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BERLIN - SHUT THE FUCK UP

If I got a dime every time someone told me to shut the fuck up…I would have probably lost it all in the "crisis" anyway. Therefore, I decided to conduct a sociological test to shut the fuck up for absolutely no fiscal reward and no real reason. Turns out, one week mute, solely interacting with the outside world through various forms of non-verbal communication, can turn you into rather a sociopathic asshole.

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Day 1

Dear world, enjoy the fucking silence. Today it starts: I will finally keep my mouth shut. The first day as a mute starts quite nicely, actually very pleasantly. From now on I can be that silent, mysterious guy who is strangely quiet but looks at the world through "waking eyes." It is fantastic. I liked myself in this role, that is, until I met my first human being and soon realized I feel like a complete twat.

I don't think the woman who sells me my cigarettes and coffee every day is actually

that

attractive, but handling the daily business

sans parole

was incredibly unsatisfying. I felt like a penis during

coitus interuptus

. I quickly gave up on the stupid idea of communication with my hands, because I looked like a clown at child's birthday party and everybody started talking to me as if I were a retarded Zulu tourist. Instead I chose to carry a notebook with some preformulated sentences around with me. It was a Moleskine so in retrospect I probably looked like an even bigger wanker.

During my lunch break I was acknowledged as completely helpless. With an incredible amount of effort I was able to get something to eat, by just pointing on the page with the word YES written on it. However, ending up with a slice of pineapple pizza and fruit bread is, in my opinion, less edible than David Hasselhoff covered in his own vomit.

Day 2

I woke up and left my beautiful girlfriend without a word (that is not her up there, that is someone else), feeling somewhere between Lancelot and the pedophile father in

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. Later I start to think the whole thing is a stupid idea because in return, my girlfriend has stopped talking to me.

Shit, what's the girl thinking?

I thought to myself, while having the overwhelming feeling that I'd done something incredibly terrible like farting in my sleep. I started to reflect on things a lot. A strange stream of crazy thoughts came flushing through my head while I fought the urgent need to talk with myself.

I then also realized how stupid people are. Especially the ones you meet in the subway or other public places and constantly try to involve you in a conversation. But with everything being so stupid I am able to separate them into the following stupid three groups:

The people in the first group think that everything is just a big laugh and will just start randomly joking around only to get a word out of my mouth.

The second group is even more stupid and they start to abuse my situation for the worse by telling me their whole life story over and over again, without even thinking of taking a break, because they seem to be cheered by the fact that there is someone who will actually listen to all their nonsense.

The real bottom feeders are the ones who just ignore you because you aren't saying anything.

In the evening I nearly failed to order myself a beer because everybody thought I was already drunk.

Day 3

Oh, fuck these headaches. But it doens't really matter because I can't tell anyone about them anyway. I started to become weird. Somehow I've lost all interest in other people but so have they for me. I start to smoke alone, stay at home alone, go for a walk alone--all the kinds of activities that don't necessarily involve any kind of human contact. I have lost my appetite as well because getting something to eat would lead to embarrassing behavior in public. I also neglect all other needs. Personal hygiene is first to go. Brushing my teeth doesn't make any sense to me anymore. My mouth must smell like an A-hole but that doens't matter either. The rest of the daily business loses out to procrastination. Bills are piling up in the mailbox, but since they require making a phone call they are not my problem. Friends? I had some once. The only thing that can put a smile on my face is when people call me and start talking into the silence until they just hang up. Soon no one will call me again. This may well have its upside.

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Day 4

Shitty start to the day. Someone visited me. Unecessary, really very unecessary, is all that came into my mind. What do all these people want from me?

I was convinced I would leave the apartment and mix myself up amongst the general population. And there they all were, sitting around and telling in gibberish their useless little stories while I threw Post-Its at them. While everybody else had their little discussions, I focused myself on drinking more than all them put together and behaving like a proper sociopath.

Here are a few notes that can tell the development of my conversations that evening, and how I drunkenly started a fight without any verbal swearing, or even heavy grunting.

Shortly afterwards I got up in silent anger and left everybody else without saying a word.

Day 5

They should leave me in peace. I consequently turn away from people if they attack me by starting to talk in public. And if they should regard it as unfriendliness, they're right, I hate them. I don't need anyone anymore. I am the ruler of my own silent kingdom. My ears hear better than theirs, my eyes are sharper than theirs, and if I were to open up my mouth they would all suffocate on my poo-breath. I am completely self-centered and feel completely self-righteous about it.

However, at the same time, I feel totally ashamed but I don't know why. I move my tongue around in my furry mouth. There is so much shit going on in my head it's like a trash can that hasn't been emptied for year and doesn't overflow. Instead, this decomposed "thought-slime" is kind of oozing out from the bottom, like in Ghostbusters 1. Sort of. But more smelly.

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So, I did the only reasonable thing and spent my day the park. I forgot my notebook at home and was forced to write on my bare hands like a hippie, while all the other hippies around me conversed through the medium of bongo.

Day 6

After getting up and carrying out the routine of swallowing the dammed-up frustration and the disgusting taste in my mouth I decided to go back to bed for a while. I thought for a long time about the first word I would say when this shit was over. It should be a beautiful word. But at that time I didn't know that I would fail. The one thing that really fucks you up and K.O.s you after a few days is this unimaginable boredom. It's a kind of boredom that eats your thoughts, fucks your brain, and makes you a little bit stupid. So I did the only reasonable thing and had a bath. After a while the lights started flickering due to some kind of short circuit and I noticed that I could dim the lights just by regulating the water temperature while lying in the bathtub. Well, you don't think too much in a situation like that, apart from the fact that it scares the shit out of you.

Fuck I couldn't even call someone to fix my potential death. In fact, I could have stayed at home and forced this shitty experiment to the finish line but instead I started drinking booze. Heavily. Too much, in fact. So much Schnapps and cheap wine passed my lips and caressed my tongue on the way down that she got loose. Very loose. And then it happened. Halfway through a sip of bottom-shelf Polish Vodka…"Oh fuck, thats good."

Fuck it.

FELIX NICKLAS