Sensing a menacing wind in Germany’s Grand Canyon

 

Sensing a menacing wind in Germany’s Grand Canyon, I realize the matter at hand is haunting me. Every time I turn around to grasp it it slips. Every time I don’t expect it it hits with cold surprise.

 

From the desert house she stares into steady rain. They put a huge lump of stone right in front of her nose, twenty nine years ago. She’s only noticing it now. We blow it up, I say, hoping she spits out the sparrow again that flew into her mouth at breakfast. I can help you with the detonation, but not today, tomorrow. I think of the liability insurance logo. A fortress and a flag for a clear mind for life. A harvestman watches me eat smoked eel. I would love to drink a sip of water.

 

Blei, Maden and I sit on the veranda saying nothing. Remaining silent is one of our main things to do. Blei and Maden are old. Whenever we're together I tend to get tired. The one who isn’t tired is the sparrow. In Blei's face you can read what year long dehydration means. I'm afraid his chronic refusal to drink will transfer itself to me. Blei is of the choleric militant type of humans. Every now and then he blasts his Walther P.38 in the direction of the sparrow. Maden never hears the shots. Maden also never hears when the Soda Stream is about to explode. She should let go of the lever.  She refuses to wear her hearing aids all the time. That's why the water in our glasses sparkles so intensely. Deep inside Blei and Maden is something as vibrant as the sparkling in our water. No one can drink such heavy water.

 

On the high pressure laminate surface of the kitchen table stands a shiny white plate. On the shiny white plate lies a freshly toasted slice of butter toast. Her surveillance system is monitoring me with the utmost precision. Every little crumb becomes a rock. She can feel them through her socks. A bite into the toast is causing crumbs to form a furious blizzard. The crumb blizzard sweeps across the frosted glass fronts of the chipboard dresser. When I wake up in the desert house, my eyes are burning.

 

Standing on an enormous square I realize that I'm waiting for the person who will never come. Despite this dilemma I sit down in a café and order a glass of ginger ale. I never order ginger ale. I haven't ordered ginger ale for about fourteen years. For reasons I can not explain I stir the ice cubes with the finger I used to hold on in the subway. I push it so deep into the glass that my fingertip touches the bottom. At the ginger ale surface a reviving fizz occurs. Hundreds of air bubbles attach themselves to my finger. In the tingling of the ale I find an unfamiliar force. For several minutes, I hold a big sip in my mouth to announce to the world: This sip of ginger ale could be my last sip of ginger ale.

 

In the desert house is a Miele Guard M1. Minimum means sixty minutes. Maximum means seventeen minutes. To fully land in my body, I need Max. But I choose Eco for great despair. Every relationship requires patience and compromises. With a two year warranty, we're running out of time. A green laser casting long shadows behind crumbs. In their blind spots I do secret things (like eating). I climb into the dust bag and find copper and earrings.