For a moment the stag had been caught between a number of force vectors, to which it had succumbed. As if gripped by impotent rage, something had lifted it up, shaken it like a fist, then catapulted it away, to immediately put an end to the nauseating aversion of the earth, which at last wants a little company, which stays for a while and doesn't immediately run off again. The earth prepares the whole meal. In return it has to pay with one head of population, it always has to pay. No, just a moment, not this time! The cars and the open trucks loaded with wood are always in such a hurry and leave the earth so quickly. Only the dead remain definitely, even if not quite voluntarily, with us, that's no fun for the road nor for us. The dead: so many! What happened to the rest? In maddened anger, in towering rage, the earth, in alliance with the country policeman, has flung the heavy animal in the air, apparently on a whim, like a crumpled, damp handkerchief, like one of those which the hunter and collector has originally gone to look for, and has simply thrown it away, the whole bundle of bones, without thinking anymore about it. But only the earth itself has been struck, the gray road. The heap of meat has been thrown on its counter, now strip off the hide, divide up and sell the meat. Yet even as the animal, not visibly bleeding, turning somersaults, had plunged onto the roadway, the earth had evidently changed its mind, no we can't have such a good conversation with that one, who's interested in what a stag's interested in, acorns, hay, the backsides of hinds, well, and it now lets go the animal quite casually, the good earth. Let's just wait a bit for a human, there'll be one along shortly, at the moment the discos are still full of human tissue, skin, bones, hair, sinews, muscles, and all in the revealing splender of rave and hiphop clothing, sometimes one, sometimes the other, never too much, as far as the little honeys are concerned, our writing and TV-watching youth (up to the age of 50) will tell us what exactly. Correct would be this answer: Tomorrow three girls aged between sixteen and twenty will supply the earth all the more plentifully with fresh flesh, so we'll let the game go for today, without eating it, while we remain here at the meat counter, the sausage stand of life, and stuff ourselves till the grease is dripping from our chins. The animal is struggling up again, the forelegs are still kneeling, but the rear is already rising up, a hair-raising bleating noise, mixed with a kind of belling and groaning, listen, there it is again, what can that be, sounds like a siren. Fate is in such a bad mood that today it didn't even want to put together a decent carcass. The sound is quite close now. The stag stands unsteadily, still thrust forward by its own rage, to face the fate which it hadn't seen coming, after all it doesn't have any eyes at the back, but whatever has happened to it, it stands ready, its hooves lurching over the asphalt to fight with whomever; fate, sluggish as it is, has not even reacted yet to this attack by the meat mass of this animal weighing hundreds of pounds, and already the animal wants to fight it. So, now, with some delay, fate is at last handed the stag's papers, a little late, as mentioned, there's no hurry, it'll not be shot until next year at the earliest, it is an older, but very beautiful beast, and in a year's time it will be still older, still more majestic, perhaps have fled from a younger rival, no, it's not sick, it is, touch wood, healthy, thanks for asking, and has by and large remained so. Now it's back on its feet, it could be king of any forest, its head lowered, swinging, no, the neck isn't broken either, this is the confirmation: Fate's documents are always correct, it knows everything about us. What's happened to the rest? Our brand new Minister of Social Affairs will ask you that in all seriousness.
Kurt Janisch has stopped, for a moment the car seems to him like a paper bag which has been filled with air and then burst. An animal has hit it a little too forcefully. The country policeman's heart hammers right up to his throat and into his leisure shirt. It's as if he is held tight by these two giant hands which clapped together above the car, as if they wanted to applaud him. The heavy impact of a living thing can produce such an effect in anyone, above all if one was not prepared for it, but one can also drive off with a feeling of indifference until something even worse happens. Whatever was hit, torn, thrust aside, it has been thrown onto the road and is already lying behind Kurt Janisch. Where on earth did the car get the rage and the strength for that? It got them, this much-admired creature, brought up to kick, punch, shove, to show off and murder, from us. And another animated creature now bleats and scrapes the asphalt, scratches the surface, drowned in itself, but nevertheless half on its legs again, gone head over heels, but on its hooves again and on course, one of the inhabitants of the night to which it, too, wants to belong. What distant light could have drawn it? Here there is only the sparse illumination of the federal highways. The bridges are for people, on their way into the beyond, who wanted to have another drink or two beforehand for the long journey, who knows if we'll get anything on the way, so it's better if we first fill up with as much as the disco clothes will take, which should actually uncover us, a covering which unfortunately doesn't take very much, when a tree and the like or similar living thing gets in its way The stag has hurried a little bit further up the wall of time in its eagerness, it has bounced off the pliant membrane which separates this world from the world on the other side, and which is permeable in only a few places, and has been catapulted back into the here and now, bounced back like a trumpet note, which was thrown back by a rock face, it was wedged in by the confinement of a road, which now returns it to nature. So. Nature is handed a present, for which it will certainly still find a use, because the hunter, too, is close to nature and deserves his pleasures. This stag will not escape him so easily. It will find it hard to get away. But still. Kurt Janisch reaches for his revolver, he'll have to shoot the animal if he's seriously injured it. But that doesn't appear to be the case. The fall was far but not fatal. Only yesterday an express train tore up a whole flock of sheep not far from here, over forty dead animals, flung through the air like cotton-wool balls, the good shepherd fallen asleep drunk somewhere, the dog in the field alone, not a hope. Now the shepherd has to bear joint responsibility for the whole loss, or don't you think he bears a responsibility, dear television audience, write and let us know what you think, it's your views that count. We will clarify the legal position and look thoughtful as we do so, and everyone will want to clarify it differently, I'll put a bet on that already. Kurt Janisch doesn't want to take part, he's thinking of his own legal consequences and resolves to pursue others, with his own law and rights, as the vultures do, and other birds of prey. Some take from the living, some from the dead. There are moments when one should smile, best of all at the camera, which is thrusting into one's face. This is not one of those moments. The stretch of road here is notorious. Per year approximately fifty or sixty red deer, mainly stags, they don't stay with their herd as they should, it seems to me, are mashed up. Do you hear the cries from the dreadful warmth of their pools of blood? Their carcasses are lying around everywhere, mostly on the hard shoulder (though not properly dressed). But often they also lie in the middle of the road, just wherever they've been tossed, not stirred, a few have even been stuck to the windscreen or were hanging over the bonnet like a fur stole, while no sun could be found in the dark night sky to wrap them in warmth a little longer, the dead animals. This whole landscape sometimes seems to consist of steaming blood and long-drawn-out cries. The cars conduct a campaign against life, which still continues at this very hour. Terrible things with wings, mostly crows and jackdaws, glide over it all, they come because they've been summoned to pick out eyes, they always have their tools with them. Crows can be quite wicked and spear the faces of the dead with their thorn beaks. This stag, however, will soon be eating and drinking again, though at the moment it's staggering around a bit, because it can't understand where it could have got so drunk, but it'll be all right. If no one comes from the opposite direction now, he'll manage to make it into the timber forest, yes, he's made it, up he goes. Down to the river would have been the wrong direction, then sooner or later he would have turned back frustrated, would have angrily reached the road, and a little later someone else would have got him and this time done the job properly. Fate never rings twice, one has to open the door the first time, it is too lazy to do so itself. The area is very abundant in game, and the spirits of every single person who lives here are completely different several times a day. Kurt Janisch's brother-in-law from Garinthia once related he had hit a pregnant hind, which had immediately expired beside his mudguard. That already doesn't sound good. Does this sound any better? The fawn spilled out of the hind's burst stomach and lay next to it, it had to be personally killed by the driver with a stone, not a nice task, but what can one do in such a situation. No one, absolutely no one should suffer unnecessarily, that's certain. Because it would only have suffered, the fawn, so we put it out of its misery, with one foot still almost in the hot monster that brought us to this spot and yet only wanted to gobble its gas at the next filling station, it wants to live, too, it's so nice and it took so long to choose it. What happened to the rest?