People would be very angry with me if they knew that here I stick them into sausage casings and hang them up, exposed to every glance, but the trousers won't stay up without a body. The house door bangs shut. A young woman has been swallowed up by the earth, which, however, is no earth all. The earth is made of water, which is meanwhile playing somewhat listlessly with the body. There our Gabi is at present entering into a symbiosis of plants and creatures quite in harmony with the water, with each individual species separately. Oh, if only there were more choice! Because protection of this human-water community plays a key role if people want to protect themselves and their species too, of course, but first of all themselves. In order to do that, they must, which is a lot of work, but necessary, so that humanity does not perish, protect all other species as well, because there just is this sensitive community basis in which bogs, swamps, ponds, and river meadows in particular are always very threatened. This young woman on the other hand is already dead, it's a first rate failure, if a life was already brought to an end so early. Who did what wrong? Who is the culprit? You know it, I know it, so why ask. One is only young once, some stay young forever, because there is no later for them. They've saved themselves something there. In life they had a grim opponent, who in this case has won.
So the wanted posters with Gabi's modeling photo are stuck to the poles. The cars drive eagerly past, see the pieces of paper pinned there and brake abruptly and slow down with a screech, because their owners will have been curious, which will frequently have caused a headache for the vehicles behind. The remainder of their heads they can collect later at the hospital or from the emergency road service, where they will be handed over on production of the certificate of registration. A good thing that we let a photographer into the house, now we've still got something left of this pretty girl. It's almost ugly in its pure beauty, her photo at least, and at the bottom a low neckline, the rift, which separates her from us older folk; when one sees that one would like to have been a bit young oneself and then remained exactly that way. The neckline points to something, and not to this building materials firm in the county town, where Gabi was employed as a commercial apprentice. The company is invisibly stamped on it, although the photo rather signals idleness to the beholder, like most photos, don't you think? Perhaps it's because of the clothes, but the message of this photo is fake, the mouth is like one which would like to give a kiss, not one which would like to read lines on a computer printout, the expression on the photo is prettier. How good for this girl, that it was as if made to love and kiss. Gone. Are we in agreement, that the account can now be closed, inclusive of the owner? Not in agreement? Then you have to put her on the table, in newspaper format. In any case we assume your agreement and then automatically deduct everything from your account.
Gabi's mother wanders aimlessly around the house, helplessly, as if a picture had been taken of her as a sheep, it doesn't matter by whom, but had originally been intended as a prouder beast. Doesn't she also have a friend in Germany whom she would like to join? She is already taking off into a new life, the run-up lies right in front of her, shining in the sun, below it a promising frozen lake, in which she, that's for sure!, is going to land. The end of the glacier, its tongue, which oscillates or recedes depending on the weather, glitters before her eyes; it doesn't look as if it's hard, where she's going to land. It looks quite like a glistening holiday paradise but will most probably be, like many lakes, merely an accumulation of meltwater, that is, a vale of tears. But at the moment there's something of the judge about her, the mother, as she weighs up what her daughter might have done, what has she got up to? Where is she? If one only knew where she is. She personally picked out this nice friend for Gabi, with whom she's even allowed to spend the night. What coded data can there be, to be filed and hidden in the computer? To be kept for later? Her mother knows all the data. After all, she entered it all herself. What of the more than 2,000 people to be questioned in months of work by 20 police officers, who will be put onto the case? What can they find out! Why does one have to make a note of thousands of car numbers? Why has Gabi run away, if that's what she's done? Her boyfriend is still there and washing his car again. The automobile is already shining loud and strong. No, her boyfriend doesn't know anything more either. He comes to visit the mother straight after school, sits down at the kitchen table, as if he could just as well stand. Takes a cup of coffee as if he could just as well drink tea out of his Walkman. Talks about his girlfriend who has disappeared, as if she had never been there. Knows nothing, as if he could just as well have known something. She's uncomplicated and honest, are the words he has been taught at the technical college, when it's a matter of an electrical circuit, which admittedly would never open itself voluntarily, unless it's struck by lightning. But what is to be done so that the circuit finally closes? We still have to practice that. At the moment the current is flowing in one direction, as if it could just as well flow in the other. The electrons are happy that they've got time off and no one is forcing them to do something they don't want to do, we can do it differently, but our trainer can't make us do it yet. As part of a team of fellow-students Gabi's boyfriend is just making an electronic door opener, but for the moment the door still remains locked, the circuit has not yet taken charge of the electrons, a circuit which would have the task of offering the electrons as little resistance as possible. That is also what our young people wish: no resistance to their plans! These electrons, the things they get up to with one another. No human being would have been able to think it up, but good use is made of it. They only want to follow their course if at the end of it there is a room less crowded with themselves. Otherwise they'd rather just stay at home. Negatively charged, as they by nature are, they strive, unlike me, for the positive. One can take them as an example at all times (from Muffler/Eberich: Electronics for Children, vol. 276, p. 7, revised ed.). And at this moment an automatic door mechanism also seems to be closing heaven's door, which he thought was already within reach. His room in his parents' house, also the new little flat on which there's already a down payment, is not going to be hoovered for a while, no small snack will be prepared anymore, not a soul will vote him president of his world and cut articles he wants out of the motoring magazine and put them in a binder, nor will he very soon honor his heaven on earth, his punctual destination every Saturday night, with a visit. Which he does not yet suspect. Gabi and another man? Impossible. There was no other man, and if there had been, then he would not be with her, because he wouldn't know her. That's just the gossip of jealous girlfriends. It doesn't count for much, because no one can account for it. There was nothing. Gabi was an open book to her friend, a window with its panes, so a suitable frame for him. That she could have been a first rate deceiver-if that were true, we couldn't imagine it, say mother and boyfriend unanimously. We always knew her every step, and when her boyfriend was washing his car, she sat or stood beside it and when it was summer showed a leg, when it was winter showed nothing, and when asked, said nothing special, but not nothing at all. She didn't know what she felt before she wanted it. Well yes, that she felt a bit cramped, we admit that. She wasn't so keen on the apartment which her mother had just started paying off, but her boyfriend was. The young man didn't know what he felt, until he saw the picture of the new Ferrari and our Schumi in it like a cork. Gabi's features were usually like a marshaling yard, they moved, but it didn't go anywhere, anywhere further away, to the land of smiles. To Austria. Straight there. No. Always only back, no matter where to. Absence, although at home, a vessel placed on the table, which sometimes floats in the light, then again is plunged into darkness, as the tides ebb and flow. Wash me, but don't make me wet, and do it above the all-time high water level. Wait a minute, no water plants grow there anymore, but there is nevertheless the desire that a great deal of water should cover one's foot, and then even more, ever more. Everyone always just wants more, no matter of what. Whoever takes a risk dies in it, particularly when the water level fluctuates according to the season. Quiet lies the lake, who lies in it? Deposits of mud, sand, debris, and a girl, who is swamped by water, they lie in it, i.e., if the girl hasn't come to rest at too great a depth. In other words, in order for the readers in the training room between land and water to understand more easily: If it must be a book, then a good book! Our Gabi was a bit like that: You know where you're at. Well, I don't know. One can pick it up again and again, this book, and it's never boring, no matter where one opens it, but usually respectably in an Ikea double bed, which her boyfriend got as a present from his parents (yes, indeed, everyone has to contribute something, otherwise we would be nothing, otherwise we would be others), at all times with clean sheets for him and his girlfriend. Otherwise there was nothing. They have made a balanced use of their resources for the future, since they've not yet been squandered, because resources are fundamentally indispensable, but also cannot be multiplied however. What I meant to say was: If there's a human being there, then he should also be left there, because when he's gone, no one can replace him. One can take another one, but this one, one exactly the same, will hardly be found again. Because one will find a lot to criticize in all the others who are like him. My God, how are we supposed to fill the pages if we can't even say the simplest thing simply! It's a complex field of activity, protecting and preserving human beings, and one can practice on nature from time to time. Of course that demands constant decision-making in many respects, which can have far-reaching consequences, but usually not, because it takes a hundred thousand years until one person comes to the conclusion that he shouldn't have burned his old shoes in the stove, because they've been poisoning and destroying the environment the whole time. The person concerned should rather have warmed people up with a beautiful body and a dear face and a fast car and a fast-moving TV program. Our Gabi had all that, and what good did it do her? None. As attractive as she was-none! no answer- in particular one can't miss this lovely photograph, hanging there, when one's waiting for the post bus, and many people, who have come too early, can't help but study the photo thoroughly, they've got nothing else to do, and the bus can't drive off in front of them, they're deliberately there too early. Although everyone knows Gabi in the flesh, they now stare at her photo for a quarter of an hour. How easy it is, to miss something, if one looks away for a moment. Although they all know Gabi well, at least to look at, she grew up here after all, on the photo she seems strange to them. There's something irresponsible, immodest about her, which appears forward. A completely different side is displayed here, which when she was alive one hadn't noticed. On the other hand such a look is altogether familiar from the magazines (the nude and her face, which she has too, at the top of my picture, and if not, then you're holding the newspaper the wrong way around or are looking at something that isn't a human being, on page five of the Kronen newspaper, but there should be a picture of a naked woman there, shouldn't there? My God, what's that, into whose face you're looking, is that a face at all?), and that on the photo Gabi is more undressed than dressed also seems normal to them, ever since they've had the TV screen, so for decades, in fact. There people do more than undress. They also completely undress their partners, and then they turn around, so that one can see inside them as well and: that they are really completely hollow and empty inside. One wouldn't have believed them beforehand. The bodies have meanwhile become so immodest as to thrust themselves forward everywhere, in order to be able to undress even more quickly. What fun! At Bauer Clothing every Monday the first five customers who arrive at the tills completely naked get a whole outfit to the value of 5,000 schillings-so you'd better hurry, you could really do with a complete retread! Some are overlooked unfortunately. Although they try to shout just as loud as the others. Such a pretty girl, our Gabi. Were one finally to find her, one would have to give her up again, and nobody would know. It takes a while to get going, after the usual waiting time, a routine search for a missing person, a certain country policeman also hears about it in the line of duty, but knows nothing, everything therefore, wants of himself to be able to take it seriously, hopes at least to feign seriousness, if necessary, but he doesn't quite manage it. He now puts on a somber expression in front of his colleagues. He's asked, yes, like most of them he knew this Gabi at least to look at, his colleagues know that anyway, a pretty girl. Basically they know nothing. They don't know that Gabi is resting at the bottom of the lake, which is not very deep. Yes, thoughts are sometimes deep, but the reasons which cause someone to do something are often not. The country policeman is something like a tour guide, but only if there's enough in it for him. There he is, take a look at how, as if by accident, he rubs himself up against this younger colleague, stands, as if unintentionally, close behind him when they're undressing. His colleague has his shirt halfway over his head and can't see anything and can't resist for a moment, which is over all too quickly, he is caught up in his clothes like a fish in a net, his arms are raised, his narrow hips are, well they're there and feature some red acne, I call something like that flesh, precisely in its imperfection. Such a pleasure to press the somewhat swollen cock as if unintentionally against the left hip of the younger man, so that it can follow the scent and can imagine a well-shaped body at least in outline.
We at any rate go back: routine search for a missing person. Computers go through their extensive collections of data and induce people who in reality have never met to come together, possibly fatally, on screen. Where have all the sex offenders of the district got to? Here they are, they're already waiting in this machine, waiting to be consumed by the state, which of them have we released recently and which not, which child-murderers are being protected by the federal government again and inexorably pursued by our Jorg for their whole lives, no, not by this federal government, by the other one. Who has not yet been put in prison for life and castrated and/or killed beforehand? There are a couple in this district, but it's not many, even including the well-known exhibitionists, who, at least in the early stage of their hobby, are harmless. We'll check up on them anyway, so we've got something to do before we go for something to eat or go off duty. But the girl will turn up again anyway, that's for sure. We'll make sure that it happens as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible and that she won't be altogether used up, the girl, when she is picked up, like a remark someone has made, quick before we forget it, before it has to withdraw and finally change completely, like the water in the lake. I see no sign of anything similar at the moment. I soothe my agitation about murderers; the environmental regulations will have to be kept to, no, we don't pee up against public trees and bushes, and nor do we pee in bus shelters or against the walls of other people's houses, this legal instrument, no idea which, serves to reduce regional disparities economically and ecologically, that is, at some point, some day, everything will be in proper order again in the plant and animal kingdom, and whatever doesn't belong to us: away with it, whatever does belong to us: bring it back immediately, we need it, quick march! Our Gabi is one of us, a native from the diversity of complex living creatures, no, from the complex diversity of all living creatures and animated nature. But we can't yet really imagine that she has already become part of inanimate nature, we need a picture of it. Where to get one, without stealing it. That a knockout of a girl has been knocked out of nature's plan, one of those in any case ultimately destined to be brace-wearing angels, yes, even they have to be given a helping hand, so that in the chorus or as soloists they look smart, well, knockouts: knocked out, but yet not so soon, hm, that the permanent balance between living creatures and dead and with it the ecosystem, is upset. So we don't want to have to imagine anything so horrible. Not this time. But the next time. Millions of living creatures may have disappeared, OK, we're completely used to that, but just one, that's not right, she should have someone to take along, let's see, who's still available. We always have, e.g., harmful organisms on offer, and what are we going to do with them now? We make sure that the economic harm is kept to a minimum and that the harm to nature is likewise as far as possible kept to a minimum. We are careful with nature's household but are not careful with our own household, for that we buy the new cleaner with antibacterial additive that will kill 99 percent of all known bacteria for you, but that last one percent, that's the problem. And because it feels it has a problem, something that can destroy more than it disturbs, it wants to let that out too at last, what are one's talents and abilities for, after all? As already said, one can destroy or create something. This one bacillus, this undesirable alien, which was left alive, can now multiply undisturbed because it doesn't have any competition anymore, and can make the most of its abilities. So we'll give this infant a nice new inflammation of the lungs, and this driving school pupil, who never washes his hands, a good dose of gastro-enteritis. Yesyes, chemical cleaning agents should basically only be used carefully and selectively where absolutely necessary, but preferably not at all. This individual girl, who did not remain alive, fell victim to a selectively acting murderer, who does not, however, want to be seen as such, only if it were absolutely necessary, because someone wants to see his ID (but his colleagues all know who he is! They buy watches and jewelry from him in a special gray area and think no more about it), and who was pursuing higher goals. No, I don't know all his goals. Information will be gratefully received. Ownership in itself is no grounds for complaint, unless someone wants to dispute it. That would then be grounds for an action for disturbance of possession, who knows how that will end, it all depends on the lawyer. What if in spring the leaves slip out for a visit, and then someone tears them off? Will there then be no spring? Which property in any case are you talking about, for heaven's sake? There is one admittedly, but it doesn't belong to one yet. At this point in time the property is still hidden by a woman, who is now (if it were permissible, I would say: She has pulled herself down over her eyes, so that passersby don't recognize her immediately) loitering in her open house door and sulkily lowering her face because once again a man has not come to the agreed rendezvous and has in any case probably frequently deceived her recently. The sex is right admittedly, it's the way she wants it and no other way, but preferably another way But otherwise quite a lot is going badly, which we shall have to sort out. The worst version of the truth goes: This man cannot have loved her, because one does not send someone one loves to their ruin. Or does one? No, it can't be. Because whoever or whatever one loves, one always puts it in the refrigerator for a quick between-meal snack, if one's not hungry anymore. Because after all, one doesn't want it to spoil and have to be thrown away. One stores the beloved person away, so that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow one can still eat of his wonderful body. Jesus. Oh, none of you were there in the nights! That's something I've often said. It can't be that he's been deceiving me for a long time with a younger woman. If one were to ask: Which of us is older, how our polycolor-impregnated heads would sink! She had often wanted to leave him, the woman, but the idea immediately made her ill. She was thinking of making another choice soon, if she had one, thinks the woman in middle age and glances down a street populated loudly but unharmoniously by women shopping, mothers with buggies and small children in Wellington boots, so truly the gray main road is no harmonium. Time is short. And she in turn uses her elbows, the woman, she just isn't quite as young anymore as she has made herself, because unfortunately only the dear lord God is allowed to make one. A man. Naturally. Rub things out in one's passport, who would do something like that! Dagmar Koller, wife of the former mayor of Vienna, will do it, but be caught.
In the meantime the need for action has become very urgent, but the last time someone else acted, who discovered her in her car at a crossroads, stopped and gutted her without even giving her local anaesthetic. Everything was taken out of her hands. Who could suspect it. We need something in writing. So sooner or later we go to the notary. The people who now want to act, no matter how and with what, they get first choice, and they choose someone they like. He tells the truth, is decent, sporty, clean and energetic and stands out from someone whom they just don't like so much, although he, too, is decent, sporty, clean, and energetic. But unfortunately one can't tell by looking at him. Fortunately only someone is chosen about whom you can tell everything by looking, above all, that he is steady on his feet, but he stands or sits even more steadily in his Porsche. The decent and able. The hard-working, too. What is their secret? I don't know, otherwise I would pass it on. Perhaps we want to be deceived, because we are constantly deceiving everyone, that is, if we get the opportunity. This woman for example has had herself sterilized, which she candidly confesses, although now she couldn't have any children anyway. She doesn't want children and has never wanted them, since she herself is a child and wants to be like a child for the man. Another child would always only have got in the way. The other, Gabi, herself hardly more than a child, also did nothing but get in the way. Which is the proof. Of what? For whom? No matter who it is, at the moment one sets the life and the soul of the party on him, and already he's off to the carnival at Villach or looks at it on TV and feels altogether at home in this country. Others live in the lake, no, you can't say that Mme. Author, if someone is sleeping in a lake that doesn't at all mean that they're living there. Didn't you see the rubber dinghy? It lives in an attic room with photos on the walls, baby animals and pictures of models, both of them public and private projects, it just depends who is making use of them and what he is exploiting them for. Exploitation is the main thing, in order to feel good oneself, simply fantastic. Every glittering snowflake tumbling down insensibly would say that of itself, while it's still in the air, it's looking forward to the soft landing, and then it's already melted. Not even a hot stone was needed.
The crucial detail, which no one saw, or everyone who paid no particular attention to it, was a car, which in the cold nights of the previous winter, before it went off in the direction of springalingaling, was parked nearly every morning very close to the bus stop. There was a high degree of probability that waiting at the wheel was the man who for more than six months secretly drove Gabi to work in the county town, and occasionally, when his own working hours permitted, also drove her back again. It's certain at least that more than half of the girl's journeys to work on this relatively short stretch were made with this unknown man, we won't even start on the other journeys, at night, mad with delight, otherwise we would sink to the ground at the thought of all the things these two got up to together and how they did it. Gabi must have deceived her mother and her boyfriend. Others she couldn't deceive, but they never said anything about it. No one knew about it, let's stick to the official version. Once in this sequence-if we stepped closer, then we would see more-Gabi's breath completely stopped coming, when perhaps she had been too much of a burden to the man, who after all only wanted to spoil her. That's not right. One does need a bit of it! It was achieved through gentle pressure, because Gabi, spoiled by tenderness, became pretty naughty. The tongue, the larynx, the carotid arteries, the lungs have been trained for public appearances. If one denies it to them, because one wants to leave a person entirely alone with their breath, then these two become feeble in their ambition to maintain the functioning of the body. They mock the rest of the body, call out to it: Without us you are nothing and can do nothing. You can try if you like, you are at liberty to do that, but you will fall down, dear body, and rising up will be possible only with great difficulty, or, if you are God, who rises again, then that will become evident, at latest, at the moment when the women roll away a stone and begin to weep and wail. But if you are God, then you don't need us anyway. The oxygen has been diverted from the brain, the brain surfaces have dried up, the environmental conditions in the brain biotope have been drastically altered. Anyone who believes species-rich life partnerships of thinking and thought would be more stable is right in principle, but not always. A maximization of the number of thoughts should not absolutely be an aspiration in a project like this, in case you're wondering why so few ideas are to be found here, in this place. Then you just have to search! Apart from that it is not absolutely necessary that there are many. More important is: which, and also important is the analysis of my thoughts with respect to the parts they play in my brain, because my brain gets so easily bored and longs to instigate something new. And then there would still remain to be decided which strategies, with respect to what I shall stuff into my brainbox, would have to be represented, so that they then represent me and that I in turn can here decently represent and act as counsel for people living or once living. The more diverse the TV films I empty into my upper story, the greater the number of species of organisms I will then later be able to harvest from my tables and benches. I consume dead stuff and make life out of it. I then have it well prepared. One should also perhaps read the newspapers. Thanks, I'm pleased to do it, it's always worthwhile. Here, e.g., I've copied out many pages, but I haven't joined them together yet. I'm always astonished how the natural things of life are revealed to me, but then I immediately slam the door shut again. It's a paper chase after facts, just you start, you won't, however, find anything anymore, because I will have dismembered the bodies, and then I've poured the highly effective Andy Pandy drain cleaner, a British product, unfortunately no longer obtainable nowadays, on top. Now they're gone, like the two fried eggs earlier on. Oh no, now I've dropped the vague hints of one of Gabi's girlfriends, who one or two days ago looked thoughtfully up to the sky (she could never look as pretty as Gabi, that's why she's sprayed something around her, from a L'Oreal box, so that she can't be seen so clearly), and she said something nasty, which, e.g., would not turn up in a story of the Virgin Mary. Now that the road is clear, this girl is groping around in her friend's life, hesitating as to what she can pick out of it, to make better use of it, a nice calm faithful husband, children, a home of their own, holiday, and then she drops a vague hint, pointing in a direction which is still hidden from our eyes. We see nothing. This hint will only be returned to later, when suddenly others will also point to it, like the sun, which shines back in the evening before it finally lowers itself to the other half of the globe, where the soles of people's feet are already burning and they at last want the sun above their heads.
Which car then, student driver? Fellow employee, please step forward and speak loudly and clearly into this microphone, so that our diligent officers can hear it! Well, I tell you, the lighting effect when Gabi came into the office, it was as if she was wearing diamonds, as if she was floating in the sun. One would have liked to squeeze her there and then, she wasn't a mother yet, but everything else, even Carnival Princess and Harvest Princess, so probably there was nothing else to come. I would really like to describe what a glow there would be in the folksy hut, around the beer and the music on the radio, where the regulars stare into their glasses which, dulled by the dishwasher, cannot give back a single ray That by the way is why the regulars at their tables usually don't display a ray of hope or anything else. Such a pretty girl, our Gabi, as if she didn't belong to us. She laughed a lot, perhaps not quite so much at the end. And on the edge of the washstand in the Ladies lies an oblong case, containing lipstick, liner and mascara, which make her look even more beautiful, Gabi, a little ring with a rock crystal, a friendship ring from her boyfriend, is also there, when she gently lowers her head, looks nice, lets someone brush her hair from her shoulders and idly wastes a little time, which has been given by someone or other, oh if only everyone had as much time for themselves or they should take it, one would see the result. That's what's written up at the checkout in the Billa Market, where cleaning things for the times are on offer: eye shadow, moisturizing creams, even pore cleansing strips. It's always supposed to go deep, although most people prefer shallowness and chatter away, as they buy a velvet hair band, that they would like to see this or that musical. Plants and animals are dependent on one another, and which eye shadow shade goes with a complexion, that also is dependent on both, which with a bit of good will could work very well together, if nature would only let them and would possibly accept cosmetic help. But it does! At all times. Please, come in and make my lumps and spots invisible! No matter what they want, we let the colors onto our skin, as we were advised, we also allow phosphates into our lakes and rivers, although we were explicitly advised against it. Gabi had a secret, so what, nature has its secrets too. Today nature is going out with this soil type, found at the edge of the lake. And tomorrow it will go out with another one. But with whom is Gabi going about, if not with the official boyfriend from the tech college? No one knows. No idea. But there is someone. No one knows how many manifestations of water there are on earth, but many would like to know, because wind-surfing, racing motor boats, sailing or swimming are their hobby. And no one is supposed to have known anything more about this young neighbor from right here amongst us? The wind treats the water cruelly, another hundred yards, and there's death waiting already and looking at his watch and tapping the ground with his scythe. Where on the other hand is Gabi, is the question some others are asking, who are also slowly getting anxious. Not many. Boyfriend and mother sit opposite one another and outbid one another in everyday normality, so that there are no silences. What else do they have to talk about with one another, apart from Gabi? The mother is meanwhile anyway thinking only about her friend in Germany, when will she be able to go again, what will he say about it, she'll soon be with him. They, the mother and Gabi's boyfriend, also outbid one another with Soletti pretzel sticks, which are always there. That makes things easy for me, otherwise I would have to think of something else. The boyfriend muses to himself how often his cock stands up straight at the sight of Gabi, although he hasn't even finished eating yet, and he was only halfway through the porn magazine; unfortunately she's not there now. She's probably pushed off, the house feels dead. An emptiness reigns, which today the young man can't fill with immature thoughts. Hardly has he entered the house than he is overcome by a strange shyness, he asks nature for once to leave his lust for his girlfriend right out of his thoughts today, but doesn't rightly know why. Thoughts are free. Today he wants to think about her tenderly, even demandingly, and the demands are supposed to end with a visit to the cinema in the county town, and beyond that for once there are to be no more demands. Will she once again grip his cock so firmly right above the balls as recently, and then slowly stroke upwards, to the very end, where she would grip even more tightly? She says it gives her the creeps, she doesn't like to look, but he's patient and can wait for her to do it again and again and again, just as he has shown her. The main thing is that she lies there quietly and lets him enter her again and then moves her hips a little. A dream, I tell you! If you and I together were a house, we would collapse now. By nature Gabi is not very explosive, but a bottle of wine can do wonders. Earlier he briefly went up to her room, opened, has no idea why, the wardrobe, smelt the clothes, jingled a couple of thin gold armbands on the dressing table, he listened: nothing. The cupboard probably wants to go to sleep. Everything neat and tidy. Have you already spoken to the essence of absence today? No? Tell it, I'm looking for it! How quiet it is here. The approx. 2,000 cuddly toys are all happy as every day, at their own beauty and about how lovingly each and every one was chosen by their owner, one has to collect for years, that's why they're the only ones here looking really self-satisfied. Now the room could surely gradually dispense with the darkness in the corners, couldn't it? Everything's all right, isn't it? The technical college student opens the other wardrobe doors as well. As if Gabi would voluntarily sit down in the wardrobe for two days. The water balance of the earth continues to diligently wash out its cups, which are constantly being stolen by people who are wasting water all the time, it's probably not their cup of tea. Oh dear, that doesn't work, and it's also a repetition. Forgive me, I often can't keep up with myself, at any rate so many landscapes depend on water, this most precious commodity, think of the Carinthian lakes and those of the Salzkammergut, where the rich have firmly and safely stashed themselves away and if they ever have to vote then always choose freedom and the Freedom Party. You can set your clock by them. The mother draws on a cigarette, already the fifteenth today, that will do her good and calm her down, if Gabi stays away much longer. The mother's bronchial tubes ask leave to speak, but we ignore them. Water, of which a human being is made up, so much so that one shouldn't put them in water after their death as well, water to water instead of dust to dust. Somehow superfluous, I think. Ground water research in the mother's lungs would say: Enough is enough, in ten years at latest it will be possible to raise cancers here, but then we'll be dead and won't have to look at it anymore. The mother is crying now and needs yet another handkerchief, because this one can't absorb and store much more. What should the ground or even my hard disk say, when I've served everything up so nicely and have explicitly let the earth know! Without the least twinge of conscience we expect them to put up with everything, how mean.
The people continue to walk along the paths and drive along the roads. Have they perhaps heard something about Gabi? Don't know her. A woman with a boring demeanor, I don't know which, steps out of her front door, and doesn't know either why she's doing that now. Of course she's heard the news, two days ago already; but she doesn't say anything about it, because no one asks her. She is still to a certain extent an outsider here, a stranger. A newcomer. This morning she again wants to be worshipped as the one and only, which she has always imagined as being more pleasant than it is. I've been telling her for years, but it doesn't do any good. Behind her rises her neat house, which would now like to stretch its legs, but instead by mistake kicks a person in the knees, who is now standing in front of it and is herself now placing both hands on her shoulders so that her arms are crossed on her breast. As if the hands were using the shoulders as supports. From this moment this person has to stay in bed for three weeks. This woman had expected a bit more wildness from the man yesterday, at least as much as she had still got in the mountains two days ago, but since then the man has not shown his face for a whole day and a half. Another woman? Oh Jesus, what can I do, with whom can I do something now, there's no one there? This man believed she loves gentleness, gentle advertising, for example, but his only model is the one for Palmer's lingerie, I think it's gentle enough, one can see the whole body almost to the heart; no reason to be envious, ladies, be glad that you're in the world at all! Would you really like anyone to read your thoughts? During the advertisements this woman here often quickly prepares a small snack in the kitchen, in the summer she even makes chocolate ice herself! And when she comes back, the woman wants the wildness in this man immediately to be really wild. On the spot! She knows on which spot. She's sensitive there. On whose shoulder should she cry now? She has no one, and so begs the man to give her a family, so that she can once again say what's on her mind and get fucked for all it's worth. It's not worth much. But the man already has a wife at home. He can let her be, Gerti's home is nice anyway. His wife doesn't need him the way this woman needs him. Today we'll make things nice and tomorrow, too. For that the woman loves and sacrifices, just as she learned to do as a child from the nuns at convent school for Jesus' sake. Or does she have to let this man go? If she doesn't do it he will in any case run away from her sooner or later. She can't hold him. But if she now finds the strength to let this man go back to his wife and family-he already has a grandson-then one day perhaps he will return to her voluntarily, at latest when all these people, every one of them, are dead, or not? But if she now finds the strength to open this jar of cocktail onions, then she will be blessed in that the rolls which she prepared for him earlier, with several hundred different kinds of sausage, will not taste as stale as recently. The sausage is off, that's for sure, it is perhaps out of sorts before it can be served, or is it only the woman's stomach? The rolls are so colorful and pretty again. You can't be too sure, we'll throw them away and buy new ones, we'll throw everything away and buy everything new. The woman doesn't feel like going to the grocer now, she might miss her beloved in these ten minutes. Let's just leave the sausage where it is and sprinkle paprika over it, not too much, otherwise his stomach will be as discontented as the sinners in hell, where things are also too hot for my taste, I'm already wet again. Except, please don't let him go back to Gabi again, that would be too much for this woman. If at least she weren't so young, Gabi. If she were at least older than the woman, but then again she wouldn't be Gabi, but someone else. Where is she then? Love is not only deep respect for the other from deep inside, it should also be able to be shown outwardly. It is invited to kindly make a bit more effort. Or is the man incapable of showing feelings? Would that not be a pity if disillusionment were to bring one down to earth every time? Three bottles of sparkling apricot wine from the Wachau, he likes that, it's nice and sweet. She'd rather have the sparkling wine without the apricot, but can't impose her better taste on him. Kurt is a complete pro. He phoned earlier. It's me. Drive immediately to our spot on the mountain. I'm coming too. Did you get that? Yes, of course, we were only there the day before yesterday, and all the times last summer, have you forgotten? The mountain wind is already howling with anger that the woman is not willing to keep to this arrangement. What's wrong with her? What's she dawdling around the house for and waiting, although she should be somewhere quite different now? She's been summoned somewhere, this attractive figure. He is surely already on his way in his light walking shoes in the howling spring gale. Why isn't she on her way? Or does she have reasons? She won't be afraid? Curious. Usually she always does what he tells her to, and then her body immediately opens wide and pulls up all the blinds, even before it hears the certain steps that should be undertaken immediately. Exactly. I already hear the tearing of underwear like a terrible voice in me, perhaps I have a premonition. The house. The house is his goal, his one and only, she suspects, reads it from his face, even when he isn't there, in clear moments, when she's free to have them. But already she's doubting herself and her observations again. Such thoughts she has, for sure, but they don't feel right, and soon they disappear again, offended, as soon as he approaches and becomes more important than them, the thoughts, than everything else. Perhaps that's why he worries about the house and investigates it all down to the last detail, as if he wanted to make it have an orgasm. What do you want, this man is tender, he's potent, he fulfils the most secret desires of the house. New shutters? My pleasure, here you have them! The kitchen floor looks a bit dull and listless? We'll deal with that right away. The sheriff, which he is himself, is there at once. Compared to her house the woman almost feels small and unattractive. She watches the man as he investigates nooks and crannies. He could not draw the lips of her vulva apart more affectionately than these glass sliding doors in front of the bookcase with the classics. I can imagine. The man lies before her inner eye, crouching like an animal, looking up at her, and which she then allows to stand up and raise its head to her. Oh dear, it's looking in quite a different direction, the stupid beast. Was there not a noise, is the house door rattling, because it doesn't shut properly? I'll repair it tomorrow. At the feet of the beloved: no one, not one, so not the only one either. She will have to lay aside her dearest for today, in the hope of being able to pick him up again tomorrow where she put him down. Why does she not set out for the mountain? It would do her good, get a bit of exercise. Today inexplicably she can't do it, although she's been having such wet thoughts the whole time, whenever she opens her brainbox in order to take out one of them, living, dripping, twisting, slippery and to greedily close her lips around it. Who can swallow all that? She can! This time exceptionally she's allowed to swallow everything, this time he allows her to. Otherwise not. But why didn't Gabi come home two days ago? Because that's what the woman heard from sources bubbling out of the ground everywhere, there's no stopping them anymore. These sources can't be channelled anymore. Where is she then, Gabi, where is she? No idea. The last time he was still tender and attentive to the woman, his one and only love, because Gabi doesn't count, she can't even count to three, the mouse. The woman now wants him to fall upon her, to tear down and/or shove up her clothes, as so often, and with a good appetite sink his teeth into her cunt as into a well-filled sandwich, as so often; but then when he does it, it's not quite right either, because it's sore, the way he so thoroughly investigates and then sucks up her precipitations and evaporations, so that there is order in nature again. Order as in this house.
Yes, we have several kinds of reproduction, vegetatively through budding, or, if you like, we can also do it another way: asexually through spores, but naturally two gametes can also merge sexually, luckily that doesn't lead to catastrophe every time, although nature always has a liking for catastrophes. And the woman always likes it when he does something like that with her. It's her nature. What she doesn't like so much is when he causes her body pain, bestows an unpleasant taste and an unpleasant smell to a dozen paper handkerchiefs, or stuffs her filter with shit, instead of decently stoppering her. It's the same for her as with the algae: If the increase in quantity is too great, a thick, foul-smelling mass forms, as happened to the lake out there. The woman doesn't want to take it as her model, although she would like to be just as unfathomable. He should do it to her at least once a week, there should be that much in it for her, even if one is as busy as the man. We have the rest of the week off and can recover. If he didn't spread her with his hard fingers from time to time, she would absolutely miss it. Water! Please, we have limestone here. It lets everything through. He's the only one for her. He's the only one for her. Her nipples stiffen and stretch as if they wanted to pull a small cart. They really hurt, yet recently his behavior towards her was sometimes rather bored and absent-minded, she has to admit, I agree with her. And why? Entirely because of Gabi. If he sees her, his eyes begin to glow, and he becomes totally randy. It's a natural phenomenon, which could always only be described, but rarely be seen. It mustn't happen anymore, that he meets Gabi. Otherwise the house is off and he has to take the consequences. The woman isn't demanding after all, she's not even as demanding as the so-called indicator plants, if we're talking about nature, which make demands, unfortunately also often on us. With these types of plants their value as indicators is all the greater, the more specific the demands as plant type are. That can be used to investigate soil quality. No, it's better if his hands do it, what do I care about this indicator plant, it would only indicate that I'm not so young anymore and that he doesn't like me as much as I would like, thinks the woman. She can only make demands because she owns a house, not because she herself is there too. Without her house she would have no value as an indicator. She would be a dial without a needle, she could never display her water level, her degree of moisture could never be judged, no one would be interested in it. Yesyes nature claims its rights, but only gets them after committed people have fought for them for at least fifty years. The water, which is now running out of the woman, indicates an imbalance, because the man, it appears to her, has not come for some time, but it's only two days ago, he's not stayed away so long before. Yes, he's often stayed away as long as that. Why has she forgotten that he wanted to meet her at their usual place? She should have left long ago. Funny. Something inside her says no. Now she would rather hang like a curtain at the window and look out, half hidden, to see if he's coming. How can he come if he's already halfway up the mountain? When he was last here he drove off with Gabi, the woman is quite certain of that, she saw it herself. He must have taken her straight home, so where is she? Did she go out again? On the way back he should really have briefly dropped by again, in order to see her and to be seen by her, to console, to placate, to fuck, what do I know, but he didn't turn up again. She only got this one phone call from him and then another one, which at the moment she's disregarding. Before he drove off-Gabi was already sitting in the passenger seat, weighed down by so much hair that, even before he started, her head, exhausted, had sunk down to his lap, where no doubt his cock was standing up as if it never did anything else-she, the older woman, completely lost her self-control at this moment of threatened departure. As he was about to go (beforehand he tried the cellar door, to make sure it was still locked), pulling up his zip, which would soon come down again, she had clung to him, sobbed, begged, hoped, that he should at last see that there was something wrong with her, which he should repair, she loves him so much, she loves him so, which probably every child in the village could see, only he couldn't. Please come back! There should at last be an end to the nightmare with him and all the secrecy. But for it to come to an end, he would first of all have to come and properly and vigorously start from the beginning again. But he's evasive, and he expresses himself vaguely when she demands a decision from him. But to demand a decision from him, he would first of all have to be there. But he doesn't come. He goes. She doesn't dare call him at home, because then his wife answers, blunt and stubborn as a Leopard tank, once it could at last be delivered to Turkey and at least two hundred people have thoroughly smashed each other's faces because of it. That night as Gabi was transported home, the woman didn't sleep a wink. Now, however, she's quite still, stands there just a little longer. If someone passes by, she pretends she's investigating something on the roughcast or the exterior window sill, perhaps dirt, mold, fungus, or loose plaster. She runs her finger over the wall as if she wanted to draw something. The house is all she has to offer, we shouldn't fool ourselves any longer, children big and small always want to get presents, that's what they have in common. She isn't squeamish when he hits her hard on the backside with the flat of his hand or with the ruler which is lying ready, on the contrary, in the meantime she really likes it, if not for long, she can't take it for long; it's impossible for two people to have a stronger contact with one another, of whom one is stronger than the other, otherwise the one would come out the other side of the other. It annoys the woman that she somehow finds it exciting when he forces himself into her from behind. Although she also fears it and resisted it for a long time. Until the muscles finally slacken, however, he has to hit her fairly hard and fairly long, often she can't sit properly for two or three days afterwards. On all sides women, including her, like to aim for the most basic experience, but when it comes, instead of enjoying it, one searches tirelessly for its origin in the past, all of which should also belong to one. Was he hit so much as a child? We immediately have to read one or more books in order to understand it. The woman wants to understand and forgive everything about this man, otherwise all pleasure is gone. She's looking for a man who is ready and in a position to join up with her, to help her bear the burdens of life and naturally also to fulfil her sexual desires. Yes. Perhaps one should once again permit oneself the simple things, the love which every animal knows, but every animal, even ours, does not always recognize us and not exclusively as its master. When he has expended himself in her, the man goes home again each time, unless there are small repairs to carry out (she has often deliberately broken something so that he stays longer!), as if he immediately had to look for himself somewhere else, to find himself. That's how she imagines it, because now she has already read one book and another about it. He goes jogging in the mountains. Already she's thinking: If only he's not looking for another! Anything, except that. Otherwise the woman does not begrudge him any pleasure, once she has at last fallen asleep in her own silence, in her own vapor and her luster which she doesn't have. We shall certainly need a judge. The weak points of this woman will always serve us as starting point, because here we can begin with the control of her personality. The judge will do that, and he will be at a loss. But he will nevertheless have to pass judgement: She belongs to what is called the weaker sex. That's very practical, I think. One can buy the women ready seasoned and only has to shove them in the oven. So many are dead, even men, that it doesn't matter to us what happens to this one.
The country policeman's colleagues begin to go systematically from house to house asking questions. Who saw Gabriele Fluch for the last time? Not even that can be precisely established. Even late in the evening, even at night, the little detached house in which she lived is brightly lit up. Every window so bright, as if it wanted to invite everyone in, then Gabi will certainly be among the visitors who constantly ring the bell, enter without having properly wiped their shoes, and hold out magazines, to which we are supposed to subscribe, or thoughts about Christ, which we are allowed to enter. No she isn't here, Gabi. Everything has been searched. Her boyfriend has meanwhile gone home, he has to study for an exam. The mother will ring him immediately, if something happens. At his home his parents will do the same, if something happens. The family house of the Fluchs stands in a small group of the like-minded. Everyone knows everyone else but perhaps they don't want to know one another too well. Since the houses are all alike, the people want to be like everyone else too. Each is like the other and no one says anything about the other or to the other. It's an estate for workers, cheaply built in the sixties, but they've got everything inside, even running water, we were allowed to choose the wallpaper ourselves. It's just like life, in which the inclinations live, but if once they work against us, then no one objects to that either. They destroy us, no one weeps, but the result is quite respectable, because our house is still there after all. On this estate the people stick together, even without knowing each other particularly well, it's not even necessary. The inquiries lead nowhere. They are not yet very urgent, since at this point one still hopes that Gabi will come back home, talking and laughing, she doesn't hurt anyone, why should anyone hurt her. No one hurts her. Peace is strong and determined to reign. No one can make a stand against it, it pulverizes even the longest war. A crippling passivity takes hold of people when peace reigns, don't give war a chance. Never again! Peace must immediately seize everything and take possession of it and its reign shall be endless and all-powerful, it is considered very practiced, it can do that no bother!, the peace that gives orders, it is always very strict with us, stricter than war. That's how it should be, and we like to obey this stronger force, peace, its power is secure, its name be praised in all eternity, with brief interruptions. No, not in all eternity, the dead sleep there, and peace no longer needs to reign over them, they're already quiet. Of their own accord.