{"id":1451,"date":"2020-05-11T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T05:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2020-05-10T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T21:28:08","slug":"a-mysterious-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2020\/05\/a-mysterious-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mysterious Encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image: \u00a9 Katharina Schwarck<\/span><\/p>\n

Author:\u00a0<\/strong>Katharina Schwarck<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning<\/em><\/strong>: This text contains mentions of alcoholism and addiction<\/em><\/p>\n

I walked into that supermarket by chance. It wasn’t in my neighbourhood, and I rarely went\u00a0<\/span>there. Suddenly, I had remembered that I had an empty fridge and since the closing time of the\u00a0<\/span>shops was near, I decided to take advantage of it. So, I went in, and while I was looking for\u00a0<\/span>something quick to prepare for dinner, a man I’d never seen before approached me. Strangely\u00a0<\/span>enough he knew my name and even more strangely, he knew my job. In fact, he asked me: “Hi,\u00a0<\/span>Geraldine. They always let you go so late at the editorial office, eh?”. It had already happened\u00a0<\/span>that a stranger had said that I had the face of a journalist and it was also possible that he had\u00a0<\/span>seen my work badge that I was still wearing when I entered the shop. Therefore, I decided not\u00a0<\/span>to pay attention to this man and kept heading towards the checkout. “And you always eat these\u00a0<\/span>dumplings when you don’t feel like cooking,” he said, following me. That was true, but it had\u00a0<\/span>to be a coincidence. I was taking the money out of the bag to pay when the stranger threw a\u00a0<\/span>bottle of wine on the conveyor belt. He smiled at me. “But be careful, Mr Bacchus!” the cashier\u00a0<\/span>shouted, evidently knowing the man. He apologized. “I always come here, you know, humans’\u00a0<\/span>wine is simply tastier than ours,” he said without ceasing to smile at me. Now he was plainly\u00a0<\/span>bothering me. “And maybe he’s had a little too much already?” I asked him, raising my voice\u00a0<\/span>aggressively. He giggled. “That wouldn’t happen to you, would it? Don’t worry, you’ll never\u00a0<\/span>drink again in your life.” A few years ago, I had a big drinking problem, I was a real addict. I\u00a0<\/span>kept it secret and not even my best friends know about it. I managed to get out of it and there\u00a0<\/span>hasn’t been a single drop of alcohol in my blood since. “Who are you?” I said out loud, now\u00a0<\/span>clearly scared. The man stopped smiling and, to my surprise, started crying. “No one ever\u00a0<\/span>recognizes a small god like me!” I paid as fast as I could and left. Outside, I turned around and\u00a0<\/span>saw the man right behind me, the bottle in his hand. The cashier had really sold it to him. I was\u00a0<\/span>too scared to move. Now he was smiling again. “Are you going back to Giorgio’s now?” he\u00a0<\/span>asked me. “Ah no, that\u2019s next year. Sorry, I always mix up the past and the future. Anyway,\u00a0<\/span>don’t worry about a thing. I’m always here to take care of you,” he added proudly. He reached\u00a0<\/span>his hand out as if to touch me. I closed my eyes, terrified. I felt nothing. I opened them again.\u00a0<\/span>He was gone and I was holding an empty bottle in my hand. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Image: \u00a9 Katharina Schwarck Author:\u00a0Katharina Schwarck Trigger Warning: This text contains mentions of alcoholism and addiction I walked into that supermarket by chance. It wasn’t in my neighbourhood, and I rarely went\u00a0there. Suddenly, I had remembered that I had an empty fridge and since the closing time of the\u00a0shops was near, I decided to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[37],"class_list":{"0":"post-1451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-spring-2020","7":"tag-prose"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}