Kamila // Hamburg // 05 October 2025 “Alexander, maybe for you?” A cold shiver shudders through me and I look up, my gaze like a razor-sharp blade directly into the left eye of the barmaid, unerring and accurate as ever. “What makes you say that?” I hiss and suppress nausea in my stomach with my anger. I’m so sick of having to compete with complete strangers. I only demonstrate the hierarchy here, because the bitch is about twice as old as me and not even half as beautiful. The reason why she is behind the counter today and not in front of it is obvious. She has simply failed to commit herself to some rich hotelier, oil sheik, or professional sportsman before her expiry date has passed and must therefore now drool over the spotlight world from the shadows until her retirement – which will certainly not be too long in coming.  Sorry, not sorry.  And besides, hey – should and do are two different pairs of shoes. Oh, so completely different, I could fill books with it and make millions from it – if I wasn’t too lazy and too busy already being famous and rich. “Oh,” the woman replies slightly unsettled. “I guess I read that somewhere once that you like to drink that…” Annoyed, I moan, roll my eyeballs ostentatiously and then lean forward slightly toward her. “A little tip,” I murmur harshly and narrow my eyes without blinking. “Don’t always believe everything that’s written, huh?” Then I sit up straight, smile coolly and say, “I want a vanity.” Intimidated, she just nods and gets to work. “Please,” I spit after her and it sounds as contemptuous as Alice Schwarzer saying the word “man”. Meanwhile, I have a headache. Raises my spirits to what it feels like minus a thousand percent. I close my eyes, massage my temples and sincerely hope that the alcohol will come soon. A little later the filigree cocktail glass is already standing in front of me on the counter, filled with black-violet vanity. Vanity. How fucking appropriate.  Fuck the taste, just by this name and by the sight of this color I am reminded every time why this cocktail has been one of my favorite drinks for some years now.  It’s the color of my soul. Too bad I have to drink alone again. My best friend Ria danced to me this afternoon with a pregnancy test, proud as a bull and grinning like a fucking rocking horse toy because she is expecting her third child with her long-time boyfriend Javier. She peed on the probably tenth plastic stick in my bathroom and then ostentatiously waved it around before my eyes while jumping back and forth cheering, literally radioactive with happiness. If she goes on like this, she’ll soon run out of godparents. And I didn’t believe in it once. In a stable future for Ria, the Philippine beauty model, and Javier, the Spanish shooting star, in this fast-paced, vain world. This…