It just so happens I was obliged to take a few cabs today. The rides were quite unspectacular. Just an unknown guy driving his Mercedes Benz while listening to some silly station’s speedy shit. But one ride was different. The taxi driver was listening to some silly station’s soft rock while driving his Mercedes Benz. He was about twice as big as his seat and with his right arm he hugged the back of the shotgun seat. Every ten seconds he coughed, it wasn’t loud, just a single cough, almost a sigh, and then he whistled along with the tune in the radio, endlessly repeating this pattern, cough, whistle, cough, whistle, cough, whistle. Because Berlin is under construction and because I had the feeling that he wasn’t really paying that much attention to the traffic and that he couldn’t care less about his passenger, and because I was in a hurry and because he got on my nerves, I told him which way to go. He coughed, whistled, coughed. “Sure thing, we’ll do a little sverve”, he hummed. There. I relaxed. I leant back, looked out of the window and then I saw the stars come out under a bright and hollow sky and the city and its lights and people hushing by. A little sverve. And the rest was easy.