Abandoned Berlin: An Apocalyptic Dream

Teufelsberg Abandoned Berlin | Photo digitally altered by Lavavoth Stuart

A flattened skyline struck by a nuclear bomb. 

I'm mandated to wear a multicolored unitard to a nightclub housed in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin. My platform shoes are enormous cement blocks painted neon pink. They have to be installed in the club before the DJs begin their sets.

"This is the perfect foundation to restrain your licentious and unconventional ways," a man's voice blares from a speaker mounted on the wall. "Und tanzen ist verboten!" he shouts in German, so I leave [1].

Outside, I confront a polka-dotted sky. Perfect circles of debris swirl above the destroyed city, a flattened skyline struck by a nuclear bomb [2]. 

The sky bursts open with acid rain, forcing me to run toward a dilapidated building that materializes in the distance. The massive structure is riddled with bullet holes. Inside, shattered panes of glass litter the concrete floor. Sea-green paint peels from plaster walls where large sections have broken away under the lingering effects of war. The skeletal lath beneath stands exposed and disfigured. I'm left wondering what has happened to Berlin.

I cling to the vacant space, surrounded by an ashen landscape of loneliness. I want to cry, but I am too numb to feel much of anything.

Notes

[1] I was intensively practicing my German, so it makes sense that small snippets of the language would begin appearing in my dreams.

[2] I was carrying a lot of anxiety that Germany might experience nuclear annihilation at the hands of Russia.