Frankfurt. Berlin. Boston. A young man crosses continents, but the distance he can't cover is the one between himself and everyone else. Merlin is a young doctor with a talent for staying numb. Cities slide past like fluorescent scenery while he drifts through anatomy labs, basement parties, and other people's beds with a growing disgust for the living. Then there was Suvi: silent, ethereal, impossible to hold. A girl who could make a room feel like a crime scene just by sitting in it. When she dies, Merlin does what he's trained to do: he dissects. Not only bodies, but motives. Memory. Desire. The physics of humiliation. The small brutal rituals of friendship, sex, and ambition-everything people use to avoid looking directly at the void. He knows the weight of a human brain, the boiling point of formaldehyde, and the exact drop height needed to break a neck. What he doesn't know is what Suvi was trying to tell him all along. Some conditions are only diagnosed after death. Others not even then. Originally published in German as Boiled Oil. Translated by the author.