Misery Parlor. Every day the same deal: getting up; getting food; getting to work; searching the sky for signs of divine intervention; collecting looks from train travelers; putting the inner clock forward; walking out into the sun during lunch break; dozing off on a park bench with the most exciting wonderful dream in your head: – – you wake up among cannibals without knowing why; there are no civilizing guilt feelings, however, because you’re in a survival situation; the savages catch you; the daughter of their chief fattens you in a tent: you’re supposed to be slit open at the ceremony of the moon goddess; cut into a hundred pieces, you shall be devoured in her honor, almost a deed of communal love-making; but instead, the girl, the bigwig’s daughter, falls for you and you fall for her white teeth and her bright eyes. You run off and the howling heathens chase you through the jungle; you find a cave, which is occupied by a bear, who (luckily) is neither angry nor hungry but simply glad, because he speaks your tongue, and it’s been ages since he met an intelligent city dweller. He knows a giant ant, who owns a space-time miracle machine, which transports you and your pretty indian girl back into your own time. Here you wake up on the teensy back seat of your own sports car, petting a brunette with dallying white teeth and entrancing pale-blue eyes – – and then back on the park bench, in your office suit crumpled by the short, soft slumber; yawning through the afternoon; avoiding abuse as much as possible; getting out of the misery parlor; getting home on the train; dropping into the evening; opening a bottle of wine at home; trailing semi-conscious thoughts of the jungle adventure on the couch; crafting verses which so poorly reflect the inner turmoil of emotions that you’d have to be ashamed if you were a professional writer; and finally sleep sleep sleep until daybreak.
#29/1000. Photo: © Catherine Davis – zoom zoom on the Metro; Paris, June 2004.
Published in Metazen (Deutsch).
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