The following story takes place in a fictional small town in Eastern Germany, sometime in the late 1990s. Due to the German school system of that time (starting relatively late, and leading until 13th grade for those who want to attend university), most students were 18 or older during their last two years of school. This is also the case for all school students in this story.
Please forgive my mistakes, I am not a native speaker of English.
This story is fictional. Any similarities to real people or events are a coincidence.
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At night, Lake Leskow looks like a black mirror. Its murky depths seem unfathomable. Sometimes, the wind makes its journey across the lake: Then, small waves ripple its surface and the moon's reflection dances on those tiny curls of water. The moon's big moment never lasts for more than a few minutes: The wind brings clouds that hide it from view. The trees of the Grünenberg Forest reach towards the shore and stretch their branches out over the water. There is silence all around, interrupted only occasionally by the quiet whispers of the leaves or the cry of an owl.
At the South East, the lake is forming a bay, from which one cannot see the small town of Leskow, situated to the West of the lake. The forest is less dense here. A clearing right at the bay would make this spot ideal for swimming, if the shore weren't as muddy just here, and if there wasn't as much reed growing right at this place. As it is, on summer afternoons the families of Leskow prefer to go the "Beach", which is situated much closer to the town at the South Western shore. Of course, the sandiness of the beach is owed to the destruction of the turf by many hundreds of feet, rather than to it really being a beach. Still, the people of Leskow feel almost like at the sea side here. The small bay, on the other hand, is preferred only by young couples who appreciate mainly its isolation.
Right now, however, in the middle of the night during summer break, most young couples are in the only discotheque or in one of the two bars in Leskow gearing toward a younger crowd. Some might also have taken onto themselves the long ride by regional train to the capital, to escape the boredom of their small town home for at least one evening.
The little bay is quiet and dark; untouched by the existence of loud music, smoky heat, flashing lights and the drunkenness that characterizes the weekend for most of Leskow's youth. The reed is swaying softly in the wind. Finally the moon has free view of the bay for a few moments -- one cloud just left it free, the next one will reach it only in a little while -- and in its light something is sparkling in the reed: Something is stuck between its stalks. Something silver, seemingly precious. It might be a necklace or a bracelet.
The silence is interrupted suddenly, the sound of human feet disrupting the quiet night. The clouds quickly hide the moon again, and thus only the silhouette of a man becomes visible, as he marches straight towards the shore of the lake. He sinks into the mud a bit, but he doesn't seem to mind. In the dark, the metal object between the reeds isn't sparkling any more, one can barely see it. The man finds it anyway; his hand disappears into the dark, cool water, grabs the little thing hidden there just underneath the surface of the lake, and pulls it out. Again, the sound of his footsteps in the shallow waters disturbs the silence. He reaches the shore and breaks a few twigs under his feet. Then he is gone, and Lake Leskow is once again surrounded by silence.
In the meantime, somewhere in the little town of Leskow, a young man named Martin is drunkenly swaggering towards his home, while trying with all his might to forget that he has only two more weeks left until the start of the new school year.
***
Martin was not a good student, nor did he enjoy school. He did not enjoy any kind of effort. And since open protest against the tasks life set him would have been an effort too, his attitude made him reminiscent of a thick lump of clay that with enough strength could be forced into any chosen shape, but which would never look particularly elegant in it. It was not only his behaviour, but also his looks that made him seem like a heavy, formless lump.
From his elementary school years onwards, he tried to resist all tasks, like doing his homework or studying for a test, with a stubborn silence -- but only until it started seeming probable that resistance would be harder work than doing whatever was asked from him. He had to repeat the third grade. After that, he learned he had to avoid that kind of mistake, if he wanted to continue the comfortable life he had grown accustomed to. This realization was caused not so much by the beating he took from his father after he brought home his report card. Rather, it were the annoying tutoring lessons and longwinded discussions during which his parents asked him again and again to explain his opinion towards his own failure, that convinced Martin that too many problems in school would result in more work than doing his homework in the first place would have been.