Next stop, Berlin Hauptbahnhof Arrival on platform 2. The exit is on the left in the direction of travel. Please pay attention to the distance between the platform and the train..." sounded from the loudspeakers and I was woken from my sleep. Were we already there? - I wondered. I looked out the window of the narrow train, but saw nothing out of the darkness. The little boy who was sitting directly behind me with his mother also seemed to have woken up because he was once again asking unnecessary things. "Mom, when will we be there?" he asked. His mother then simply replied, "In a moment, it won't be long." ". I took a deep breath. I hated things like that. I hated it when people asked unnecessary questions because sometimes they were so pointless. A conductor in a red work vest walked through the train. I had seen him a maximum of ten times during the journey from Cologne to Berlin.
A short time later, the ICE 167 in which I was sitting drove through the large dome of the station hall. So this is the main train station - I thought and saw new people again for the first time after a 5 hour journey. The sight irritated me and was sometimes funny. "Maybe they're really nice," my mother always said. Yes, that could be the case, but I wasn't the type of person who liked to talk openly with new people straight away. From now on everything was new to me anyway.
About five months ago I was still living in Cologne, together with my mother and my sister Anna. We lived in an apartment near the cathedral. It was a great apartment, extremely large and enough space for all of us. Anna and I went to the same school back then, but not in the same class because Anna was still 15 years old and I was 19 years old. Doesn't matter. Now everything is different because some time ago my mother received a letter from her boss terminating her. He probably didn't know why. One of my friends said that if someone did this to his mother, he would want to punch the boss. I wasn't the type for that, but I could also throw a punch. But of course only in extreme emergencies. I don't yet know how my mother ended up in Berlin, but for me this was the fulfillment of my dreams. I always wanted the big city. Berlin, I thought. Over the next few years my mother found a suitable job as a radio presenter. I was very happy about that because I knew that she also had something positive about it. I stayed alone in Cologne for a while and finished school before moving to Berlin. The last few days and weeks on the hard mattress left me with a build-up of back pain and stomach aches. The latter had nothing to do with the mattress but rather the fact that I couldn't see my friends for some time and had to find a job. Luckily, I had enough time to find a job during the exam period. Maybe I'll get a response soon, we'll see.
At the train station I saw my mother and Anna standing near the entrance. They didn't see me when I came out the doors. My red suitcase rolled across the floor and came to a stop in front of the two of them a little later. "Good morning Matt," Anna greeted me and took the suitcase from me. I hugged my mother. "How was the trip?" my mother asked as we sat in our Mercedes bus. I told her about the boy behind me.