They are the personification of fleetfoot life. The girls too. Not for nothing are they friends. Friends who will slander each other after they've written their doctorates and are competing for the top jobs. While all about them wretched Life, feeble children with ruined teeth and vertebrate and vertebrae animals they nurture for the slaughter, blink at the downhill racers and can only dream of Olympic golds themselves. Austria, you export factor, you'd be better off exporting yourself, entire! Send the whole package to the world of sport! We read the paper, when we poor creatures can take a chance for once too. Don't moan, do something! This village isn't spread out before you in the meadows just so that you can step in the dung heap.
Michael laughs loudest of all. After all, he's taken on the most of all. He may take on this woman on the downhill slope of her life a second time, or there again he may not. Yelping with curiosity like a child, he hauls out his droopy rod. Just slipped out, didn't it? The girls, who look so superficial in magazines that make them into pictures, screen off the couple that blew in from the cold, they laugh and drink and tangle together into a tight knot. In the snow there's a two-litre wine bottle and a flask of cognac. No matter what they get up to, they're attached to the mountains, and will stand there together, rooted to the spot, till an avalanche hits them. Their hopes won't be dashed. Their sex is not yet in ferment. You can drink them warm, straight from the cow. No matter. Amid the squawk of their inner voices, Gerti and Michael slip into a plantation of spruces. They are a kind of island in the grove. And there we have it. Michael demonstrates, that his member is not yet properly erect, and Gerti's vagina is clearly visible in the silk, as if she were hoping she could still make it somewhere in a boat with that big a hole. Lord, what a noise the people over there on the slope are making, as if they were all one single loud yell. We can't hear any of the stupid foolery of Gerti's clitoris, which she'd like to have rubbed. All this pack of pricks have probably just been unpeeled from their plastic skins by Mother Nature! The universally valid organ is displayed to Gerti, her hands are wrenched away from her face and sex. Both are filled to bursting with angry songs, I see. The lads hold her living hands together above her head. In that position, nobody could wave to her family via the TV screen. The woman stretches out to Michael. Her face gradually crumples, as those standing about her notice. And yet it speaks of love. There are songs that say love is the noblest of our celebrations and pledges. The silk dress is shoved up to the waist and the panties, which she was perfectly satisfied with, are shoved down. And now well tickle the darkness till it collapses upon us with a crash. Friends have been sent round to our place to help. To make sure the labia the woman has about her person are forced apart first. To rummage in the depths, stirring things up in the ant-hill. It's as busy as a station toilet at night when the winos are shooting the breeze, stashing and slashing because they're tanked up to the eyeballs again. So now these footcloths, these doormats, all four of them ours, are parted. Making Gerti howl. So they generously fold her shut again like a brochure. Negligently. But let's just poke a finger in and then snuffle at it before the wayfarer disappears down the drain. We didn't realize how far the shadows extend into this living creature.
Through this tubular entry here, to be exact, which yet awaits proper discovery, yes, right here behind the door of shame, the hairs of which are being tugged and tucked and plucked. Pop music grants the listeners' requests, Gerti's legs are straddled as wide as possible and the Walkman is held to her ear. Now she has to lie just like that. Her cunt is plucked at regardless, it's juicy, her husband normally goes in and out of her with rapid strides. He comes from afar off, we can hear him clearly. It's unbelievable how you can stretch and flex the labia to change their shape, as if that were what fate intended for them. For instance, you can pout them into a pointed pouch. And from the higher ground the hills are bowing down from Gerti's dress. That hurts, doesn't that occur to anyone? Right, and now laugh a bit, and pinch, and thump, that's it. These kids get about in the world, they like doing so and they talk about what they do. Any permanence in the hairdresser's beautifying treatment is already- no longer apparent. Behind these mountains, Gerti has collapsed, a butt of ridicule like her entire sex, who switch on the electrical domestic appliances but have no say where their own bodies are concerned. Just as grass subsides humbly beneath the cutting blade. This flesh parts as in a game, and then it rests, and in sleep is rewarded still more: this is truest of the young girls, when they laugh their own teeth tear their faces open. Their hair doesn't need special preparation yet, it can be enjoyed the way it comes. They are in love with someone or other. Just as the eagle hatches its young far far up, practically in nothingness – having first had to shlepp the eggs the whole way up. And those who are older detest kids. And a pair of trousers is eased down a little way.
Well now, let's not go so far, slaves ourselves, as forcefully to take what is ours from Gerti. Seeing that the wind and this whole loving band have immoderately made an immodestly blown up cloak of her. They totter about aimlessly, there's not much to it. Now I don't know if Michael really does have to show that his mother and particularly his father endowed him handsomely as far as his member goes. He struts his stuff, but it doesn't quite rise to the occasion, his freshly-squeezed sex with ice cubes floating in it. He brandishes it in front of the woman. Did you hear thunder just now? So why not get out of the way and let me have a look at the video people wrathfully plumping up their genitals? Over there on the substitute bench is where you belong, where no one can see your scrawny arse and sagging bitch dugs as you labour away, blowing on the glow. Rub in the creams to rub out the distinctions between yourself and decent Grade A human beings. Go and pour forth your woes to the Gentleman one storey higher, but don't wake the dead! Apart from a swift jet, nothing comes from Michael's sting, people are drawn to him from over the fields. The mountains overhang the lake, the hands row alone. These girls stand and watch, the voice ceases to pour from their cracks, they claw at their own curls, their own wily sex that can tempt, they are ready and willing to wrap any man in it who might chance by and whom they have learnt to assess by his haircut, his clothing and his vehicle.
Michael's whole small-page ad is plugging loud specialist products. On TV the senses smoulder in little heaps. They are intended for consumption by our youngsters who sport in the snow or in the water and barely need to take a breath. Yes, this young man really is a fine rascal. Poor Gerti. Tested so wrathfully in the school of life. Mutely they look at each other. Consider each other food. The mountains are motionless, so why take the car to shove them apart? To be merry takes little. Isn't it enough for you to go playing by the river banks and the saving banks and buy yourself a place in the gilt-edged network of the sports trade?
One more word about these girls. They have just arrived (I almost said: just come) within themselves: luscious bushes of pubic hair grow like lush rhododendrons on their gentle slopes, a breeze of health comes off them, they who dwell so pleasantly in themselves and are watched through the windows of magazines. Now they lean over the woman. Heavens, they're drunk already too! At the drop of a hat they'll be off. Where were they sent from? And what do they talk to their divine little diaries about? Where do we want to be – in the curls in their laps, perhaps? Thus the mountains, where the trees ruffle, see us. Today these people will be moving on to a birthday party, where they will look at the other little well-built guests. Like children, blown in and blow-dried, they will dangle from the belts of our envious looks, ladies – ladies, you whose charms are wearing thin, you who submit to the charms of TV soaps. We can't contain the water within us once it's boiling and wants to overflow. Let's be honest, we resent their faces of many colours, while age is fading our own to the one standard likeness, no matter what costly waters we cannily wash in. So why don't you take a rest as well, on your narrow bank! Each to his own, my little dears! But these aren't the limits of our company, purely a recommended retail price, if you please.
So as I was saying, Michael has it out in the daylight, hjs prick, to show that he can't or won't be stopped. First he has to tank up again. Laughing, he sits on the woman's chest and clasps her arms together over her head. He dangles his noodle into her mouth so that she can benefit from his nourishment. Gerti can follow everything very clearly, and something happens in her half-dropped panties: she passes a hissing jet of wet, yet again she's had too much to drink. Laughing, the girls pull off the wet knickers they had dragged down her legs. Now Gerti's feet are quite unbound. Everyone takes a pull at the hip-flask, but Michael's prick is still limp, to be plain about it, no good pulling there. They dunk Gerti's head, that little outhouse built crookedly on to the villa of her sensations, into the water. Her dear little cunt and dear little anus are fingered and prodded, ah, if only she could be in the arms of sleep again, soon! Where do we want to be? Where do we want to stay? Like a frog's, the woman's legs jab and snap shut. She thrashes about wildly. She isn't really hurt, why else would this company that never assumes liability for anything have been founded? Michael pokes a twig in her rather bald hill for a while, boys do love to play about, it keeps them out of mischief. Wait, one thing more. He pours what's left in the flask into her pussy then clips her round her ear, but not too hard. Ow. That burns.
It is now snowing with all the heartiness we expect of winter. The last bottle has been thrown away. Nobody seriously wants to take a swig at Gerti, even though she would give herself away till the green of spring shows through. Her cunt is merely opened up and then, laughing, we've seen this brochure before, folded shut again. The flaps smack in practised hands. None of this is that important anyway. Further away, up there where we shlepped Gerti away, the skiers are still cheering in their little lakes of beer and brandy. They beam and bawl. The floor of the forest is already heavily soaked in their pleasure. Gerti's skirt, in which she waits to be warmed up amid the trademarks, has been pulled up over her head like a sack. The suspender belts have no bad side effects if a man fancies giving his tool a thorough go. Michael wags his tail around in her face. She does not see it, and beneath her skirt she awkwardly twists her head now to one side, now to the other, thinking of Michael's unattainable ambrosia, his jelly congealed in a perpetual mould, to her it's no trifle. Her face, upon which trees gaze down in silence, is got out again and the mouth forced open. Her cheeks are slapped lightly, you can feel the teeth underneath keeping the face in its present shape, with an effort. Keeping in shape is what you should do too, dear boys and girls. Though you do so in any case, in your skintight T-shirts! With your chicaning hands and chic caps! Let's pretend, as we watch each other, that we're looking at a movie. Really moving. Now they open up Gerti's top and reveal her two breasts.
They topple out of the silk, whoops! – another moving picture! Nature, it seems, has slapped down two ill-judged meatballs from its catering supply can. Laughter. After the TV show, my dear fellow Austrians, you can go off and mix with each other. Often a finer fate lies beneath soft footfall; but wherever did I stick the wallpaper? Silly me, there it is – on me! What a fool. Gerti has to prise her mouth open and suck this thing in. Incidentally, tobogganing is good fun too, but – please – never ever where people are skiing: the last upright citizens in this world, they cannot stand it if someone squatting on one dumb lump of wood disturbs them. It affronts them. Their middle class sledges, fully paid off, are in the parking lots, and they open their doors to their owners as they return from the fire a little too late, having turned a little brown. This is the very place you'll find them. See the map attached! You just have to believe absolutely in something really smashing, and then smash someone else's teeth in. And meanwhile in Gerti a fine fire is still crackling, a whole metre of pork sausage like a fire hose in her mouth. Well now, gentlemen, heroes all: let me take a look down my sights, and see if you haven't all got a cock of your own, cocked and ready to fire!
No, there are no spare parts for the moment. The storm caused by our god, sex, sends us all to our ruin by the shortest route. Leave the man his senses, so that he can make sense of himself in peace and quiet. We women have to fix ourselves as best we're able, and then hark to the distant, echoing silence from your lifeless gadgets, oh gentlemen, still trembling slightly at the thought that the guarantee might have expired. Of us the men think last of all! A stranger Michael came, a stranger he must away, and so must his thing. Contemptuously he dribbles a droplet or so off his semi-stiffy into Gerti's face, which cannot make it to safe cover in time. The lads and lasses, faces glowing with smiling and living, withdraw to warmer places too, to stretch their stamina a little before they enter the higher working echelons. Nothing to be done about it. So get out of the bar and into life and don't worry! Gerti's freebie picnic is packed away again. Michael, who couldn't even warm to a foreplay prologue, laughs heartily. Now all of them, a refreshing stream, propose to see wholl be first sliding down the Alps. And so they start a war in this bright light, just so that they, the sons of the valley, can go cracking their very own whiplashes good and proper. Impatiently they take their place in line with those who will soon have departed. And even shove to the front. Not that those who were born poor will complain! They well know the Father's commandments. Let there be no misunderstanding: outside the chairlift station, where the ground is strewn with paper cups. These dimwits who have driven to strange territory and meet there, now they're pushed aside and must take a stop at their own inn. In themselves. Patiently queue, with all their nice long-play cassettes that they've been collecting a whole life long. Their princes are singing in chorus now, and much louder! Anyway, Youth goes by all by itself, and not at all badly either.
I've grasped… it. And you… feel warm.
These are not the children of sorrow. They help the woman to her feet, brush her down, the snow crunches a laugh underfoot. She has not had to suffer too too much for the sake of these sons. Someone thrusts her wet knickers, a postcard souvenir, into her hand. Her coat is even buttoned up for her. Her body's nutrient production begins to grease her hair properly. And she has already signed the cheque, it's just that the new clothes will have to be altered at the boutique. She's been wanting to re-cover her body, and yet with every day that comes she is the more aware of the heavy bags her skin has to carry. That wasn't the way it was meant, that stuff about the sons and daughters, the gold eggs in the nests of high schools. We too could be knocked right off our feeble trunk at any moment! Like leafage we would fall into the beautiful gardens of the owners, mildewed, and no matter how often the Frau Direktor does her calculations she can't come up with a decent number of incinerators. Only the children, led by the angels, sing in chorus when they enter into this house on a magic carpet and laugh at their parents. We won't hear it later. Michael feels like talking now, now that it's too late. He grabs roughly inside the front of her coat and dress, and, laughing, tugs and twists her nipples. His other hand he jams between the cheeks of her behind. And then he puts a civil tongue in her mouth. He has already retracted his shlong of his own accord, to give it an overhaul. He's always glad of an opportunity to pick up where he left off. The fellow's always out somewhere wanting to be picked up! And the whole thing has been nothing but time passing. The car doors slam, they talk of pleasures and friends that have been paid for and to which one entrusts oneself, like the fitness trainers they possess or in fact are. AH in vain! The angels will never be just like human beings. Only they can experience pleasure and go within themselves. Helplessly the people retch with drink. They bring it up when it ought to be having a lie down. They puke in the snow, leaning on their cars. The women fuss, the children moan. Fine. The car drives off, but the content of these people remains behind, asleep in nature, where the true and good dwelleth and goods are lied to by their own labels. In a rage they all cry out to make a stop, for ever, and hold an attractive human being in their arms, for ever. But the rulers feed the animals only once a month, and then we exert ourselves too much. Time will bring everything to light.
Gerti is put in her car. Quiet, now! How shall I put it? She has been at the mercy of hands and tongues. She almost made off, angrily shifting her sticks and belts and apron strings. A mere safety belt will suffice to hold her back.
Others in bondage have advised her to use it. Just as the artist finds his way to art, so too the village children find their way to her, to endure their rhythmical trials at the hands of this woman. The child bows over its violin, the man over the child to punish it. The works choir sings on Sunday to express itself. Many of them sing, and yet they sing as one. This choir really exists, so that the members all tug as one man at their vocal chords while the factory crouches in wait high above them. Every now and then it's thirsty and swallows up the herd, and then the pylons far and wide can hear the humming of poor people getting in line. Like children. Many came but few were chosen to sing a solo. The Direktor has his work for a hobby, so he's okay. The youngsters pour into their vehicles, now they are off to their holiday homes, where they can stuff yet more into and out of themselves. The rooms are booked out. Blessed highway, crossing the flatland, preserving the peace and quiet for all but those who live there, whose ears bleed with the racket – till they themselves can get away for a holiday.
The woman tears across the countryside. Her mind is rioting in her head, banging at the walls of the skull it is contained in, that is to say: it goes to the limit. She is chased off by the skiers, who for their part are blown back on the wind, chirping in their nesting boxes (which can sometimes be as big as wardrobes, and still there's no more than a couple of little nuts in them!), to their cages. We contemplate the peace Nature has seeded in our hearts and promptly eat it up from the carton. The light bulbs shed their solitary glow on us. The last of the litter is cleared up. The fathers of families obey their whims and fall upon their dependants. They scrutinize the remains of the day to see if there's anything left to eat. At the edge of the sullen forest a deer appears, we'll take it, it'll fatten up nicely on our sandwich wrappers. They chew it over and over, then they relax with a nice book and a nasty programme. For the last of them, who just won't stop, there's a trek up a narrow path which they will presently come plunging down again, while down on the banks the wild creatures are already slinking about to whose keeping the landscape is consigned after 17.00 hours. Out of laziness the locals stay hidden away in their houses. The men give their attention entirely to the TV set, where they can look at the animals and countryside and learn about their own nonsensical customs. The women are unemployed. The wind breezes about the peaks and soothes the pain as much as is necessary if one's to be entertained by a series about beer brewers and farmers who grow sunflowers for the oil. Yes indeed, TV doesn't pull its punches, and the viewers punch the buttons and are knocked out by what they see.
Seriously, the day isn't going to be laying on that blue for much longer. Gerti takes a lengthy break in a pub on the way. How pleasant this effect of drifting distance is! She drinks for the love of it, others drink dutifully, separated from the lovable bunch who airily want a drink just as they wanted the air to play about them as they whizzed down the slope. A whole horde of them to crown the day, they crowd to the bar and tank up, brimful. Once again Nature is simple and monochrome. Tomorrow it will be woken by human voices once more and will merrily hammer the public down the pistes. Ah yes, the public. The public has shed the blanket of Nature but is still wearing its today of many colours, the pub currently on duty is completely stuffed with these tourists. A brawl that's seething around the drink source is quietened by the barwoman. How nice, from far away we come, tumbling from mountaintop to valley, and already we're full of beer. A couple of woodcutters, the most amiable of those who tend the mountains, are already making trouble in the bar, egged on by the city folk, and will presently, like axes, split their wives open. Gerti sits silent, forehead furrowed, amid the party, who have their own snack with salad garnish to get stuck into.
Tomorrow or even this evening, this woman will be standing outside Michael's holiday home spying in at the windows to see his friends making good use of what is his. And she, spurned, will vanish, no one knows whither, into the distance, like a fleeting thought. While her husband deforests the region and murders music. I'm cold. They've screwed one into the other, rummaging about in all the garbage for that treasured picture which they acquired only yesterday in the photo store. Only yesterday. And today they're already on the look-out for a new partner, to charm him into smiling please before they press the release. Yes, us! Torn and tormented, we become visible, and we want to look good for others, to think of what we paid for our clothes, we no longer have what we paid and we notice the lack when we have to undress and caress our partner in love. But for the time being this woman is living on alcohol; and the harvest of other people who drink too, the merry multitudes, is not for her to reap. There's a slight dispute over her mink coat, which a skier has trodden on, but it's soon settled. This breed of people beneath the farmhouse-style lamp: how they do contrive to show off their shapes within the colourful plastic limits they've set themselves so that their forms and norms won't run over and out (and certainly not the models from which they were constructed). They decorate themselves wall-to-wall like their flats and take themselves out.
There's plenty going on, it's divine. The woman takes an unaimed step back. A glass is shoved across to her, the day seems almost in a hurry, it is already dusk over the mountains. The poor popular opinion is sprayed at Gerti like water from a child's hand. Ponderously the poor people of these parts are leaving their nearest and dearest, to be spilt from dirty hands in the pubs, to gush forth like springs because of what they put inside them. But this woman had best be off home. They won't have her drinking here. She'd best be quiet. This is where the herd live, complete with their good shepherds, see the TV pages for the complete programme! The Frau Direktor is a bright cloud, at least that's how she looks, sinking from her seat to the floor, where she makes her bed and lies in it. The barwoman kindly takes hold of her under the armpits. A small stream puddles from Gerti's chin and spreads. This can't go on like this day after day. From outside, Nature gleams magnificently one last time, and the herds of Nature's users head patiently pubwards, glad to be able to raise the elbow at last instead of having to rebel at the lashes of Olympic broadcasts and be sent skedaddling across the hills. If these people are left alone, you'll see how quickly their true charm fades, which is that they look like film stars and look truly charming in their own photo albums, which is where we assess what we expect of ourselves. But here the waves spray up against them and they have to compete with Ideals all cut to a single format. They win by means of noise, colour, perfume and money. A song is struck up, the time of day has a-changed abruptly, the weather too. The wind is howling through the crystal ice hanging from the trees. Even more people claw hold of the woman's hollows, look, now two men are lifting her to her feet. Their loose change empties out over the woman. A glass of wine and one of schnapps are paid for her. They find pretexts, unable to conceal their coarse sexual parts, to feel Gerti up all over. A flood of laughter from their wives, who are also readying their hairy crevices, quickly, before the light changes, and taking up their positions. They are all still dripping with Nature, that is how much life they have soaked up. And it has cost quite enough, too, sitting like islands in this bar and vomiting. One man gives a woman a piggy-back for a bit of fun, she reddens between her thighs, which she squeezes left and right against the man's cheeks. Nobody wants to be missing this. They hop about, even the best of floor shows has to be over sooner or later. Just a short way, laid back in seconds with a little effort, the genitals open, and already they're inside each other and squeezing the tube, whimpering for salvation, and their bowels are thunderous with what they have put away for the wilder times to come. In the dark, the first of them are already overspilling from the fetters of their clothes. Gerti's bust is pinched; as jolly and harmless as vegetables, we thrive in our lordsandmasters' gardens, ladies! On account of the higher regions where we dwell. Only to be pleasantly surprised by the instincts that shoot out of our ski pants.
Heave ho. Now the woman's sitting properly on the bench again. Another glass, in which the alcohol is rapidly growing old, is shoved across. She swipes it away with a sweeping gesture. The trouser-wearers who bought it her yell in fury and shake the woman by the arm. The barwoman sends a girl to fetch a rag. Gerti gets up and sends her purse flying on the floor, and people instantly start to rummage in it, their sweaty faces clouding at the sight of the money. The poor crowd in the back room and remember their work, which once spread its legs to them unforced. But now they no longer have any access. Oh, if only they had! Now they are at home all day long, busy with the dishes. And the others in the pub? All they crave is good weather and wicked snow. Tomorrow in the mountains they will lead dashing lives again, or else merely splashing lives if the temperatures rise steeply as the forecast said and it rains. The barwoman gently followeth the path of righteousness. With Gerti tucked under her arm, it is as if she were walking on the water, across the scummy froth of day-trippers floating on the surface. Just see with what certainty these travellers, born of the void, load themselves with gifts acquired at sports trade fairs and go off to their deaths in the mountains. A national anthem is thumped out, without any trace of embarrassment. The singers have but little in common with sirens: maybe the sound, but not the looks. But they go on and on singing, let 'em haye it! Local people who cannot even work at the paper mill sit stunned before their screens and stare at the canny invention of themselves – does no one have a heart for their sorrows? And why are they divorced and dismissed from life even before they, plus their skis, can be safely stowed in the cellar?
In a state such as this one really ought not to drive, alone or even in groups, otherwise one won't be safe from oneself as long as one lives! But Gerti cuts her coat to fit the cloth of her modest privates, and pushes off from the bank. She puts her back into it and belts up. Free and easily she indulges in her feelings. Michael: now we'll go and fetch him out of his house before he goes cold. Presently this woman, impelled by her senses, will be howling outside a strange house because no one's at home. Let's move on. Switching on the lights is quickly done. In the number in which we usually remain, one, solo, single, but never mind, she drives after her quarry, the other drivers on the roads. As if by a protracted miracle, nothing happens. Wearing their homeshirts, the lordsandmasters rumble and grumble because they're kept waiting for their dinners, the dogs attack visitors and keep their jaws healthy and exercised. Which is why we all like to live in our own places and keep our own pet animals, ourselves, in safe keeping there. Just now and then we take a timid pull at someone else who claims to be brimming over with sweet sweet desire. But if ever you really do desire something of him, you don't get it!