Living For Free – Part 6

Silvia_Fischer

by Silvia_Fischer

Story

Later, when I passed by my Algerian friend Momo, the police were suddenly there. Two police officers on a motorcycle. They wanted to see his papers, his ID-card and insurance policy. They had stopped him somewhere with his scooter the other day and checked him out.

“They said one of my tyres had worn out.”

He talked to them through the window they had looked through earlier.

“I’d replaced the tyre, but I don’t have my papers with me. Are you even allowed to ask me about it?” he replied to them. “I mean, after all, I’m home.”

That’s why the first thing they wanted was for him to come out. But he refused to do so. After the questioning was over, the police officers lingered outside the window for quite a while until they took off on their motorcycles.

As I roamed around further, I came across a pile of old books. A guy approached me and asked: “Can I have a look, too?”

“Of course you can,” I said.

“But you were here first,” he continued. “Actually, I’m from a middle-class family, but I once knew some people in an occupied house; Germans, Turks and so on. They said: ‘When you start dumpster diving, you will never stop, because sometimes in the rubbish you can find treasures. So, we sold stuff on the streets, but of course that was forbidden, and we got into trouble with the police. That was ten years ago.”

He looked at the stacks of old books and then left with two of them.

Two evenings a week during the holiday month of August, you could shower, eat and drink coffee in one place. I needed some of that, and so I went there.

“So, Michelle, what do you do for a living?” asked the person in charge curiously.

“Nothing.”

“You live of air and love?”

“Exactly.”

A former friend, a boy, whom I didn’t want to see right now (or rather, who didn’t want to see me) was just taking a shower. I heard him talking to someone who came in after me. So, after a few cups of coffee and some croissants and pains au chocolat, I took off. I was able to spend ten minutes more than usual in the pool that day because the lady at the register had left earlier.

I was then walking through the city in the evening and met a neighbour of Momo at a fountain. He invited me to his house. I was welcome to spend the night there. As I didn’t know what to do, I went along. When I saw his empty fridge, I left two of my yogurts and a loaf of bread for him. He said: “You can find everything you need in the rubbish.” We played a game of dominoes, and then I left because it was too warm in the flat, (and because he noted that we could sleep together in his little bed, or on the couch …). But it was more refreshing outside.

© Silvia_Fischer 2022-11-09

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