Wetlands by Charlotte Roche

showed up. Anything we didn’t slurp down we’d have to give back. At nine in the morning we started taking two pills at a time, washing them down with wine. It didn’t seem right to snort speed and coke so early in the morning, so we made minigrenades out of toilet paper.
    Half a packet for each us—which is half a gram—poured onto a little piece of toilet paper, skillfully wrapped up, and gulped down with lots of wine. Maybe there was less than a gram per packet—Michael was a good businessman and he messed with everyone a little on the amounts. So he could earn more. One time I weighed something that was supposed to be a gram. Not even close. But people can’texactly register a complaint with the police. That’s just the way it is on the black market. No consumer protection.
    Anyway, these paper grenades are very tough to get down. It takes practice. If it doesn’t get washed down your throat right away, the minigrenade opens up and the bitter powder sticks to your mouth and gums. You definitely don’t want that.
    I guess everything started to kick in. I can only remember the highlights. Corinna and I laughed the whole time and made up stories set in a fantasy land. At some point Michael came by to pick up his can and cursed us out. We giggled. He said if all the stuff we’d ingested didn’t kill us, we would have to pay him back. We just laughed.
    Later we puked. First Corinna, then me from the sound and smell of hers. In a big, white bucket. The puke looked like blood because of the red wine. But it took us a long time to figure out why it looked like that. And then we realized there were undigested pills floating around. This seemed like a terrible waste to us.
    I said: “Half and half?”
    Corinna said: “Okay, you first.”
    And so for the first time in my life I drank someone else’s puke. Mixed with my own. In big gulps. Taking turns. Until the bucket was empty.
    A lot of brain cells die on days like that. And this, along with other similar parties, definitely took a toll on mymemory. There’s another memory that I’ve never been sure is even a memory. I come home one day from elementary school and call out hello. Nobody answers. So I think nobody’s home.
    Then I go into the kitchen and lying there on the floor are my mom and my brother. Hand in hand. They’re asleep. My brother’s head is resting on his Winnie the Pooh pillow and mom’s is on a folded-up, light-green dish towel.
    The oven door is open. It smells like gas. What to do? I saw a movie once where somebody struck a match and the whole house blew up. So, nice and slow, I carefully creep over to the oven—there are people sleeping here—and turn off the gas. Then I open the windows and call the fire department. I can’t think of the number for the hospital in order to get an ambulance. Oh, both are on the way … yes, they’re still sleeping … I can ride with them. Two ambulances. A whole crew. Flashing blue lights. Sirens. They have their stomachs pumped at the hospital and dad comes directly from work.
    Nobody in the family has ever spoken about it. At least not with me. That’s why I’m not sure whether maybe I dreamed it or made it up and have just convinced myself it’s true over the years. It’s possible.
    Mom trained me to be a good liar. To such a degree that I believe most of my own lies. Sometimes it can be fun.Other times it can be maddening, as in this case. I guess I could just ask mom.
    “Mom, did you used to cut off my eyelashes out of jealousy? And another thing: Did you try to kill yourself along with my brother? And: Why didn’t you want to take me with you?”
    I never find the right moment.
    At some stage my eyelashes grew back and I always curled them and used mascara to make the best out of them —and to piss off my mother in case that memory is a genuine memory. Top and bottom, I want my real lashes to look like plastic false eyelashes from the sixties. I mix cheap and expensive mascara to make the