Secrets, Schnacks, and Shredded Truths

In 2013 I met an East German backpacker named Chris in a bar on Brunswick Street. On one hand, this charismatic ‘Ossi’ was a master storyteller with an endless supply of unbelievable tales, but on the other hand, he was also very secretive. On our second date, I asked him if he’d ever read his family’s Stasi files, to which he responded, ‘Some things are better left alone.’ He used a false name on social media, had an aversion to photographs, and had a scar on his left cheek from a knife attack which he claimed to have endured on the U-Bahn in West Berlin. Later, I learned that it was acne scarring. I must have found his secrecy sexy, or something, because we ended up travelling through South East Asia for a few months together. We also briefly endured a long-distance relationship, before I booked a one-way ticket to Berlin, the city I’d always wanted to live in. Six weeks after he was home, on the 17th day of a grey November, I moved into his Friedrichshain flat with him. After a few months of getting my bearings and making friends, Chris began peppering me with questions whenever I got home about where I’d been, what I’d been doing, and who I’d been with. My naivety told me that he had proprietorial ways because he deeply understood the world and cared for me.  <a href="https://medium.com/@k.s.dulhunty/secrets-schnacks-and-shredded-truths-e7c6c3086c6d">Click Here</a>