None of us know life in a travelling circus, none of us know the remote regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Searching for oneself in double strangeness - what could be more obvious? Tapir bones by the roadside in a very hot summer: what could be more compelling than leaving your previous life by the wayside?

On a very hot summer's day, a young lawyer is approached by a woman while juggling in the park. She wants him to join her circus. He doesn't take it seriously, but finds himself on his way to the railway station early in the morning without informing his family and his partner at the law firm. The circus consists of two railway carriages in which the beautiful acrobat lives. The first-person narrator is supposed to complete the troupe as a juggler together with a clown. In any case, the journey goes far east to countries whose names are barely known. The carriages are parked in the sidings of remote railway stations until a locomotive becomes available. The venues are hospitals, factories and village weddings. Despite all the hardships, the first-person narrator feels great satisfaction, even happiness. But this happiness ends abruptly and he finds himself stranded in a lonely stretch of land. He returns to Berlin in a container with illegal migrants and is not recognised by his wife and children when he arrives at the garden gate. His former pillion passenger has now taken his place in the family. Finally, he makes his way back to the railway station as he did at the beginning.

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Author: Wolf Christian Schröder