Axolotl Roadkill by Helene Hegemann Page B

reflexes reacting to physical pain that can’t hold still. I scream. Even the screaming has nothing to do with me, it’s to do with my system’s direct reaction to a particular stimulus. I am not my screams, I am not my physical reaction to pain, I am not an animal. Funnily enough, I’m hungry. You always think of the most banal things in this kind of situation. Something really odd happened to me two weeks ago. I was walking down Choriner Strasse one night and this mega-aggressive gang of chavs turns up on the other side of the road. Wearing baseball caps, their socks tucked into their cheap jeans and with this severely underage minger in 10-euro pointy stilettos in tow. Prompted by a joint surplus of ideas they decide to throw an empty beer bottle in my direction. I put my headphones on. The second bottle landed right in front of my feet, and the guys crossed over the road.
    ‘Stop where you are, you haven’t got a chance,’ said the most hideous one of them, as I was still clinging to the belief that I could beat the lot of them to a pulp with a couple of skilful kicks. And then someone kicked his foot into my sight line from behind, and I just managed to dodge it. The only thing I thought of was all the numbers on my mobile phone. Not my mobile. Please not my mobile.
    And then the hideous one’s like, ‘Oi, you just did a Nazi salute or what?’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘I saw you, you just did a Nazi salute!’
    ‘No I didn’t.’
    ‘I saw you, don’t gimme that!’
    ‘Are you crazy? I put my headphones on – I’m not even German!’
    The chavs’ faces froze, and then they relaxed again and all looked pretty confused.
    ‘Shit, sorry, we thought you’s a Nazi.’
    ‘No way! Hey, you can’t just go rocking down Choriner Strasse and beating people up.’
    ‘Nah, we always do that. Erhan gives them a high kick, and then when they’re down on the ground, all the rest of us pile in.’
    Erhan’s like, ‘Yeah, sorry about that kick, but at least I missed.’
    ‘Can we get a couple of cigarettes off you?’
    My head’s bleeding. I’m calmer than ever before. I’m lying on my stomach, clearly identifiable as a victim, savouring the state of total freedom from responsibility. Utter innocence because the whole fucking thing is a particularly severe violation of the child’s well-being. I’m evidently a child and thus entitled to well-being, and evidently my well-being as a child is being proved to me by being violated. I’m evidently sufficiently independent of Annika to recognize only the advantages arising for me as a result of her criminally prosecutable actions. I’m sufficiently independent of my sister to hyperventilate in her face that there’s a special police department for victims of violence like me so that I don’t have to make tortuous multiple statements.
    Annika suddenly realizes she’s just got herself into a situation that has changed her face. She’s leaning on the radiator, trembling on the overstrained floor and looking pitiable in a disgustingly sentimental way, which makes me feel aggressive and superior in equal measure.
    Hyperventilating, I scream, ‘You’re so cruel, you only hit me on the head because my hair’s so long and no one will see the bruises!’
    Hyperventilating, Annika screams, ‘Yeah, Jesus, fuck, what am I supposed to do?’
    ‘Are you gonna ask me now how you ought to punish me for the whole thing? D’you want me to say, Hey, next time just ram a freaking Ikea lamp smack bang in my face!?’
    ‘Oh God, just shut your bloody mouth, will you?’
    ‘Aren’t you scared I’ll get a brain haemorrhage?’
    ‘Mifti, you’re not a bloody baby any more, only bloody babies have bloody brain haemorrhages!’
    Hyperventilating, she gets up and staggers down the hall, hyperventilating. Just before she manages to escape to her room, our landline rings for the first time in six months. We look at each other, suddenly allied and utterly fazed. Completely knocked off