15 years wasted.

Two gold medals, five silver and three bronze, a total of two successful world championships and three Olympic participations fought with sweat and tears, lost within five seconds.

It had taken just six words to sweep away fame and prestige.

Six words to destroy his life.

Now he was back where he came from: in the gutter. Kevin Baumann, or simply Platte, was Germany’s most famous athlete and also a known quantity internationally. Coming from humble beginnings, a clear-sighted social worker had recognized the athletic potential that lay in the neglected boy who had lost his father to cancer and his mother to alcohol.

What followed was a storybook tale that the most clichéd author could not have invented better: successful youth championships, successful alcohol withdrawal, successful – and pretty – girlfriend Monika. Then Monika became his wife and he father of 2 children, a girl and a boy. With his busy voice, when he talked about his childhood and about wanting to be a better father, his quick wit and his humor, he was a welcome guest on talk shows. On the celebrity edition of „Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?“ , he had won half a million for the children sport aid, and six months later he won his first Olympic gold medal at the Games in Athens.

Platte had undoubtedly stood on the summit of Olympus – and was now trapped in Hades‘ unforgiving underworld.

„I prefer to eat apples rather than pears,“ had been his comment under the fateful photo. It showed him laughing as he bit into an apple – the pear lay carelessly on the edge of the breakfast table. It was half past nine in the morning, everyone had to be at work, and yet the news was coming in thick and fast. New zings popped up on his cell phone every second. Whereas he was usually showered with encouragement or congratulations, now it was first incomprehension, then anger, then hatred. Without exception, the comments were savage. What was he imagining? How could a celebrated athlete, idol of a nation and role model of the youth, allow himself to prefer apples? How he, with his media responsibility, could dare to portray pears as less edible in front of everyone?

Kevin wondered what he had done wrong. One harmless comment had changed everything. The longer he read, the harsher the tone, the harsher the insults.

The first colleagues began to distance themselves from his zing. They would appreciate pears just as much as apples, was the unanimous comment. His manager announced that he was not ashamed to eat pears – and that was a good thing. The shit-storm spread, the post had been shared and forwarded a hundred times more than was usual. The sports federation demanded that the street named after him in his birthplace be returned to its old name. Critics called for his resignation.

After a few days, his children came home from school in tears. They had been called the wayward brats of a malophobic father. None of their classmates stood by them; no one wanted to become a victim of bullying either. The chancellor let it be known that it was regrettable that he of all people, the up-and-comer, the hero who had made the impossible come true, possessed such an outdated fruit image. His wife could no longer handle the public pressure, went first to a therapist, then to a divorce lawyer.

Kevin stood there, not knowing what he wanted to do. Nothing had prepared him for a situation like this.

The pope explained that from the church’s point of view, even the pear was actually to be preferred, one thinks of the fall of man. But of course, he said, they were ready to approach Kevin and forgive him if he repented of his behavior. The World Doping Agency read a hidden confession in his zing and began to investigate. Investigative journalists kicked up dust and suffering in search of a traumatic experience in his childhood that would explain everything, something Kevin did not want to relive. Questions were asked about his withdrawal, about possible drug use. Within a week, one of the biggest companies released a solidarity version of their products at steep prices – they had replaced the bitten apple with a bitten pear. Silver Lion stopped sponsoring him, advertising contracts were canceled. The only one who publicly stood by him was the head of the Belana government.

First, he was actually a dictator, and second, he only did so because Belana grew apples and not pears. And because the world did not hold him in high esteem, this only led to even more speculative, stupid headlines in the tabloids.

When a hundred frenzied reporters were once again watching him, Kevin lost his temper: „Have you lost your minds? Pears just taste better to me than apples!“ he yelled into the microphones and cameras, into the livestreams of this world.

For five seconds, there was silence. Stock market trading stopped, traffic stopped, the world held its breath. Then a shitstorm swept across the planet, sweeping away everything that had gone before.

That very night, the door of his house was broken down. Black-masked intruders forced their way into his apartment, into his bedroom, and choked Kevin Baumann, the object of hatred of the whole world, with a pear. The next morning, the mob dragged the dead body through the city to bury it in a public ceremony.

This was by no means to be understood as recognition: a pear tree was to be planted on his grave.