Artificial Lake

Writing Etude: Varying sentence length (also doubling as a daily blog post)

The number of words in a given sentence is to be decided before each sentence is written.
(8, 12, 7, 4, 6, 7, 10, 5, 9, 14, 7, 10, 6, 12, 5, 10, 7, 13, 4, 14, 6)

(Events from August 10, 2009)
No camera today

I need new tools for my writing toolkit. The day leading up to now involved many train rides and tours. I sit on a bench near water.

Fountains spurt liquid upwards. Gravity pulls it all back down. The lake appears brown; only ducks swim. The sky cloudy overhead, I ponder the events experienced today. What do I write about?

The fountains here remind me of the Reichstag entrance. Powerful sprinklers watered narrow stripes of grass interspersed with straight lines of gray concrete. Beer cups and napkins littered the area. At first, I did not think much about it. Later on, it returned to me.

Inside, we learned about German right-wing extremism and its surrounding politics. Basically, its existence is recognized. Combating and preventing hate crimes plays a visible role in local politics. This differs from the U.S..

The sprinklers and litter out front returns to me. A metaphor for present-day Berlin. Despite all cleaning efforts, unpleasant ideals continue to resurface after every night. Swastikas, violence, people fearing night. Legislation passes in response, yet the violence continues to increase. Is this one face of Berlin’s identity? Like a deep cut, the city’s reunification was not without an ugly scar. A reminder of history.

Clean up the litter every day, water the grass, and hope for the best. What else can the government do?