My friend Cera is visiting Berlin. Cera is from Vancouver, the Canadian one, and I’ve known her for nearly decade . . . but we did not meet in person until last October when I was in LA:

. . . and again when I was there in December for Secret Reasons:

And now, hey presto, here she is in Berlin. Yesterday we went to Babylon Theater to see NOSFERATU with a live orchestra. And to celebrate 4/20, we both popped a nice and gentle 5mg gummy during the opening credits. Wow! It was an amazing thing to behold, to have a whole host of musicians not twenty feet away from us the entire time, and the whole thing certainly elevated to some upper echelon on account of the good stuff juicing through us. When the credits rolled and the lights came on, everyone clapped for the orchestra for a solid five minutes, and then Cera and I bolted for the door.

Back outside, we stood beneath the lights of the marquee and wondered at it all. Too bad it was cold as hell last night . . . the warm spring weather we’d had ended the day Cera got here. It even hailed one day last week. But no matter, we ZIPPED UP and headed to Kottbusser Tor, The Filth Zone, to visit my old friends at Fahimi, where we were treated like royalty and given fancy cocktails. I don’t know anything about cocktails on account of I’m a huge uncultured idiot, but I drank what was given to me, and it was very good indeed.

Afterwards I walked Cera back to her friend’s place in Kreuzberg, not far from where I lived in 2019 and 2020, just before the pandemic hit. I had not been to that particular part of Kreuzberg in some time, and after I’d hugged her and said goodbye, I walked around for a little bit and felt a sort of sadness at that. It really was a different time is all, not so long ago but also a long time ago . . . and so much darkness had come between me and the time I had spent there. The wind was cold and I was alone on the street just then. Everything felt unfamiliar and a little sinister. I shivered and turned up my fur collar and headed towards the U7 train which would take me home.