plan…
It was supposed to be a table for four. Instead, today’s Lunch became a beta lunch for two: the Mayor, Frank, standing bravely alone at the table like “a roast pork on a spit,” and Fruitloop, Janita, armed with questions, laughter, and absolutely no mercy. Rosii overslept after her phone ran out of battery, Natalie…
The sun was shining that morning, but it was not warm. That is how the conversation began. The Mayor asked me if the birds were singing in my world, and I said yes, they were singing, but it was windy, and we only had five degrees. He told me he had ten. It was a…
