The Move

This vacuum cleaner has been broken for months now, Lui remarked after realizing it had been taking up precious space in his tiny studio apartment.

He is currently in the middle of going through all of his things in preparation for his move in the coming December, three months from today.

Indeed, he hadn’t been using a vacuum cleaner to sweep his floor for months now, instead he’s gone back to the little broom and dustpan, which was a manageable situation given how small his room was.

And yet it was still taking up so much space.

How do I even dispose of this? He asked himself. A question he had asked himself for a group of other electronic junk he had uncovered these past days. Only this one was a much bigger junk.

I can’t even think of slipping it into the Restmüll, (as the name suggests, was where all the rest of your junk gets disposed). For it had to be a bulky waste (Sperrmüll), which in that case would need to be picked up or brought to the Wertstoffhof.

This much he had learned about life in Germany by this point. It will be five years in November since he moved here. Yet he had never made such an appointment for a bulky waste…

I’ll figure it out, he thought. And that’s what he always believed in. You kinda need this attitude if you were going to move to a whole new country. You can never know everything about how your life would change before doing it.

For example, he never would’ve thought that he’d have to camp overnight in front of the Immigration Office just to be in front of the line the next day for the few walk-ins they accept each day to get a Fiktionsbescheinigung — a piece of paper that proves that you are still waiting for an appointment for a real Residence Permit, and thus can legally stay in the country even with an expired Permit.

It took Lui two of these papers, each one lasting for six months, before he finally got the appointment for his real Permit.

This reminded him of why he’s moving out — to move to a town whose Immigration Office was not as overloaded as Stuttgart. His Residence Permit was expiring again soon, and he wanted an easier experience the next time around.

Besides, he’d been thinking about changing to a bigger apartment anyway. His small single room had gotten so crowded now with documents, electronic devices, shelves for his collection of books, board games, CDs/DVDs, and closets/drawers/stands full of bags, shoes, and clothes.

He’d gone through every single one of them again these past days.

Listed and categorized every single one.

Marie Kondo’d everything to identify which ones still sparked joy and which ones to dispose of…

But how do I exactly dispose of them? He came back to the question…

Some of these books he knew he would never revisit, not even for inspiration on his future writings. They could go to the Open Bookshelves in the street. Only a few of them are in German, however.

What about some of these shoes and clothes? Many people back in the Philippines would be grateful to be handed down any of these… Heck, even his dad would gladly wear them. But he couldn’t possibly afford to send them all to the Philippines… Perhaps I could somehow give them to the homeless in his vicinity, he thought.

For those he wasn’t sure about how to dispose of yet, he brought down to the cellar.

One by one.

Until all that’s left now in his room were the things that sparked joy. Those he would gladly bring with him to the new apartment.

He was slightly amused at how some things from his past life in Japan still survived the purge this time.

Like a wine and cheese pairing brochure he got from a seminar he attended. Or the Gundam puzzle box that was yet-to-be-opened.

Why does he keep on moving, he asked himself… Only thirty yet he felt like he had already lived at least six different lives.

One before his head injury (from jumping up and down the bed) at three, which he could no longer remember.

One of his youth in Pampanga which was his mother’s hometown.

One of his teenage years in Pangasinan where most of his long term friendships were made.

One of his college life in UP Diliman, a school campus that was big enough that you could in fact live all your days within its premises.

One of his early adulthood in Japan, his first move abroad.

And one of the last five years in Germany. Which was yet a different experience of living abroad.

This next move, although it was only to a neighboring town, was also feeling like a new chapter for him. Partly because it coincided with his turning thirty — a new decade.

At that point all that was left to dispose of were things that could go directly to the trash bins.

First, the papers. In the green bin, which was shared by the building.

Then the plastics in the yellow bin, which only get collected every three weeks (by chance, it was the day of collection).

And the Biodegradables. Brown bin.

For the glass bottles, tin cans, and dirty clothes, he had to walk a little bit to the shared bins for the whole neighborhood.

All of which have gotten familiar to him now, he thought as he was walking with his bags of shit.

He could map out in his head every building, every corner, and every tree in these streets. He could describe the murals, the sidewalks, the storefronts, and how they’ve changed in the last five years.

And yet he doesn’t really know anyone around here, he realized, with disappointment.

He’d be moving soon and he can’t even name the guy living in the room next to him.

He knows many faces, he might have even smiled and exchanged a few Hallo’s with them, but he never got to know anyone personally.

He hoped that it would be different in his new place. It would be a smaller town, after all, people are less in a hurry like in the city…

After disposing of the trash, (leaving behind the nice shoes just next to the bin, in case someone would like to take them home with them), Lui stopped by Lidl for a quick grab of bread. Thankfully, they have self check-outs now, which made this kind of stop even quicker.

He grabbed a piece of Apfeltasche, a Börekstange, and a Nuss-Nougat Croissant, three of his favorites. Paid around 2 euros at the self check-out, and he might have just let some shoplifter tailgate out of the exit barrier. (The guy did try to scan his receipt before Lui, acted like it wasn’t working and let Lui go first, but then exited right after him without scanning…)

To be fair, the homeless in Germany would sift through bins around town to find bottles they can exchange for a few coins of Pfand before they would shoplift — at least that’s what Lui perceived.

He had finished the Apfeltasche by the time he got home, and he was pleased by his job that day. His room had more space again, and was only filled with the things he liked.

Right on time, his friend called at that moment to tell him that it might be a good idea to already move some of Lui’s things in the coming weekend. There would be a disruption on the road in the coming weeks which would make it more difficult then, his friend explained.

Lui agreed, he said they could start with his collections, which although he liked looking at everyday, he won’t actually be using in the coming weeks.

After that had been settled, they made a few more catching up before saying goodbyes.

He might have not made friends in his vicinity, but he had surely found very good friends in different parts of the city, Lui thought. It still amused him to that day how he could have more in common with a Serbian guy who works as a pharmacist than another Filipino software engineer who grew up in the same town as his.

I finished earlier than I thought, he said to himself. He could do another round of going through his things to narrow them down even further but he decided that for the rest of that night he would just spend on writing.