promised two thousand euros, and I was getting nervous as Mehmet’s deadline approached. Even more nervous than I was before, I mean. I didn’t want to be standing around all stupid like a cow at the slaughterhouse waiting for the guy with the bolt gun, so I took a seat in the first-available streetcar and just rode, changed lines, and directions, and rode back, transferred to the bus, and rode all over town. I transferred back to the streetcar, where it was alternately ice cold and screaming hot, and I managed to wangle a window seat and wipe the condensation from the pane; outside there were already two centimeters of snow. Perfect. I hate snow. Anyone who loves cars must hate snow.
I got off at a plaza with lots of people and a news kiosk, invested my sock money in alcoholic beverages, and took a train back downtown. I started getting tanked while I was still on the train. I got off somewhere—naturally I had the great fortune of landing in the middle of a roadwork site. And here I didn’t think we were still investing in infrastructure in this country anymore. I climbed up some temporary stairs along with other riders, elbowing my way through the congestion points, then I got lost and at some point took a pedestrian overpass bridge labeled with a sign saying “All Downtown Lines: Straight Ahead.” Meanwhile my field of vision had dramatically narrowed, the noises from my surroundings reached my jug ears as though from a great distance, but at least I wasn’t all that worried about my debts.
I felt the impact on my back despite my drunken stupor. It caught me at the least opportune moment. In front of me there were two landings of stairs leading downward, with temporary railings. My foot reached out a bit farther than planned because of the impact, causing me to miss the first step. The second step was covered with snow and was thus slippery, so my worn sole slid over the edge. The thin board that was supposed to serve as a railing had about as much hold as a tow rope made of elastic. The nail that was supposed to connect the temporary railing to the support column on the left gave way immediately and without hesitation, and the nail on the right followed shortly thereafter. In those seconds my gift of observation was indescribably good, good as never before, and perhaps that alone should have given me pause, but I had no time for that. My feet slid forward through the railing, I tipped backward, and the back of my head hit the wood forming the surface of the bridge unbelievably hard before I completely sailed over the side. I experienced my plummet into the depths in slow motion. Spinning around some kind of axis I slammed onto the pavement six meters below. The noise that my body and above all my cranium made on impact startled even those who couldn’t have seen my plummet at all because their backs were to me. As I was lying on my stomach with my face to the side, I was still able to make out faces turning toward me, but then I couldn’t see anything anymore.
The darkness lasted for just a short moment, and then suddenly, I suppose after about ten seconds, I was able to observe the entire scene very clearly—from above. Now, I’m sure we’ve all seen our fill of those near-death-experience ghouls who haunt talk show after talk show, describing their mystic experiences. They all observe their bodies from the outside, and then comes the tunnel, and the light, blah blah blah. So I didn’t give it much thought as I was floating over my twisted outer shell, which was littering the ground. I waited for the tunnel, the light, and ultimately to grow up again inside my own body. That’s how those reborn TV freaks always end up describing it.
So I hung around and waited. I watched people giving my body a poke, someone taking charge and blathering something about calling for an ambulance, someone pressing on my wrist and carotid and with a serious face taking the cell phone from the man calling the police,