Before I start with all this, let me say that I am well aware of the fact that I am nothing more than a character in a story. It was only recently that this realization was mercilessly forced upon me. You can surely imagine what such a sudden certainty does to a person's head - if you can even call me one, after all, there's no denying that I have as little to do with the existence of a real person as the imaginary friend of an imaginative toddler. It should be self-explanatory that since this realization, I spend most of my days thinking. I ponder many things, be it about my future, about certain moments in my past, or about the question of whether I might not have gone completely mad.

  When I reflect on my past and look back on myself, I quickly come to the conclusion that my life has always just dripped along inconsequentially, in a slow and rhythmically monotonous way that made you forget the actual preciousness of what was actually splashing on the floor. Ironically, it was these strange, recent events that made me feel life for the first time, when these events are also the reason why I will soon feel nothing of life at all.

  It was outlandish anomalies that began to invade my life five months ago. As I said, this previously omnipresent cautionary drip of my life stopped for the first time when I began to experience these phenomena. However, this fact in no way outweighs the severity of the feeling of insignificance that these anomalies triggered in me at the same time, when they are also the reason why I became aware for the first time that I did not exist in reality. Five months - since then I have tried with all my might to prevent myself from slipping into madness, although I believe I can judge with a fair degree of assurance that the cold ravine of madness has ultimately allowed me to experience its gloom. This story is also about how I could no longer hold on to the cutting stones of this slippery ravine, which promised the joy of life at its upper end.

  We humans are damned to judge and evaluate. We want to assign everything that comes to our attention to certain patterns or pigeonhole it. I know that you too will have your own thoughts and ideas about all of this. I'm sure it won't be long before you think I'm a debauched, snivelling person who, when faced with the quicksand of self-pity, will only fidget with my limbs all the more. But even though, unlike you, I am not a real person, I too have an irrepressible urge to which every single person is doomed: the urge to justify myself. Let's assume that the next time I go to the supermarket I see a woman who couldn't be more beautiful. Let's assume that my smile is directed in her direction and that she would return that smile. Let's even assume that we strike up a conversation, go on a date and get to know each other: let's assume that we learn to love each other. This unlikely fairy tale, even if I were to experience it for real, would still be nothing more than a fairy tale. From the beauty of this woman, to her smile, her interests and her love for me - all of this would be nothing but a construction that would have nothing to do with reality. I would know that she was only smiling at me because it was made up that she should do just that. Even the smile that I would give her would only be a result of a certain person's imagination - I and this world are not real, but a pure product of a certain person's fantasy.

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  Presumably my creator is a wrinkled, fat and old man who thought all this up on the side at some point and then decided to hammer his simple-minded ideas into the keyboard until his greasy sausage fingers were sore. And I can tell you one thing about the whole thing: considering the irrelevance of my life and the fact that I couldn't be more tedious as a person, he will certainly be anything but talented at what he's trying to do. God how I hate him. But for better or worse, he too is a factor of greater importance to the real world than I am - even him.

  From the postman who puts newspapers and brochures in your letterbox to the baker who gets up in the morning to meet your demand for fresh and warm baked goods - they all have a significance for the world that I would not even be able to dream of. Even a grain of dust that flies soullessly through the air will always have more meaning than I ever did, because the grain of dust exists. It can make you put down your previous plans and start to clean your home - the grain of dust has an influence on the events of reality. The world in whose air it dances around and on whose floor it falls is real, unlike mine.

  My world is nothing and I am my world.

  So can you understand why I stare holes and cry tears, here, in this world where feeling meaningless is the only thing that feels real?

  You are probably wondering what the purpose of this story is and why exactly I am telling you all this. To be honest: I don't really know myself. But indulge me in this fantasy that someone will listen to what I have to say. Allow me this brief moment of meaningfulness that makes me believe I might have some kind of influence on the world, even if it is only a small one. Allow me this tiny spark of meaning that I have been trying in vain to grasp for five months now.

  I am going to tell you my story. More precisely, I will tell you who I am (or at least try to). They say that the moment you are close to death, life finally passes you by again. Perhaps this is also the reason why I now feel the urge to recapitulate and tell my story once again. Apart from my life, I will tell you about these events, which I myself would eventually baptize as anomalies and which began to creep into my life five months ago.

  I'll tell you all this from up here. Here, where the air smells pure in the high mountains and even the dead flowers bloom. I will also tell you the reason why I am up here.

  Have fun with my dreary and unspectacular story.