untitled sketch

Helmut could have turned forty, but he turned forty last year. 'Well, at least it's not forty-two' doesn't sound so encouraging when he starts counting down the years until retirement.

It would have been just another dull workday, but now it's dull and full of boring, shallow conversations. Every time one of them tries to strike up a conversation with him, he gets so bored that he remembers the itch in his groin, notices how much hair is sticking out of his conversation partner's strangely huge nostrils, feels that something is actually rotted in the office, when it would be better if it remained part of the background, which he pays no attention to at all.

Birthday wishes annoy him the most.

Wishing for inexhaustible energy sounds delusional - for five years now, Helmut has felt like a car running on low fuel; the wishes for many years of life only grimly remind Helmut that he has probably lived more birthdays than he has left. The wish for all wishes to come true is like 'and so on' wrapped up in more flattering packaging; What if he wishes for the earth to split open and they would be dragged into hell?

What he wishes for most now is to be left alone, forgotten.