Daniel Addercouth

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I have no intention of buying a car, but I always keep an eye out for good places to park in my Berlin neighbourhood, because you never know. Under criss-crossing autobahn bridges near the police station lies a parking lot where wrecked cars are dumped. Their fronts have been ripped off by unimaginable monsters, their wheels are broken limbs splaying out to the sides. Abandoned toys, baskets and denim jackets litter back seats. It’s the kind of desolate urban space where the experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten might have played an impromptu concert in the 1980s, back when West Berlin was a happily neglected island in a hostile sea. I saw the Neubauten perform a laptop gig in the early 2000s, after their apocalyptic mystique had helped lure me to the new German capital. Five black-clad musicians sat behind a row of laptops on the venue’s ground floor, while the speakers were stashed in the basement. We signed disclaimers when we entered, in case our hearing was damaged. Earplugs were mandatory. Venturing down to the basement, I encountered the loudest noise I’d ever heard. Individual notes were lost in the cacophony. The sound waves battered my body like a crowd-control weapon. I’d brought along my friend, a former punk singer, thinking he would enjoy it. But he didn’t approve. A laptop’s not a proper instrument. You don’t even need a car to transport it.

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Daniel Addercouth (@RuralUnease) grew up on a remote farm in the north of Scotland but now lives in Berlin, Germany. His work has appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Trampset and Vestal Review, among other places.