Berlin 2039: The Reign of Anarchy

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2039: now P’berg, a gated community behind barbed wire, seemingly a safe haven for civil servants and government officials

Kreuzberg

Today: a bohemian neighborhood, inhabited by students, hipsters, and immigrants with touches of gentrification

2039: now X’berg, a place with a great view of the Ghetto where bored young “Globals” live in expensive penthouses

Friedrichshain

Today: a bohemian neighborhood with a lively nightclub scene

2039: now F’hain, dubbed The Ghetto.

Wedding

Today: a working class and immigrant neighborhood with a few students tossed in the mix

2039: the puffer zone between the rich and the poor population

Wannsee

Today: a very upscale neighborhood

2039: ditto

The dead man’s cap has come off, his white caftan is soaked with blood. Slumped forward on a chair, his head lies on the kitchen table in a pool of blood. The skull has been smashed, more blood is oozing from a deep wound. Remains of his last meal cling to his full beard. The killer wipes his cudgel on his victim’s robe, kisses the wooden crucifix he is wearing around his neck on a leather thong, and pulls his hood down deeper into his face. He is an apparition, dressed in worn-out shabby clothes. All in gray and covered in the dirt of the streets. His face hidden in the half-shadow of his hood, he pulls a playing card from a fabric pouch secured with a length of rope and crams it between the murdered man’s index and middle fingers. He sits down next to him at the table, pulls the soup plate closer, tears off a piece of pita bread, dunks it into the soup, and starts eating. Rivulets of arterial blood mingle with meat broth. The killer reaches for the glass of black tea, empties it, gets up, and places plate and glass in the sink, which he then stops up and opens the faucet.

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