Crank Handle

Yesterday, when he had gone down to the basement to get a hammer, he discovered the crank handle. There it was, sticking out of the wall behind the toolbox. He turned it three times and looked up at the light. To see if it would go out. It didn’t go out. He turned it six times and listened. Maybe the cranking would make something else happen, like set off a mechanism that would cause the house to collapse. But nothing. Neither sixty nor six hundred and sixty-six rotations caused the house to collapse. He went back upstairs, sweating. He opened the basement door just a crack and peered out. His wife was lying in an armchair, contorted athletically and studying a home decorating magazine, and the children were screaming with joy.

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Martin Lechner studied philosophy and literature at the University of Potsdam. His celebrated debut novel Kleine Kassa (Petty Cash) was longlisted for the German Book Prize 2014, his short story collection Nachfünfhundertzwanzig Weltmeertagen (After Five-Hundred and Twenty Days of Sea) (2016) was shortlisted for the Clemens Brentano prize 2017. Lechner currently lives in Berlin and received funding for his work on “Der Irrweg” (Astray) from the Senate of Berlin. He is currently working on his third novel. Twitter: @AUTOMARTZWEI

Millay Hyatt is a Berlin-based freelance writer and translator with a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California. Her books, essays, and short fiction engage with wild animals and other bodies, including her own. Her book Nachtzugtage (Days on the Night Train) will be published by Friedenauer Presse this summer.