§1 · LightningCanon · Oriana Kraft
Oberwil, outside Basel · during the storm
When the lightning struck his father in the fields outside Basel, Otto learned that the universe is chaotic. Order must be manufactured.
“There exists a town on the border of France and Germany where lightning does not strike the town — it smites the people.”
— §1 · Lightning
The place
The fields outside Basel
Where the storm found his father — and where the debt begins.
The object
Chocolat Frey
The chocolate of every Swiss childhood — the one sweetness the era allowed.
ShopCHF 6The ritual
Klug-ness
Cleverness as survival. He avoided the draft, married for the dowry, converted for a passport. He called it survival; the family calls it the beginning of the debt.
The scene, narrated
Otto — Chapter 1, Part 1
The first chapter
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