TWO
There lies the gravel pit, a stagnant stretch of water which, like every other, spreads before us forever flat beneath the surface pressure exerted by God, dark and yet open, an opaque quantity. Oh, if only the ecological balance of the water in it had not been upset! Hence, sadly, the lake is not a dark jewel encircled by mountains, which sometimes throw off their nerves, the water varicose veins in the rock and cast them down their own besotted slopes, man and his misdeeds are to blame, yes, yes, the landslides-everything slips down the slopes over their hips, the mountain shorts, the earthen covering, this sodden, doused greenery, which can no longer hold on there. Unfortunately it rained so much this spring. Tracks were buried on which cars were parked oh dear. People can no longer leave their vacation destinations and are left sitting in the locals' trap, the latter have to scale the heights of their best manners in order to bear the visitors for so long. In the winter they had already practiced killing by avalanche, the locals and their native snow, that triune son of water. (Meanwhile the water has assumed another form again.) This living play of nature finishes off everything in a trice. And right away here comes a whole concrete wall of snow, this popular, but inconspicuous (once arrived, it simply lies around everywhere) piece of sports equipment that falls down to earth around the clock and no one, apart from the athletes, really pays attention, unless they haven't got winter tires fitted yet. And this snow is suddenly like stone, like concrete, which has a stomach ache and thus must empty itself over everything. We, too, have to watch it on TV, even though we're more interested in the little football. The lake then. One essential detail's missing, that is, there's no life in it. The trout go strolling in the River Miirz, they avoid the storage lake, they already die before that, hooked by an angler or from the power station sludge if the sluice is opened too quickly, I've already mentioned it somewhere else. I still don't entirely understand the mechanism, but whatever it is, the fish die in the hundreds. It happens in a flash. In every kind of rock and in every kind of terrain there are suitable basins or cavities into which water fits, but then again its composition doesn't suit the fishes. They would have said something about problems beforehand, if they could have spoken.
Why is it that just this stretch of water has swallowed so much and what that caused it so to lose its balance? The water really has to be fed a great deal of unhealthy food to get so fat. If we start with a nutrient supply of 10 mg per annum, but then increase the amount by two percent per annum, then the lake has a nervous breakdown because it believes it will have to cope with even more, and has long since lost its appetite. But at the moment I can't see what nutrition it got at all, yes, in fact what is it subsisting on? Who set the cycle in motion, until something sat up, had a good stretch and then got up and left without making its bed? Nowhere do I see food for the lake, this is not at all an area of extensive agriculture, it is an area of extensive leisure use. If anything, then leisure should lose its balance, not this lake.
The afternoon shadows fall very early across the water, crouching in its tub. It has not been formed by tectonics, volcanic action, erosion or accumulation, rather, someone simply blew a very big hole in the ground, so that he could throw the rubble from road-building into it, and then someone else had another idea and preferred to fill the tub with water. You see, other bodies of water are even produced by the wind, this nothing in the air, ice, too, can melt and thereby make water. This water, however, was poured out, but without a food chain, no, that was not added (that is, the consumers and producers within this biocenosis don't come and go, they simply remain, but see for yourself) there are two, three rowing boats lying there, you can pay at the inn on the other side of the highway, where you will also be handed the paddles that go with them. And then look into the water just once, no one will stop you, but the species garnishing underwater doesn't lie next to juicy fish bodies, snails, microorganisms, this sidedish, rather, is never anything but weeds, weeds, weeds, simply green stuff, you can see that with the naked eye, macrophytes, vegetable organisms; your voice will sound as if muffled by a park of living plant creatures, should you take the plunge, the tongues of foliage will caress you like the branches of trees, but if I were you I would think twice before going in there. If you can't swim, have a last photo of yourself taken beforehand! Well, this water does not look like water at all. Just the way it clutches at your throat, if you want to do some water sports nevertheless! This water is simply not as close to nature as you. Even if you avoid it and lean over the side of the boat, the impression you get is of jelly, gelatin, ton upon ton of water plants, nodes, rhizomes, I ask myself, how can they even aspire to photosynthesis if light cannot penetrate the water at all? Look at the snapped off twig floating over there. It is already half submerged, as if it were petrified and too heavy for the water, which treats it severely and swiftly draws it down. These plants, they shouldn't really be here at all, and in healthier water they wouldn't be, at least not in such gigantic quantities. Did the nasty climate do it? Did something rise up which climbed to the surface, odd given the youth of this stretch of water, whose chemical properties suggest something much older? Upper layer not very permeable, eh? Of special significance to the dynamics of the depth ground water due to extended stay below the surface? What, no depth ground water at all? The tasteless juice simply poured in from above and then the hose thrown away?
There's a boat floating on the water at the moment, as love floats around in humans and makes no progress nor gets beyond itself. It's even possible to get out of any village, after all. The boat has sought out its humans and now glides forth without splishing or splashing, it is no longer surprised at anything, for it is used to this water, which just seems to have this special density, a different specific gravity from normal water. It is almost as if it were solid, which would be the opposite of water, a copy from an original water block, but they'll never manage to get the original quite like that again, what did I really mean by that? It doesn't matter, I'd rather not say, because I would need pages for that, which I will certainly miss in my life, that is, the nicer back pages. So it's simply water, but it doesn't look like it and doesn't feel like it. If you want to swim, you're better off driving to Kapellen, which has got a pond for swimming, I'm telling you, it's friendliness personified, with its caravans, its squealing children taking off into the blue sky with their water wings, everywhere the multicolored joys of discovery. OK, it's still too early in the year for swimming, the water is far too cold. I would say the lake can hardly be discovered because it's so hard to get there in order to discover it. It doesn't impose itself, this almost black filling, which was supposed to set a water cycle in motion, yet even precipitation does not visibly appear to strike it. As if there were a brake on its fall, as onto a sponge. It's simply a dark surface next to the highway, just before the bypass, where at last, since a couple of years ago, there's no need to brake anymore. I also brake for animals, says this car, which cannot do anything on its own. They first took the material for the road away from the ground and then gave back cheap water in return. Even you wouldn't put up with that. Imagine you've got a corridor where you could put up cupboards, and instead all of a sudden the full bathtub comes towards you and buries you under its watery hollowness. The bus drives a little way into the village, but the old B road then continues unhurriedly on foot, the bus turns round again, it has to pay attention to the federal highway. Now one can send five-year-olds to the grocer's, they could at most be run over by a baby stroller. And here's the little bus shelter, crudely rustic, as if knocked together from gingerbread, not unlike a feeding rack for game, so that it's not so conspicuous in the landscape, a piece of furniture, yet in the open air, but then again not a piece of garden furniture; I wouldn't go so far as to sit myself down comfortably there, under the inquisitive glances of the neighboring residents, and hold my face to the sun. Doesn't matter, it wouldn't make the face any better. The little house with its little bench is more a piece of working furniture, which takes in people for a limited period, principally student drivers, apprentices, and old people, who have no car and have to go to the surrounding towns, on one side as far as Mariazell, on the other to Murzzuschlag, I haven't been able to free myself of this area for ages which, like myself, is inconspicuousness personified, but yet also a fetter nevertheless. It sticks to me like I would myself to a beloved person, if I had one and a suitable opportunity.