Elfriede Jelinek - Greed

It always makes sense to work at something, and mining has had the sense, over the eons, to throw the mountain bit by bit into the depths, in seconds if necessary, and even under the mountain there are things happening, which are perhaps beneficial to it, but certainly not to us. Because the mountain can in a short time virtually liquefy itself deep inside, yes indeed, in the depths, as if there were not already enough water there! So now it also turns to mud inside, and after that, watch out, it breaks through. And it breaks through into neighboring, already packed, old worked out chambers, and sometimes, if they have not been properly backfilled, these are particularly susceptible. Who actually checked the consistency of the packing material, of the concrete? No one? Well, then of course we'll need to call the Country Police to find that out, but not today and not this country policeman, he won't be on duty. But one day, one day some time, he too will try to find out whether it's true that lean concrete packing was used or not. Like all of us, he will need experts to do that. The information won't be volunteered. A subsidence might perhaps have occurred if the chamber had been properly packed, but not this catastrophic breakthrough, which took people into the pit with their eyes wide open and afterwards didn't let them out again even with their eyes shut. They're still down there. Ten head of them. No, you won't get anything out again, on the contrary, you're still in nature's debt and have to pay. So: What interests the country policeman about women also lies more below the waistline, which the more fearful don't even dare cross with their eyes. The country policeman, once the sunny credit side has been checked, always only looks there, an area about which he has already collected further details on many occasions, so that he knows his way around, if he ends up there again. It's nicest in nice weather, this area, then one can at least take a good look at the landscape, to see whether a couple of death's heads look back and nod to the camera. All these fit to use lives have been buttered into the landscape and then crushed by the magma, well, by the shit, until they themselves have presumably become as soft as butter. Don't follow this mine to the bottom, follow Kurt Janisch uphill, even if it's hard! Weighing heavily on him, as on the management of the mine: economic pressure. He must find success. He must. Failing which he must go broke and be declared bankrupt. There we have the mine, and there we have Mr. Janisch's fly, they stand opposite one another like two terrace restaurants by a lake competing for customers. What will you do for me? You'll get from me! With fewer people the mine had to produce as much as with many. It routinely had to increase the tonnage. What must Kurt Janisch do now? Be at the right place at the right time, have his arguments acknowledged and have the buildings and apartments of lonely women valued. The Leoben Public Prosecutor's Office is waiting, at some point someone will stray into their side street. If the mountain doesn't come, then its prophet of property, Kurt Janisch, will come to us in the cramped building, and then at last we'll have him, we don't have anymore room. Otherwise we have to come and get him. One hears rumors, these little liberties of the propertyless, but one hears nothing concrete. Welcome meanwhile to the Barbara shaft, where, however, there's nothing left to save.

In the mountain wind there's no question of forgetting. One can think things over very well while running, until the moment comes when one doesn't think at all anymore and just keeps running, like a machine, like a politician who wants to make his mark, as if he wanted to have himself hewn in stone or at least have his picture taken, just as he has become through running. Now one's happy at last. One will outlast all others living, because one is so healthy. Now some forward thoughts turn up as well, yes, they get the better of us, but they aren't very good. One would never have credited oneself with such thoughts. The colors of this Janisch track-suit: copied from the professional athletes, whom millions look at, to see what's on their clothes and which is the right stuff, too. So that they can likewise load their life trolley with it (as if it weren't full enough already!), except now the colors just won't harmonize with nature. They have, however, been chosen for the sake of miles of arduous running exercises, these colors, so that at some later point, the frozen sportsman can nevertheless be found and given a decent burial. He stood out very well from the white of the snow, thanks to his track-suit. The mountain rescue team will see you better against the rock face, against which one day you will stick like a squashed fly, and if you have your cell phone with you and its battery isn't flat, then nothing worse can happen to you before the alpine rescue service's bill for recklessness and anarchy and the telephone bill land in your letter box. Then you'll bitterly regret everything. Then there's nothing to be done. People in their eccentricity repeatedly gets into danger and have to be got out of it, so that everyone knows: They're back again. And on top of things. In sport people themselves have to be so much on top of things that they no longer need the mountain tops. But everything can also be quietly simulated in their very own personal fitness center. These feet, made for walking, running, or driving cars, now carry out one or two of these labors on the conveyor belt, which man should really wait upon, instead of it waiting upon him. Number three, the beloved car, which is by itself as strong as fifty pieces of fitness apparatus, unfortunately had to stay outside. One can always improve one's performance, if necessary. The country policeman, I think, seeks solitude, not only to train there in peace, but principally to meet someone who will flatter him. Look, a woman in love, how nice, and she has already been affected by his behavior, as I see. She staggers behind this person like someone with a fever or a mad person, in order then to be allowed to sit down on his cock. This woman wishes to allow, for the umpteenth time, a couple of parts of her body to be pulled out and entrusted to the cold mountain air. It is precisely those parts which this body table always laid with the best tableware has made available for this one man, to allow several tests to be carried out. What for. So that this man will once more be able to pass muster in the woman's eyes and senses. That's what for. She already knows that in advance. But the said parts will not remain free long either. A printer in a bank will later have stamped something as proof that they are no longer worth anything. Because now the country policeman has the money. The body parts are all occupied. To make up for that we are now unemployed. The country policeman will have confidentially informed a woman on the telephone, he's driving past the farm, you know, knows anyway where the barrier is and where one unfortunately has to pay, and then up to the last parking lot before the path up to the summit. Yes, even a country policeman, although he's got ID, if he's not on duty, has to pay the toll, and then, Gerti, you climb a bit following the red markings, you know, as always up to the bench with a view where we often used to sit. From there you simply go straight ahead, where there's no path at all anymore. So then we'll follow the path that belongs to us alone, right, where at most only the hunter is allowed to go, who is allowed to do everything, then continue to the right, as far as the point where you see the cross on the summit of the Windberg for the first time, you know, if one can see anything at all because the fog comes down early there anyway, you know, I expect, that you'll already have pulled off your panties or not put them on at all and opened your bra. Why. What for. We don't ask questions. Actually even the country policeman, even though he's got his mountain rescue certificate, shouldn't leave the marked paths without authorization, except in an emergency, nor should he encourage others to do so, especially not someone who is not really certain on her feet, nowhere, not in life and not in death, but who would want to start an argument with him. He's born here and knows the area as well as he does his own trousers, which, as already mentioned, are skin tight and leave no room for mistakes. It's easier to get into the mountains than into these trousers. But the mountains can be treacherous, never underestimate them! Even if one knows them, they like to get up to their tricks whenever they want. The country policeman doesn't believe in the legend that if one kills a person they return as the lost, because death supposedly doesn't like it at all, if one anticipates his plans. And the dead keep on coming until they are completely forgotten. Their ghosts meanwhile wait patiently at home, behind the barricade of the earthly, until they are informed that the time of being forgotten has drawn near. Young people (cf. Gabi) are of course forgotten more quickly, there are soon too few who have known them, and they have other interests, there was in any case not enough time to really get to know Gabi. The way she really was. On the other hand it is of course outrageous: so young and perhaps already dead! Her characteristics were hardly clearly developed yet, moist walls, into which someone pushed his hands, fleetingly The priest, should the unthinkable really be true, will have to lament an imaginative young life, which is now shut into a coffin, it's incomprehensible, inconceivable, that it could have happened, but the girlfriends will move away at some point or devote themselves to their own families. One surely shouldn't kill in full bloom, but in the bud it's perhaps not so bad, except for the one directly affected, who knows if it would have come to anything. Oh Gabi, I think it's enough to drive one to despair. In this weather, with all the road accidents, the ghost drivers on the autobahn late at night… you could have died so many times already, it's a wonder you lasted as long as you did. But now it has happened, I fear. Perhaps the murderer is in some danger? One can never know. A stab of pain tightens my breast, but not for long, my breast wants to go on breathing, and it's best if people arrange to be free right away, if they find someone with whom they can stick their genitals together, again and again, until finally it holds.