Oska Stefan Donger

Early Life

Oska Stefan Donger was born on 9th September 1976 in Zürich, the second child and only son of Gebhardt and Anna Donger. His sister Glenda, three and a half years older, had already established herself as the family's easy child—studious, responsible, the kind of daughter who made parenting look simple. Oska arrived loudly and remained loud, a colicky infant who became a hyperactive toddler who became the boy teachers described with phrases like "bright but unfocused" and "needs to learn self-control."

The family lived in Zürich's Niederdorf district, in an apartment that always felt slightly too small for Gebhardt's personality. Oska's father was a storyteller of local renown—not famous exactly, but known, the kind of man who could fill a community centre on a winter evening with people who wanted to hear him spin Swiss folklore into something that felt urgent and alive. Gebhardt performed perhaps twice a month, supplementing the family income Anna earned as a bookkeeper. The rest of his time he spent preparing, reading, walking the city's streets in what he called "gathering." What he was gathering remained unclear to his children.

Oska's relationship with his father was complicated in ways he only understood later. Gebhardt clearly preferred Glenda—or if not preferred, then found her easier to love. She sat still during his practice sessions; Oska fidgeted. She asked thoughtful questions about narrative structure; Oska wanted to know why the stories couldn't have more fighting. Gebhardt was not cruel about this preference, but children notice these things, and Oska noticed. He spent much of his childhood trying to earn attention his sister received effortlessly, then spent his adolescence pretending he didn't care.

What Oska did inherit from his father was an understanding of performance—not storytelling itself, but the mechanics of holding attention. He watched Gebhardt arrange chairs before shows, adjust lighting, choose the precise moment to begin speaking. The audience's focus was something you could shape, Oska realised, something you could earn and direct and, if you weren't careful, lose. This knowledge would prove more useful than any story his father ever told.

His mother Anna provided stability that Gebhardt's artistic temperament could not. She managed household finances with the same precision she brought to her clients' books, ensuring bills were paid and children were fed even when Gebhardt's performances brought in less than expected. Oska gravitated toward her practicality, finding comfort in her lists and systems, her way of making chaos manageable. In later years, he would recognise that his ability to run complex venue operations came directly from watching his mother keep their household functional despite limited resources and an unreliable husband.

Adolescence and Self-Discovery

Oska knew he was gay by fourteen, though he lacked the vocabulary to articulate it until later. Zürich in the early 1990s was not hostile to homosexuality in the way some places were, but neither was it particularly welcoming. He dated girls briefly and unconvincingly, performed heterosexuality with the desperate energy of someone who knew the performance wasn't working, and spent nights lying awake wondering if what he felt meant something was fundamentally broken in him.

His salvation came through Zürich's nascent club scene. At fifteen, armed with a fake ID that fooled no one but was accepted anyway, Oska discovered spaces where the rules he'd grown up with didn't apply. The clubs were dark and loud and full of people who seemed entirely themselves in ways he'd never witnessed. He saw men dancing with men, touching casually, kissing in corners. The revelation wasn't sexual—or not only sexual—but existential. Other ways of being existed. He wasn't broken; he'd simply been looking in the wrong places for mirrors.

He came out to Glenda first, at seventeen, in her university dormitory room during a visit to see her in Basel. She hugged him and said she'd wondered, which irritated him—he'd worked so hard at hiding, and apparently hadn't managed to fool anyone who was paying attention. She asked if he'd told their parents. He hadn't. She offered to be there when he did. He said he'd think about it, then didn't tell them for another three years, by which point his father had already figured it out and his mother claimed she'd known since he was eight, which Oska doubted but appreciated.

Gebhardt's reaction to having a gay son was characteristically complicated. He said all the right things—he loved Oska unconditionally, sexuality didn't matter, et cetera—but something shifted in their already strained relationship. Years later, Oska would learn that his father had harboured hopes of grandchildren, of family continuity, of stories passed down through generations. These hopes weren't Oska's responsibility to fulfil, but Gebhardt's disappointment was palpable, another way Oska had failed to be the son his father wanted.

Education and Early Career

Oska's academic career was undistinguished. He scraped through his Matura in 1995, then enrolled in hospitality management at the Zürich University of Applied Sciences mostly because he couldn't think of anything else to do. The coursework bored him, but he completed it—Anna Donger's son understood the value of credentials even when the education felt pointless. He graduated in 1998 with marks that would impress no one but a certificate that opened doors.

His first real job was at Kaufleuten, one of Zürich's more established nightclubs. He started as a barback, which meant hauling cases of beer up narrow stairs and mopping floors at four in the morning. The work was physical and often humiliating—he was twenty-two with a university degree, picking up broken glass while wealthy patrons ignored him—but he learned how venues actually functioned, the unglamorous mechanics that made glamorous nights possible. Within two years he'd worked his way to floor manager, then assistant general manager by 2001.

It was at Kaufleuten that Oska met Dominik Wyss, a sound engineer five years his senior who worked freelance at various Zürich venues. Dominik was everything Oska wasn't—calm, patient, content with small pleasures and steady routines. They moved in together in 2002, into a flat in Wiedikon that Dominik had occupied for years and that never quite felt like Oska's home. But Dominik felt like home, solid and reliable in ways Oska's childhood had not been, and for a while that was enough.

Vienna

The offer from Vienna came in 2003—a chance to help launch Pratersauna, an ambitious project converting a nineteenth-century bathhouse into a club. Oska wanted it desperately. Dominik did not want to leave Zürich, where his freelance network was established and his elderly mother lived alone. They fought about it for weeks, the kind of circular arguments that resolve nothing because the underlying conflict is irresolvable. In the end, Oska went. Dominik stayed. They agreed to try long-distance, both knowing it probably wouldn't work.

It didn't work. Or rather, it worked for about eight months, weekend visits and expensive phone calls and the slow accumulation of resentment on both sides. Dominik felt abandoned; Oska felt held back. They broke up in spring 2004, a tearful conversation in Dominik's kitchen that ended with Oska taking the last train back to Vienna and crying in his seat while pretending to sleep. He was twenty-seven and heartbroken and convinced he'd made a terrible mistake. He threw himself into work because work was the only thing that didn't hurt.

Pratersauna became his education and his therapy. The venue occupied a genuinely beautiful space—vaulted ceilings, ornate tilework, rooms that had witnessed a century of Viennese life—and the challenge of making it function as a modern club while preserving its character absorbed him completely. He learned to negotiate with heritage authorities, to manage sound levels that wouldn't crack century-old plaster, to balance artistic programming with commercial necessities. The venue succeeded, became one of Vienna's essential nightlife destinations, and Oska's reputation grew accordingly.

He also discovered Vienna's gay scene, which operated differently than Zürich's—more theatrical, more cruisy, infused with the city's tradition of beautiful surfaces concealing complicated depths. Oska had relationships, none lasting more than a few months. He told himself he was focused on career, that there would be time for love later, that he wasn't still hung up on Dominik. All of these were partially true and partially lies, in proportions that shifted depending on how much he'd had to drink.

Prague and Berlin

By 2008, Oska had grown restless in Vienna. He took consulting work in Prague, advising on club development in a city still finding its post-communist cultural identity. The work was interesting but unstable—Czech operators often couldn't pay what they'd promised, projects collapsed mid-development, partnerships soured over money and creative differences. Oska made enemies he probably shouldn't have made, burning bridges with his impatience and his unwillingness to compromise on things he considered essential. He left Prague after eighteen months with less money than he'd arrived with and a reputation for being "difficult."

Berlin was supposed to be the redemption. In 2010, Oska joined the programming team at Watergate, a club whose location overlooking the Spree had made it internationally famous. The job was everything he'd wanted—creative control, respected institution, the capital of electronic music culture. For several years, it was genuinely good. He curated lineups he was proud of, built relationships with artists and labels, developed programming concepts that other venues imitated. He was, by most measures, successful.

Success in Berlin's nightlife industry came with particular temptations. The drugs were everywhere—not just available but expected, part of the culture in ways that felt impossible to refuse. Oska had always been a social user, but Berlin turned social use into something more. By 2014, he was using most weekends and some weeknights, telling himself it was professional necessity, that he couldn't do his job without understanding what his patrons experienced. This was obviously nonsense, the kind of story addicts tell themselves, but he believed it until he couldn't anymore.

The relationship that finally stuck began in 2012. Fabian Hofer was a graphic designer who'd moved to Berlin from Munich, a man who'd never touched drugs stronger than cannabis and who found Oska's nightlife world both fascinating and faintly distasteful. They were poorly matched in obvious ways—Fabian wanted quiet dinners and holidays in the countryside while Oska wanted club openings and warehouse parties—but something worked between them. Fabian moved into Oska's flat in 2013. They talked about marriage after it became legal in Germany. They talked about a lot of things.

Crisis

Oska's drug use became impossible to ignore in 2015. He missed a major booking because he'd been up for three days and couldn't function. Watergate's management noticed, then noticed the pattern of similar incidents they'd previously dismissed. The conversation was professional and brutal: take leave, get help, or find another job. Oska chose leave, spending six weeks in a rehabilitation programme in Bavaria that Fabian paid for because Oska's savings were gone and his pride wouldn't let him ask his family.

Recovery was not the dramatic transformation that memoirs describe. Oska stopped using, mostly. He returned to work diminished, no longer programming director but a consultant with reduced responsibilities and a reputation for unreliability that would never fully fade. Fabian stayed, which surprised Oska—he'd expected abandonment and received loyalty instead, and wasn't sure he deserved it. Their relationship continued, quieter than before, marked by the particular caution of people who've seen what can go wrong.

Glenda's Message

The communication from Glenda arrived in late 2018, and Oska initially assumed his sister had suffered some kind of breakdown. She claimed to be in another world—Clivilius, the place from their father's stories—and she wanted him to join her. The message came through channels that shouldn't have existed, methods of contact that defied explanation. Oska read it three times, then called Glenda's Zürich flat and got no answer, then called their mother and learned that Glenda had been gone since July, having left a letter about "an extended research opportunity" that Anna clearly didn't believe.

He didn't tell Fabian about the message for two weeks. When he finally did, Fabian's reaction was measured and devastating: either Glenda was mentally ill and needed help, or Oska was entertaining delusions, or they were both losing their grip on reality. None of these options suggested that Oska should do anything other than contact mental health professionals. The conversation ended badly, with Oska sleeping on the couch and Fabian suggesting they "take some time" to think.

What convinced Oska wasn't the logic of Glenda's message but its tone. His sister was the least fanciful person he knew—she dealt in evidence, in measurable outcomes, in things that could be tested and verified. If she said Clivilius existed, either she'd lost her mind entirely or it actually existed. And if it existed, if their father's stories had been somehow true all along, then maybe Oska's entire understanding of what was possible required revision. He was forty-two years old, his career was damaged, and his relationship was failing. What exactly did he have to lose?

The final conversation with Fabian was worse than the one with Dominik fifteen years earlier, because this time Oska knew he was choosing to leave someone who loved him for something that might not exist. Fabian cried and shouted and eventually went very quiet, which was worse than the shouting. He asked if Oska had ever really loved him. Oska said yes, which was true, but not true enough, which they both understood. He left Berlin in February 2019, carrying a small bag and instructions from Glenda about where to find the portal.

Arrival in Clivilius

Bixbus in early 2019 was not what Oska had expected, though he hadn't known what to expect. The settlement was rough and practical, a collection of structures that prioritised function over aesthetics, populated by people who were building something from nothing and showed the strain of that work in their faces. Glenda met him at the arrival point, looking healthier than he'd seen her in years, and hugged him for a long time before saying anything.

Their reunion was strange. Oska had spent months preparing to find his sister mad or deceived; instead, he found her competent and content, running a medical clinic with limited resources and unlimited purpose. She introduced him to people, showed him around the settlement, explained systems and structures he barely understood. What struck him most was how seriously everyone took their work—not grimly, but earnestly, as though building this community was the most important thing any of them had ever done.

Oska spent his first months doing whatever was needed. He carried materials on construction sites, helped in the settlement's kitchens, took shifts on overnight security patrols. The physical work was good for him—simpler than nightclub management, more obviously useful. He slept better than he had in years, though he dreamed often of Berlin, of Fabian, of things he'd left unfinished. He didn't talk about his past much, and people in Bixbus were polite enough not to ask.

Building Something

The idea for entertainment venues came gradually. Oska noticed that Bixbus residents worked constantly, that celebration was rare and relaxation rarer. People ate meals quickly and went back to tasks; social interaction happened in the margins of productivity. This wasn't sustainable, he knew from experience—communities that couldn't play together eventually couldn't work together either. But he hesitated to propose anything. His track record with projects was mixed at best, and the last thing Bixbus needed was another half-finished initiative from someone who couldn't follow through.

Glenda pushed him. She'd seen the same patterns he'd noticed and pointed out that he actually had relevant expertise, however checkered his history. The conversation turned into an argument—Oska accusing her of managing him the way she managed everything, Glenda accusing him of hiding behind false modesty—and ended with Oska agreeing to at least write a proposal. Sibling dynamics, it turned out, persisted across dimensional boundaries.

His proposal to the Clivilius Lead Council was modest and practical, stripped of the grandiosity that had characterised some of his Berlin-era thinking. He asked for minimal resources to convert a disused storage building into a flexible social space. Secretary of Cultural Affairs Carmella Rossi supported the idea; others were sceptical, questioning whether entertainment was really a priority given everything else Bixbus needed. Oska made his case without overselling—he'd learned, finally, that promises you couldn't keep did more damage than promises never made.

The Threshold opened in August 2019, and almost failed immediately. Oska had misjudged what Bixbus residents wanted, programming electronic music nights that attracted the younger demographic but alienated others. Attendance was sparse; the council members who'd been sceptical felt vindicated. Oska spent a bad week convinced he'd proven everyone right about his unreliability, then forced himself to actually listen to what people were telling him. The Threshold wasn't a Zürich club or a Berlin warehouse; it was a community space for a community he was still learning to understand.

He adjusted. The venue became more flexible—music some nights, community gatherings others, quiet space for conversation when that was what people needed. He stopped trying to recreate what had worked in Europe and started paying attention to what worked here. The Threshold gradually became something genuinely useful, a place where residents could be together without productivity as the organising principle. Success, when it came, felt different than it had before—less like personal validation and more like actually contributing to something larger than himself.

The Rhythm House

The Rhythm House opened in early 2020, a smaller venue designed for live acoustic performance. This one Oska got right from the start, perhaps because he'd finally learned to consult before building. The space accommodated perhaps eighty people, intimate enough that performers and audience shared the same air, close enough that the boundary between them felt permeable. Musicians who'd played on Earth rediscovered their instruments; new collaborations emerged between traditions that had never intersected before.

Running two venues without the support structures of Earth nightlife industry required constant improvisation. There was no established supply chain for alcohol, no professional booking agents, no trained security staff. Oska recruited and trained people, developed systems for contribution-based attendance that replaced traditional ticket sales, negotiated with council departments for resources. The work was exhausting and often frustrating, but it was also the cleanest work he'd done in years—no drugs, no dodgy partnerships, no compromises that kept him awake at night.

His sobriety held, though it required ongoing attention. Bixbus didn't have Berlin's temptations, but it had its own—the stress of building something new, the isolation of being far from everything familiar, the accumulated grief of losses he hadn't fully processed. Oska attended the support group that one of the settlement's counsellors ran, sharing a room with people whose struggles were different from his but whose need for connection was the same. He wasn't always honest in those meetings, but he was more honest than he'd been in years.