Berlin S-Bahn trains. The esban everybody takes, because. Just because. The esban in which everybody waits, patiently, to be brought from anywhere to somewhere. One in a crowd of metropolitan crows. Amongst old and young people, hipsters and hippies, mommies and babies. Sometimes, amongst a Strange Man.

The Strange Man isn’t waiting to be somewhere. He picked his coach carefully and entered. Now he is here. Don’t talk to him. Don’t look at him. He has Issues. I start searching for my phone.

The Strange Man leaks colour. Green clothes, yellow hat. Four times he tries to spark a conversation with the unfortunate German old lady who holds a leash attached to an old dachshund. The woman stares at an imaginary dot far in front of her, very straight in her fluffy coat. Not moving, not blinking. She does not have Issues.

At last the Strange Man takes out a destroyed photograph. Someone he is looking for, it seems. A plastic wallet holds shreds of cheap photographic paper together. A Christmas picture. I had a good look. But when he approached me with the photograph, I stared at an imaginary dot far inside my phone.

The worst I could have seen on the picture? A little Anna Traussnig, sitting by the Christmas tree, smiling at her wrapped presents. A picture I had already seen, of someone I already knew. Are Strange Men looking for me? Issues are contagious. I am unique. I am wonderful. I do not have Issues.