The workation that took another turn.
Move into the flat on Bergmannstraße. Ground floor, courtyard garden, five minutes from work. I'd already mentally arranged the furniture.
I had the viewing. I had the documents. I had that particular feeling of premature ownership where you start referring to it as “my apartment” in conversation, even though seventeen other people also viewed it that Tuesday.
I did not get the apartment.
What I got instead was a panicked search, a temporary sublet, and eventually a place three neighbourhoods over that I would never have found if the Bergmannstraße flat had worked out. The new neighbourhood has a Turkish market on Saturdays, a canal I can walk along before work, and a bakery that makes the best Franzbrötchen I have ever eaten.
I still sometimes walk past the Bergmannstraße building. It looks fine. I don’t feel anything in particular about it, which is probably the point.