Crazy by Benjamin Lebert

Glob. “Why do we have to keep running? We could just as easily stand still. Catch our breath. Look at wherever we’ve reached in peace.”
    “No we couldn’t,” says the old man.
    “So why not?” asks Fat Felix.
    “Because then everything would have to stand still. For us to look at wherever we’ve reached in peace, both we and the wherever would have to stand still. And if we stand still, there are no wherevers to be reached. It would just be one big unending standing still. Come on, my boy, tell me honestly: Which would you prefer? To be perpetually standing still or perpetually running?”
    “That was the song of life you just sang, wasn’t it?” asks Glob. “Does everyone sing it when they get old?”
    “That depends,” says the old man. “Whether you grow old or not is a matter of chance. And whether you sing the song of life or not is up to God. It’s that simple.”
    “Call that simple?” asks Fat Felix. “It’s far too complicated. I don’t think I want to get old, and I don’t want to sing the song of life either. It’s much easier just living in a world you don’t understand. I don’t want to get old. Getting old is too
crazy.
I’d rather stay myself, Felix Braun, sixteen years old, five foot four, that’s it.”
    “All that’s pure chance,” says the old man.
    “It’s not chance,” retorts Janosch. “There’s no such thing as chance. There’s just fate.”
    “So our meeting here is fate?” asks the old man.
    “Maybe,” says Janosch. “And maybe it’s just bad luck. I’m sixteen years old. Life goes on. And on. And I don’t want people who are farther along telling me how the whole thing goes. I had to get through the last sixteen years without you and I’ll probably have to get through the next sixty-five years, God willing, without you as well. So just leave me alone. It’s great that you can sing the song of life, so go take it to an old-age home and teach it to the residents! They’d be thrilled! But leave me to get on with it. Leave yourself to get on with it too. Everything’s bad enough as it is. We’ve just run away from boarding school. And I think we’re going to need what’s left of our youth. Go peddle your crappy song someplace else!” Janosch’s eyes are slits. He’s really mad.
    “Is your friend always so rude?” asks the old man.
    “He invented the word,” says Glob.
    “When I was up there in school at Neuseelen, we had one like him. He was the leader of our gang. Xavier Mils. I don’t know what happened to him. I think he was a sculptor or something. Long time ago. In Munich. I haven’t heard a word from him in fifty years. Maybe he’s dead. The way I see it, the only one allowed to be more superfluous is me. But that’s the way it is. Life. You said you were running away? Where do you want to spend the night? If you’re headed for Munich, I don’t see you having much luck. You won’t find it easy to get something. But I don’t advise you to spend the night on a park bench. Munich is dangerous, particularly at night; you get some strange types roaming around, I can tell you. Maybe it would be best if you stay with me. I own a little apartment in Schwabing. It’s not very large, but you could all fit in. At least nothing will happen to you there. You’ll be safe. I’ve been living there for twenty-five years. Alone. And nothing’s ever happened to me. The graveyard at Neuseelen, where my wife is, is more dangerous. If I remember right, I even have some spare bedding.”
    Glob, Florian, and Skinny Felix turn around— they’re thinking. Janosch pulls an angry face and sits down beside me on the bench.
    “I don’t like the old guy,” he whispers. “He’s really weird. Something about him is off. I wouldn’t want to go to his apartment with him. He’s crazy.”
    “You don’t know that,” I say. “Maybe he’s just an old man who’s very open and who wants the best for us. You heard—he was in school at Neuseelen