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Berlin 2028: The drug hotspot Leopoldplatz has turned into a zombie land. Stefan, the vet, is sitting on a bench in this park. He is having a great time seeing junkies who can barely stand on their feet like zombies. Their skin is black and sometimes so rotten and eaten away that you can see the tendons or down to the bones. This is caused by the drug Xylazine, known in the scene as Tranq. How did the drug spread in a district of Berlin to such an extent that Tranq zombies are dying every day in 2028? Who is responsible for the fact that junkies are now walking around the city like zombies? Inspector Bensky investigates the drug milieu. He has to solve three gruesome murders of Tranq zombies and one of a dealer. They were murdered in a bestial manner and found dead in a bunker.
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Seitenzahl: 279
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Jacqueline Padberg
Dr. Klaus-Bernd Padberg
Tranq zombies
Berlin 2028
Psychological thriller
Berlin 2028:
The drug hotspot Leopoldplatz has turned into a zombie land.
Stefan, the vet, is sitting on a bench in this park. He is having a great time seeing junkies who can barely stand on their feet like zombies. Their skin is black and sometimes so rotten and eaten away that you can see the tendons or down to the bones. This is caused by the drug Xylazine, known in the scene as Tranq.
How did the drug spread in a district of Berlin to such an extent that Tranq zombies are dying every day in 2028? Who is responsible for the fact that junkies are now walking around the city like zombies?
Inspector Bensky investigates the drug milieu. He has to solve three gruesome murders of Tranq zombies and one of a dealer. They were murdered in a bestial manner and found dead in a bunker.
.
Jacqueline PadbergDr. Klaus-Bernd Padberg
Tranq zombies
Berlin 2028
Psychological thriller
Table of contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 1
Berlin 2028
Stefan is a vet by profession. On a summer's day, he is once again sitting on a bench on Leopoldplatz and smiling. But instead of soaking up the sun and enjoying the cloudless sky, he is observing the people he is surrounded by. But they are not couples in love strolling past him. Nor are they fathers and mothers pushing buggies or young people playing sport. No, they are Tranq zombies.
This place is a sheer horror. There is garbage everywhere on the ground. Syringes, bandages and needles lie on the sidewalks and in doorways. Bloody and dirty gauze bandages hang out of garbage cans. Used compresses on the floor catch his eye. They are smeared with yellow pus.
But that doesn't bother Stefan. His gaze is fixed on a homeless junkie who is walking past him. The filthy, run-down drug addict is limping through the area, seemingly without a destination. He drags his leg. Stefan stands up and takes a few steps. He stops for a moment and looks to his right. A junkie with sore ankles is hanging over a wall. He wriggles his legs, lies on the concrete wall like a wet sack and has no strength to get up. Stefan's gaze continues to wander. Four junkies are sitting on the ground a few meters in front of him. They are leaning against the wall and are completely out of it. They keep tilting to the left or right as they sit. They have no control over their bodies. One of the addicts even still has a needle in his arm. He doesn't realize it and is in a state of trance from which he won't come out any time soon.
Two addicts lie in the dirt in front of the wall and try to get on all fours before standing up. They don't succeed. They fall over again and again. They give up after a few attempts. Shortly afterwards, they suddenly appear to be asleep. But not much time passes before they try to stand up again. It is in vain. Stefan smiles and thinks.
You could rape the female junkies now or rob them. They wouldn't notice a thing. The women wouldn't even remember being raped. They are also a sitting duck for other drug addicts who are looking for cash or valuables. It's very easy to steal from them now in this state.
Stefan observes a junkie emptying the rucksack of another drug addict lying in the sand on the playground. He doesn't intervene.
That's what I say! They're stealing from each other. They've lost all decency. Eat and be eaten! I hope you all die, you zombies!
Stefan goes to the victim lying in the sand to take a closer look. The young man isn't even twenty years old. Sand sticks to his cheeks and lips. There are also grains of sand in his nostrils. How long has he been lying here, Stefan wonders. The vet gently nudges the junkie with his right leg. The young man moves. His jeans are hanging below his buttocks and his underpants are sticking out. The addict stretches out one arm. With the other, he tries convulsively to hold on to the sand. Stefan wonders what kind of trip the junkie is on. He speaks to him quietly.
"Is everything all right with you? Hello, asshole, can you hear me? Can you hear anything at all? ... Haha! What's it like on the other side, have you made it over there yet, you schmock? You look like a zombie."
The junkie raises his head. His eyes are wide open. Then his head falls back into the sand. His skull must feel like a medicine ball to him, Stefan assumes. The hand with which the drug addict has been convulsively trying to hold on to the sand all this time suddenly relaxes. The young man stops moving. He had taken an overdose and has just gone over to the other side. The vet feels for a pulse on his neck. Then he smiles, but doesn't call an ambulance. He has no sympathy for the young man. At that moment, Stefan just thinks: another junkie eliminated thanks to Xylazine!
He grins to himself and goes for a walk. More people come towards him, walking around like zombies. They stagger and can barely stay on their feet. Some of them are contorting themselves so much that you would think they were doing stretching exercises or looking for something on the ground. But if you take a closer look, you can see that these people are at the end of their tether. They have lost control of their mind and their motor skills. They are weak-willed and look terrifying.
A new drug called Tranq has spread so quickly on Leopoldplatz in Berlin in 2028 that many junkies are now walking around like zombies. Many of them have open wounds. It looks as if this drug is eating away the tissue from the inside. The sight of these people is horrible.
Stefan comes across a limping young man. He is wearing a dirty bandage around his shin, part of which has come loose. A piece of the bandage drags across the asphalt. This doesn't affect the junkie. A large, deep hole can be seen under the gauze bandage on his shin. The skin in this area looks as if it has rotted. The flesh is dark. His pain must be severe, muses Stefan and is pleased.
A young woman coming towards him has holes in her face. It looks terrible. She must have been a very pretty young woman once, Stefan muses. The consumption of Tranq has already left its mark on her. The girl is no more than eighteen years old and is all at sea. Her beauty has been ruined by taking the drug. She walks hunched over, then suddenly straightens up when Stefan looks her straight in the eye. She stretches her hands in the air, spreads them out and looks up. It looks as if she is looking at someone up in heaven, someone she wants to embrace and welcome. But the person the young woman sees is obviously frightening her. Her face contorts into a frightened grimace. She turns her gaze away from the sky and seems to want to protect her body by wrapping her arms around it. Something seems to be frightening her. She flails aimlessly in the air, trying to keep someone at bay. A moment later, the evil figure that was in her head seems to have disappeared. She walks towards Stefan and stops an arm's length away from him. She makes strange noises. The girl opens her mouth wide and moans a creepy, long "ah" sound. She grunts like a zombie in a movie that doesn't come in peace. The young woman looks at Stefan. Her eyes are empty, red and the bags under her eyes are swollen. She has a terrifying look on her face. The vet wonders whether the girl will jump on his neck at any moment and attack him. Smiling, he imagines the most gruesome scenes in his head that he knows from zombie films. But he knows that the junkie is not consciously aware of him. The young woman can literally see through him. She is trapped in another world from which she cannot find her way out. Stefan only knows that the girl cannot be dangerous to him.
He walks a little further. A mobile medical van is parked near the playground on Leopoldplatz. A number of drug addicts are waiting here to have their wounds treated. They wait disciplined in a small queue in front of the van, hoping for medical help. Their wounds hurt. Stefan can see that in their facial expressions. Two female doctors, who regularly come to this place by van, do their best to treat the junkies and tend to their wounds as best they can. They do this voluntarily and charge nothing for their services. They themselves are at a loss as to how these poor drug addicts can be helped effectively. Getting off drugs is extremely difficult. Withdrawal from Tranq is even more stressful than withdrawal from heroin. The clinics are not equipped to take in Tranq zombies, even if the junkies wanted to. To make matters worse, these addicts look scary and like zombies, and it terrifies many patients in hospitals when they encounter these drug addicts. No one can say exactly how such patients can be treated most effectively in hospitals. These junkies are left to fend for themselves with their addiction. They have no chance of recovery as long as they are dependent on Tranq. They are addicts who are rotting alive because of Tranq.
A young woman is standing in the queue. Stefan takes a closer look at her. She has a deep wound on her arm. Before she enters the mobile medical van, she pulls dead flesh from the wound and throws it on the ground. None of the people waiting are bothered by this. Stefan wrinkles his nose. Most of the people in the queue have nasty wounds that need urgent attention.
As Stefan makes his way home, he passes an elderly man. The effects of Tranq have just worn off a little. He is lying in the dirt, slapping his palms on the ground and talking to himself. He is also laughing out loud. Stefan smiles as he watches him and sits back down on a bench to watch the spectacle. He is amused by the fact that this junkie has lost his mind.
Leopoldplatz has once again become one of Berlin's biggest eyesores, and the vet is very amused. He comes here almost every day and enjoys watching the goings-on. It seems as if he takes satisfaction in the fact that the junkies are no longer in control of their own minds. Every time an addict dies of an overdose or is in great pain in the square, Stefan has a smile on his face and a satisfied expression. He also has no problem looking closely at the drug addicts who walk past him. The more disgusting the sight of their wounds is, the happier Stefan looks.
Passers-by give the man sitting on the bench a quick glance. They only think for a moment about how someone can sit so calmly on a park bench in this neighborhood. They make sure they get away quickly. After this thought, they have already forgotten about Stefan.
Why does the vet come to Leopoldplatz every day, sit on the bench and watch these zombies? Isn't he afraid of them? ... No. Stefan has no fear. He even stays seated when one of the sick people can no longer stand on his feet and holds on to the bench so he doesn't fall over. Nor does he get up when one of these zombies approaches the bench. The vet doesn't help any junkies either. Quite the opposite. He looks at them with amusement, bites into his sandwich with relish or takes a sip from a coffee-to-go cup. If a drug addict comes too close or touches him, he gives him a good kick with his foot if he is unobserved and says:
"Well, what's wrong? Can't make it to the bench? Stupid, isn't it, you junkie? Yeah, yeah, that fucking addiction! Not so easy to resist, is it? Drug addiction ruins everything and destroys people. Sometimes, unfortunately, even innocent people who couldn't help their addiction. That's true, isn't it? You filthy creatures turn the drug stuff on decent people too. ... Don't touch me, you bastard!"
The junkie looks at him briefly and makes scary noises. He sits with his butt in the dirt and keeps reaching for the bench with one arm to get up on the seat. It doesn't work, although he tries hard to get up. That pleases Stefan. He looks deep into the drug addict's eyes and remains sitting calmly on the bench. He likes how much these people are fighting against something and how helpless Tranq makes them.
Addicts are dying like flies on Leopoldplatz in Berlin. Stefan regularly observes coffins unloaded from hearses. The men grab the dead by the hands and legs and carefully place them in the coffin. Too gently, he thinks. But the doctor rubs his hands in amusement. Hardly a day goes by without morticians being on site to remove the bodies. To the delight of the vet. These zombies could no longer be saved. It was only a matter of time before they paid for their addiction with their lives. Now they've had it and their torment is over. Stefan regrets that.
Chapter 2
The Leopoldplatz
What kind of drug is this Tranq? What does Tranq actually mean and how did it get into the big city? Many people in charge of the city of Berlin are asking themselves these questions, but they have hardly any answers. Where did the drug suddenly come from?
In 2023, no one in Germany thought it possible that Berlin would turn into a zombie city just five years later. The German government was well aware of the conditions and the opioid crisis in the USA, which repeatedly made headlines in the 1990s.
Many also know that on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, one person dies every five minutes from their addiction. In the USA, a drug called Tranq is responsible for turning the city into a zombie land. But no one would ever have thought it possible that such conditions would prevail in Berlin of all places in 2028.
In Germany, experts have been closely monitoring the drug trend for years. The head of the German Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction repeatedly said that there was no need to fear the kind of situation in Germany that existed in the USA. She already held this view in 2023 and always gave the all-clear regarding Tranq. There had never been any evidence in Germany in the past that Tranq had been distributed and sold in the scene. They repeatedly emphasized that an opioid crisis like the one in the USA was not to be expected in Germany. The Federal Criminal Police Office has also had no evidence to date that Tranq has been seized in Germany. The authorities were constantly monitoring the scene, but there was no need for Tranq among drug addicts in Germany in 2023.
By 2028, Leopoldplatz in Berlin Wedding has turned into a zombie land. Tranq is the cause. Tranq is the abbreviation for tranquilizer. The German authorities are faced with a mystery. They don't know where the drug Tranq suddenly came from. Who is responsible for the disaster?
The infamous Bahnhof Zoo was a drug hotspot before 2023. There are still drug addicts who congregate around Berlin Zoo to consume their drugs. But the abuses that were shown in the movie 'Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo'1 back then, and which were intended to serve as a deterrent example for many young people in Germany, have not existed there for years. Now there are other hotspots in the big city that keep making headlines and shocking people.
Leopoldplatz in Berlin Wedding has become a popular meeting place for junkies from the drug scene in recent years. This place has been considered a drug hotspot for years. When crack arrived there and was sold by dealers, the situation became increasingly worse.
The police have already given up trying to combat drug use on Leopoldplatz in 2023.
Residents repeatedly report that drug addicts defecate in the hallways. Tenants inform the police when they notice that addicts are using drugs in public. But a patrol never comes. The public toilets are cesspools. The addicts also consume their hard drugs there every day. An aggressive crack user has been known to walk around Leopoldplatz with a machete. He terrified the residents with his behavior.
The people who live there are only partly sympathetic to the drug addicts. Hardly anyone feels sorry for the about three hundred users. The residents see themselves as victims. After all, they are terrorized daily by the addicts.
Some junkies become aggressive when taking crack. They break into stores or smash car windows because they are looking for cash or valuable items. They then exchange their loot for drugs. Drug addicts use the stolen money to finance their addiction. Hardly a day goes by without a theft or robbery. This is particularly annoying for the store owners on Leopoldplatz. They are fed up with the junkies.
The drug addicts sleep under tarpaulins, in the open air or in tents. And they leave their garbage everywhere. The site is surrounded by large residential buildings. Many families with children live there. The city has set up enough garbage cans on Leopoldplatz where the syringes should be disposed of. Instead, they lie on the ground in front of the garbage cans. There is a high risk of children picking up the syringes, putting them in their mouths or seriously injuring themselves. Over the past few years, residents of Leopoldplatz have repeatedly launched clean-up campaigns to put an end to these abuses. If you dispose of the garbage on your own initiative as part of such clean-up days, it doesn't take long before everything is littered again. A playground for the children from this residential area is located not far from the drug hotspot. The kids can watch the junkies consume from the playground.
This worries local residents. They have already taken action and approached the mayor of the city with their concerns. They demanded more consumption rooms for drug addicts, which should be better distributed in Berlin, and tougher police action against dealers on Leopoldplatz. The residents could no longer be expected to put up with the situation. The mayor agreed and the politicians were very keen to make a change. With success. The place became 'cleaner' over time. With each year from 2023 onwards, the city made progress. The number of crack addicts and dealers who had previously frequented the place steadily decreased. By 2026, Leopoldplatz was almost free of dealers and users. Children could play carefree again and their parents were no longer so worried about their offspring. All the residents had hoped it would stay that way. Nobody ever thought it possible that the situation would change again. But it did. The worst wasn't over. It got even worse.
How did this development come about?
Chapter 3
How it all began.
Stefan had met Joan while they were studying veterinary medicine together. His ambition was to become a large animal practitioner, while Joan preferred to work in a small animal practice. After their studies, they found a small practice clinic, which was sold for a moderate price. The couple who sold the clinic were in their mid-sixties and gave up their practice for reasons of age. Stefan's parents supported the young couple financially, so that nothing stood in the way of their shared dream of owning their own clinic.
Stefan has been happily married to Joan for over fifteen years. The couple are in their late forties and have a sixteen-year-old son called Joël. He is their dream child and grew up carefree. His parents were often busy at work, but according to his parents, the boy wanted for nothing as a child. A few months after Joël's birth, Joan ran the small animal practice from morning to night with three employees, while her husband Stefan looked after the large animals on the farms. Their son was looked after around the clock by a childminder. The nanny lived in the vet couple's house and took very good care of Joël when he went to nursery and later to school. They had let the nanny go a few years ago. Joël was now old enough that he no longer needed to be looked after every day.
The practice is right next to their home. Joël therefore had early contact with animals. Whenever possible, he helped his mother Joan in the veterinary practice. He wanted to learn a lot about sick animals. The small family led a carefree life.
Stefan and Joan have been practicing as vets for over fifteen years and have had to put many animals out of their misery. The most tragic thing Stefan had experienced during his work as a large animal practitioner was the fire in a pig fattening facility when two hundred pigs suffocated from smoke gas. He was called to the scene shortly after midnight. For him, it was a scene of horror. Fire had spread in the fattening facility. The cause of the fire was a technical defect, as the fire department later discovered. For the vet, it was one of the worst experiences of his professional life. The event had a long-lasting effect.
The main task of a vet is to alleviate the suffering of animals. In many cases, vets have to euthanize their patients. Stefan's wife Joan, who ran the small animal practice, was also often forced as a vet to euthanize guinea pigs, cats or dogs that could no longer cope due to age or illness and should no longer be tortured. It is often not only difficult for pet owners to say goodbye to their beloved pets. Vets also often have their problems with euthanizing long-term patients. Stefan puts it drastically: "A vet must also be able to kill!", he always says to young people who are considering becoming a vet one day. After all, being a vet doesn't mean petting animals and wanting to save all animals at all costs. That is not possible. Stefan thinks it would be fatal to become a vet out of a misguided love of animals. His wife has a similar view.
However, it was not foreseeable at the time that Stefan would one day create suffering as a vet instead of continuing to alleviate it as a result of two severe strokes of fate. Through his hatred, he turned people into creatures that were eaten from the inside. He created great human suffering.
2023
Stefan is called to a farm early in the morning. A horse is whinnying restlessly in its stall and kicking its hooves in front of the stable door. It is obvious that it is in a lot of pain. He diagnoses colic. This is not uncommon in horses. Colic causes severe abdominal pain. The problem is that the farmer has hardly any way of getting to the gray horse. The stallion mounts in front as soon as the farmer approaches him.
When Stefan arrives, the horse has calmed down a little and is standing in a corner of the stable, apathetic and sweaty. He knows the stallion and is sure that he can treat him without the need for sedation.
"The horse must be in a lot of pain if he's behaving like this now," Stefan says to the farmer. He enters the stable and carefully approaches the four-legged friend. The vet hopes to be able to examine the horse.
"Come on, Elmo. Be a good boy and stand up nicely! I just want to see if you have a tummy ache. Don't be afraid! That's a good boy, quiet!"
The white horse trots two steps towards Stefan and stops. He starts neighing and goes up briefly in front. Then the doc can grab him by the halter. He speaks soothingly to the animal. Elmo is restless and prances slightly on the spot. Stefan stands to the left of the stallion. He holds the horse by the halter with his left hand. His right hand, with which he holds the head of the stethoscope, is carefully pushed towards the stallion's belly. The animal becomes restless and pulls its head up. The vet cannot hold it any longer and has to let go of the halter. At this moment, the horse turns away from him. Stefan swerves away and ends up in a back corner of the horse box. Elmo's stomach aches too much and he becomes uncontrollable. He neighs, paces on the spot, shakes his head and kicks out with his hind legs. The stallion hits the vet's left knee with one hoof and full force. Stefan immediately falls down, screams in pain and holds his knee. The pain is unbearable. The farmer and his employees struggle to get the vet to safety from Elmo. The horse is still raging. The farmer manages to grab the stallion by the halter and lead him out of the box into another one. Stefan is lying in the straw. He can no longer get up. The iron-shod hoof has hit him hard on the knee. The wound looks bad. The farmer immediately calls an ambulance.
The emergency doctor notices that Stefan's left knee looks badly damaged. It is very swollen and blue. He gives him a strong painkiller and a sedative. They take him to the nearest hospital.
After extensive examinations, it is clear that Stefan's knee can no longer be saved. It is badly shattered. The only option the chief physician sees is a total knee replacement. The patient needs a new knee and is rushed into the operating theater immediately. Fortunately, he has not yet had breakfast. The anesthetist greets him briefly and induces anesthesia. Stefan is then lifted onto the operating table.
The surgeon and his team are already waiting for him. They have put on their surgical gowns, hoods and face masks. The scrub nurse has laid out the instruments.
Before the operation begins, there is a short meeting with the team so that everyone knows what their role is during the operation and in the event of complications.
The surgeon gets started. Two and a half hours are scheduled for the operation.
Stefan is lying on his back and doesn't notice any of this. He is now fast asleep. His upper body is covered with a warm blanket to ensure that he does not cool down during the operation. The surgical nurses wash his injured leg several times with a disinfectant liquid to kill bacteria on the skin. They then cover the body with sterile drapes so that only the operating field remains exposed.
The surgeon applies the scalpel and makes a straight incision above the knee. The skin, which is very swollen and blood-soaked due to the injury, is twice as thick as normal. The surgical nurse dabs off the blood.
"Now look at this mud! You've really caught something, colleague!" says the head doctor to the anaesthetized Stefan, who of course hears nothing of it.
Now the joint must first be exposed. The patella is pulled aside with a large, blunt hook. The surgeon cuts through the joint capsule. A gush of blood immediately pours out of the joint onto the drapes. The suction cup is unable to suck out all the blood.
"This is going to be fun!" says the head physician, "I'm curious to see how many fracture pieces we're going to get out. First, please rinse thoroughly."
It is as bad as the x-ray had already suggested. The decision for an endoprosthesis is the right one. This knee would not have recovered even with screws.
The drilling templates are attached. The surgeon uses an oscillating saw. He saws off the joint surfaces through the templates. At the same time, he corrects an existing axial misalignment that Stefan has. Everything works like clockwork.
The first steps have been taken. The surgical nurse dabs the sweat from the surgeon's forehead.
Once the femur and tibia have been precisely cut to size, the extension and flexion of the joint are checked in detail using the trial components. The assistant surgeon then prepares the bone surfaces for implantation. Using a drill, the surgeon drills holes for the anchoring pins and prepares a wedge on the lower leg bone. The bone surfaces are then cleaned and dried with a pressure rinse. This allows the cement to penetrate the bone structure well. The lower leg component is then implanted with a thin layer of cement, the inlay is attached and the thigh component is also implanted with cement. Once this has been done, the cement must be left to harden under pressure. The surgical nurse takes the opportunity to dab the sweat from the surgeon's forehead again.
After the cement has hardened, the knee joint is extensively rinsed to flush out any bone splinters. The bleeding is then stopped again. The surgeon looks to see if a vessel is bleeding anywhere and asks the assistant doctor to check this as well. One vessel has to be sclerosed. After the head surgeon has made sure that none of the vessels are bleeding, the joint capsule is closed again. The skin is stapled with metal staples. The wound is dressed with a sterile dressing by the surgical nurse. Finally, the patient is x-rayed to make sure that the artificial joint is placed correctly.
It took just over two hours to complete. There were no complications during the operation. Stefan is taken to the recovery room. There, his cardiovascular function is monitored by a doctor and the nurse from the anesthesia department. The patient slowly wakes up a little later and can be taken to the ward by a nurse.
Stefan is given oxycodone via an intravenous line to relieve his pain. It is a very strong painkiller that is used after such operations. Oxycodone makes you a little tired. It is responsible for the fact that Stefan's voice sounds slurred when his family visits him for the first time. Joan is reassured that her husband has come through the operation well and that he will most likely be able to walk with his knee again later without any restrictions. The surgeon has assured her of this. She is glad that she can see her husband. He is doing well. He smiles at his wife and son when they visit him. But he is tired and keeps nodding off. Joan tells Joël that they had better go, as Stefan needs some rest now.
Over the next few days, they visit Stefan every day. The boy is fascinated by the oxycodone pump. He wants his mother to tell him more about this painkiller on the way home. Joan enlightens her son. She says that Stefan only has to press the button to get the strong painkiller. The pump is set so that he only receives a dose of the opiate at certain intervals in order to be pain-free. She explains to her son that oxycodone acts on the opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord and organs. The pain is relieved immediately after intravenous injection. However, oxycodone also has side effects. The most common are nausea, constipation and drowsiness. That's why Stefan has such a slurred voice. The drug makes you tired and sleepy. It must be dosed carefully, as an overdose can lead to respiratory depression. It is only administered under medical supervision and can very quickly lead to addiction. Joan explains to her son that the drug became popular during an opioid crisis in the United States at the end of the 1990s. Joan tells Joël that he can look up why there was an opioid crisis in the USA on the internet himself. He would do that in the next few days, Joël replies. But for now, he has to cram for his French exam.
He is in tenth grade at a grammar school and is struggling in French. He hasn't confessed this to his parents. Things are no better in English either. He hides his poor grades. There is now even less time for their son than Joël is used to, but he doesn't want to worry his parents.
