Sometimes he sat for a whole shift looking into the kitchen (if that was the word) of a McDonald's. Observing the nice little college students and sixth formers, the housewives and school drop—outs preparing the food. Back when he was a man, he used to go to the terrarium in Cologne to watch the crocodiles for hours as they lay in their humid plastic habitat, motionless, maybe opening their mouths, displaying their giant teeth. He knew nothing about these reptiles. The beauty of the sleepy monsters resembled the tranquillity of peril. After some time it was him who kept motionless for longer than them. Just looking at them, a one-sided staring contest that wasn't challenged by the reptiles. Letting the mind run blank. Retreating into some fairy world. Every sudden movement of them tore him out of his void complacency. Even after dozens of visits he did not believe that he could tell the reptiles apart. He noticed when one was missing though. Other than that, he did not care much about the fish in the much too small basins, the bald tarantulas, or any of the other miserable animals that were displayed like side-show attractions. He just cared for the motionless crocodiles in the plastic basin and the opportunity to let his mind run blank.

There was Sarah at the counter. She worked three times a week and had another job in a night-club as a waitress. When she found out she was pregnant she had a nervous breakdown. She was only 17. She hardly knew the father, it was more or less wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. But when she told him she couldn't have an abortion, he understood. He told her he would care for her and the child. He always wanted a family (although not that early) and he loved her. Three months later he was gone. Her friends told her to sue the bastard. She shouldn't let him escape his responsibilities. But she let him go. She did not want such a man to have raised her child. And so she worked hard to raise her child. She did not see the boy who was constantly sick and needed medication very often. When she came home from work she fell asleep almost instantly and so the boy was more or less raised by her grandmother. Her parents had kicked her out of the house when she told them about being pregnant. Now with 25 it was mere routine. She did not complain and she did not think of all the great plans she had had. She never had any plans apart from getting married and raising children. She had the latter but not the husband. No man would come near a young mother. She couldn't blame them.

There was John doing the fries. He should be at school at that time of day, but he was not. He attended a very prestigious musical college. He was talented and bound to be a famous jazz musician. His teachers were impressed with the way he played the trumpet and he was almost a little star in the small jazz pub he played every Saturday night. But he was not in school. They had kicked him out when they found out he was smoking weed. He was expelled immediately. Now he had to fight his way up without a proper education. He did not mind too much. He knew that school was not the place to boost his creativity. He knew that he could make it without school. He was even a bit glad when they caught him. Jazz musicians had to fight their ways out of the gutter. To play the blues meant to live the blues. Of course he had not thought that that meant working in a McDonald's. He hated the smell of the junk food on him. It stuck to his hair and skin and even smoking the cheapest fags could not extinguish the smell of oil and burgers. But whatever shit—job he did to keep the money rolling in, he always had a picture of his idol with him. Chet Baker never had it easy. Of course he was not such a great musician, but he had style. The little flat in the East End he was staying in was plastered with black and white posters of him. Miles and Dizzy inspired him more in terms of musical talent. But it was the white guy with the drug addiction and the tender voice who fell out of a hotel room in Amsterdam with a needle in his vein he was trying to be like. He had the proper way to live and die as a jazz musician. And so John was filled with pride when he was called to the headmaster to take his expulsion. He left with his head up and the trumpet under his arm, leaving everything else behind, knowing that he would make it someday, and that this incident would be another brick in the wonderwall of his genius. Walking off the school premises he was writing in his mind the chapter of his autobiography. The book he was to write in a few decades looking back on a life of fame and fortune.

David just worked there to save some money for a trip to Paris. He studied French history and language and was about to graduate but felt he needed some more practice. He never told anyone about Maria. The woman he had met at his last trip to Paris. She was at least fifteen years older than him. She never spoke about her age or lied when he asked her. He loved her. She had laughed when he had told her and that laughter almost broke his heart, but he also knew that she was not serious. She loved him as well. He could tell by the way she made love to him. No one woman could make love to a man the way she did without loving him. Of course he did not have anything to compare her to as she was the first woman he had slept with. His ultimate plan was to go and live with her. Find a job as a translator in Paris and marry her. She had patted his head and smiled like he was a little boy asking his own mother to marry him. She told him she could be his mother and that she had a daughter about his age. But he doubted she really had a daughter. She constantly told him lies or things that did not make sense. But that just added something to the mystery that surrounded her. And so all his thoughts were on her and the beautiful city of Paris — surely the most romantic place on Earth as he turned the burgers on the grill.

Julie had not much of a story. Her husband was in the army and killed in an ambush in Northern Ireland. But when that happened they were already living in divorce. He had an affair with her best friend. When she found out she was shocked at first, and she had no idea who to turn to. She longed to tell her best friend but obviously could not. A year after she found out she met her friend again in a supermarket. After the first awkward moment they quickly discovered that the spark that had always enlightened their friendship was still there. After some weeks they were able to laugh about the silly habits of their shared and now deceased husband and lover. He had a lot of those bad habits that ranged from the customary toilet seat that he always left open to the silly animalistic noises he made during sex. Unfortunately her husband's pension did not quite secure her a living and so she had to take an extra job.

Of course none of them had any such interesting vita. They were all ordinary people with ordinary lives. Nothing fancy. Nothing exciting. Nothing to waste a second thought on. Just like himself they were utterly boring, there was nothing thrilling about them. They were ordinary. They were. And only making up stories about them could briefly change that.