At a small table in the corner of the common meal room, an unshaven young man of about twenty looked up from his breakfast and chewed thoughtfully. His eyes followed the boisterous children on Pfingsten holiday, swarming around the buffet line as their guardians watched wearily. The young man returned his gaze to the plate of food before him: a slice of bread with ham and havarti cheese, a hardboiled egg, plain yoghurt with fruit in a bowl on the side. He ignored the bitterness of his coffee as he marveled at the bright orange color of the egg yolk, staring at it as if seeing it for the first time. An inane children's song played on loop through his head: ein belegtes Brot mit Schinken, ein belegtes Brot mit Ei, das sind zwei belegte Brötchen, eins mit Schinken eins mit Ei, und dazu ein….
He thought about the millions upon millions of open-face sandwiches that must have accumulated by now as he rose and walked back to the buffet line. Feeling a sudden craving for Nutella, the young man picked up a piece of white bread, even though he usually preferred brown, buttered it unconsciously, and grabbed a small packet of Nusspli. He wondered if this product were a nationalist response to the more popular Italian brand, then quickly banished the absurd notion as he decided the hostel just wanted to cut costs. He spread the Nusspli over the bread as lovingly as a schoolteacher preparing an afternoon snack for her charges, and then paused. A thousand unfinished narratives rushed through his head: untold epics in remote China, tales of love and the big city, stories of philosophical and academic maturation at once unique and yet totally unoriginal. As his thoughts turned to more bureaucratic concerns, he picked up the bread in frustration and quickly took a bite. With the swirl of distant but familiar flavors, he was a child again, unencumbered of everything but the sweet salted nut bread slowly dissolving on his tongue. At home, and far away.
