I’m in some part of Eastern Germany and I am going to a department store. The store entrance is located at the end of a dangerous-looking and rundown alley. There is a big sign in 1920s style Bauhaus typography that lists the store directory and shows which items are on which floors.
It seems that instead of entering on the main floor and going up, everyone takes the elevator to the top floor and then works their way down. There is a group of young men who are all running down the alley to get to the elevator. I follow them.
I get into a really old, scary elevator with two boys who are about 13 or 14. When the elevator starts I am thrown up against one of the boys. It feels something like centrifugal force. I struggle against it to move away from the boy and go back to where I was standing, but I can’t break free. I’m terribly nervous because I think the boy will perceive my leaning against him as a provocation. Instead, he shows me that I need to stand against a different side of the elevator, perpendicular to where I was standing earlier. I sink against the wall and am now standing between the two boys.
I think we are going to the top floor, which is the 14th floor, but the elevator lets us out on the 13th floor. I start looking around for the way up to the top floor but I can’t find it, all I can find are escalators and staircases that only go down. The department store has an Art Deco feel, lots of shiny black lacquer and chrome.
I pull a shiny new gold coin out of my pocket and look at the back. It has a design of flags and swastikas on it. I think to myself that it must be terrible to be Germany and have made the mistake of putting swastikas on your money, and then even though the symbol was later seen as being evil, to still have to have it on your coins because there was no way to pull the money out of circulation.
