the most important thing, no matter where to, just away! That's then supposed to be the end of any cozy pillow business, and here it is already idly circling, the boat, drifting along, later, much later, within a radius of fifty yards, paddles, knapsacks, a tent, cooking utensils, food, an ID card, and a check card of one of the missing can be located, nothing more. You, water, what have you been up to again? Why are there such gaping holes at the bow and on both sides of the boat? As if someone or something had cleanly slit open the bow, as if with a razor blade. We're not the Titanic, and if we were, then we could earn a lot of money with having disappeared. Yet ice can form on shallow waters more quickly than where it's deep. Did it form? When a stretch of water freezes over so quickly, then the layer of ice is very thin, like a film, and so sharp that one can cut one's hand on it, that's even happened to me with paper, in pleasant, comfortable warmth. I really didn't need anything more than paper to do it. If such a collapsible boat collides with such a layer of ice, then things happen relatively fast. The water comes in, and the people have to get out. The boat is full. Let's take a look at the weather: in the morning not much cloud, intermittent sunshine. Until the early afternoon persistent early mist and low stratus cloud. After it disperses the daytime temperature rises to about 6 degrees plus. At night the temperature may fall below freezing in places. Then it's a question of either 300 yards forward or 300 yards back, because even fit athletes don't last long in ice-cold water, only a few minutes. After that they, too, are gone, the minutes and the people. They're still gone today, with their families I think of them now, please do so, too, wherever you are. If you have never thought of anyone, then it's good practice for the beginner. The beginner doesn't have to think of millions, he only has to think of two young men. Think of the dead immediately, e.g. of the drowned, of whom two here can no longer speak for the others and who don't allow themselves to speak either. The mobile phone is switched off. If you look down into the water, the shadows there, they're not people, they're tree trunks, which sank, there, yes, look, that is only a sunken, rusted boat, and that there, on the right, those are just boulders. Whether the dead ever emerge again, that would indeed interest me. They can do so from the past, no question. But can they do it from the water? Gabi certainly can, no problem. Take her case, pack up her worries or let someone else pack them, have worries or give someone else worries, take a deep breath, get wrapped up in a green tarpaulin, but a human being is no airplane, the air doesn't bear and keep her, a human being is not a boat, this water doesn't bear her, a human being is a piece of meat, herself made almost entirely of water and air, if she can get hold of them. Some do not come back at all from the dead, it simply can't be predicted. Current, depth of water, and temperature all play an important part, which unfortunately was not often granted people in their own lives, I almost believe that for some their burial is the best thing they'll ever experience. The colder the water, the slower the process of decomposition and hence of the gas formation, which usually forces the dead up to the surface, where they can happily have their say, if they meet someone. Why then does the latter run away? There was so much to tell him. Don't be afraid of death! There are so many already dead, you'll manage it too. Everyone has managed it so far, even a complete idiot like you, like me, can do it if he one to. Make sure that your body is stored, but not too long! You were already unreasonable beforehand, but now there's an extra difficulty, about which you won't be able to say a single word. If the water is cold, the body does not decompose, instead an adipose formation takes place, in which the soft parts, where fat had developed, are turned completely to wax, that is, what had grown is now firm and remains almost unchanged in appearance, imagine that. Later there follows a kind of chalk stage, which, however, I am unable to describe, because I have not yet penetrated so deeply into nothingness and can also only grasp what exists if I can see it or can put myself in a state of a caring relationship to it. I can't. But I could also turn to a pathology textbook for help, only: It wouldn't help me. This drowned angler drifted under the surface of the water for four months, and he is still as good as new. This girl in the lake with her dead dear soft lips-I urge this delicate area, this beautiful milieu of a lake, to at last hold its mouth, it has already spoken far too often here, but it wouldn't have been necessary, the lake doesn't say a word anyway, unlike me, but earlier it did let something slip, as I see-though it was only in the ice-cold water for a couple of days, but even if she had stayed in the water longer, her body would probably have been almost preserved, although this water is permanently at the tipping point, hop into purity, skip into greater gassiness, eutrophicity, where there are rather too many living things than too few, how often am I still going to say it, well, no doubt you'll reproach me with having done so far too often already: fertilizer, fertilizer, fertilizer!, but no animals, no, one can't see any of the creatures in here with an unarmed eye. It tipped this girl out in time, the water. Silent forest, why is no boat found in you? But there it is, exactly! Someone used this boat on the night of the murder. Rings of ice can form around the reed blades, but not now. Next year again. Goodbye. There are some who would like to stand close beside one another and are not allowed to. Admittedly, as already said, I don't know the character of this woman who's driving here, but from her photo I don't have any negative impressions. It's OK. She continues driving. The car, like every means of locomotion, wants to be active instead of inactive (there's something out of place there, but not my glance, I hope), so now we're already down in the Wiental, which is too jammed to allow one to do more than crawl along. The morning rush hour has started. More stop than start. This woman set out from her house, believe it or not, at five a.m. In the Federal States of Styria and Lower Austria she avoided the early rush hour, but in Vienna she was hit by the whammy of Hadikgasse. Going out of town is still relatively OK, going into town, just take a look towards Schonbrunn Palace, where the giant tourist buses, instead of decently waiting at the edge of the city, are scuffling for bathtub-sized parking places, which, since they are so small, can't be found with the naked eye at all. So we'll leave them to our Vienna tourists, for as long as they're coming at all, and drive on ourselves, we know our way around. Vienna is different, it has a cherry with a heart-shaped pit as its symbol, what is the silly Big Apple against that. Or we can just let the people get out in the second lane and drown out the cries of the disabled and/or enraged by revving our engine, which we can comfortably allow to run up against these and other fates, a moment's patience, please, we're about to drive on anyway, in half an hour or so, and if you hold us up, it'll only take longer. Then we'll drive to the parking lot amidst the greenery, in order to poison trees, shrubs, grasses, and bushes there where they have grown and not where there aren't any. The chestnuts in the Wiental were the first thing to die under a layer of lead and the greedy teeth of the sapper moth, more are to follow. The dead trees will certainly not come after us to take revenge. Living things are replaced by imposing dead ones or also modest ones, but nevertheless dead ones, that is a principle of this city, which has entered into a rather lasting marriage with death and for more than fifty years has wanted to get a divorce, but it never has the documents ready, and when it thinks it finally does have them all and can, for one last time, which will last a very long time, have an energetic and cheerful last fuck, then new clues emerge, that at one time this city lived almost entirely on stolen money and may only die when it has paid back its debts, which can sometimes assume the size of congealed pictures, all these stolen items of value, meanwhile turned sour as milk, curdled in time, because their owners went missing instead of them. How can one not turn sour. There stands a minor official and says: Gome back next week, then we'll have got the latest painting unveilings in and we'll see what was underneath, perhaps yours, who knows. A smart-looking woman like you, dear Vienna, will be able to wait a bit longer for the new marriage, you'll surely manage to get a bridegroom next year as well, and if we have to personally break off every bit of ornament beforehand. You'll say yes again this time, too, for whatever reason we're certain of that. No, we can never be completely certain, otherwise later on they'll say things we said, which in this form we never said in the first place, and if we did, then we didn't mean any harm. Even the opera ball doesn't mean any harm. You see! Do you see how, in its curiosity for the new, the present caught up in itself stands there in ecstatic unity with the future and opens the doors, as the Greeks would have said? The greed for the new, yesyes, it is true, let's be honest, that curiosity is not really directed at something in the future as a possibility, but in its greed curiosity craves the possible as something already real. Or something like that. Take a look. There's a man, he sees houses not as a possibility for living in, but, although they don't even belong to him and perhaps never will, as something that already belongs to him, and that because it MUST belong to him. So now the doors are open and you're taken aback, because someone has climbed on top of you who absolutely wanted to get in faster than you. And then we send you on a peace-keeping mission on another continent, let you spin for hours with the white washing, thoroughly plow you up a couple of times and look: You will still look exactly as you do now! And this house will also stand there just as solidly and be unable to take advantage of any possibility for relaxation. And no, there's no chance that you'll ever change. You'll have all the more need of the Persil voucher, so that you can still be washed whiter than white tomorrow as well and emerge unscathed from the soapsuds-spitting death mill, in which you swung together and were hung together, quite unjustly. There'll be a total write-off, if you don't watch out, but there's no total guilt, because of course this deer or this stroller on the pavement or this two-headed creature on this building distracted you from the car that was driving too slowly, a small car, almost breaking down under the weight of the luggage on the roof rack, yes, that one, in front of you, just a moment, but unfortunately the wrong one.