It took him a while, driving with difficulty across stones and through undergrowth, to get there.

He couldn't have acted any differently, he tells himself. He once again feels quite the master of the district, but somehow it doesn't cheer him up. He doesn't care at all whether the water gives up its booty or keeps it. First of all the water gets its packet, nicely packaged at any rate, earlier the country policeman had to go especially to an out of the way tool shed to fetch the tarpaulin, actually he's already been driving around with it in the trunk for a couple of days, what for? (Question as to premeditation: Did he himself put it there with intent, in case he would need it at some point?) Let's go on, then we'll have it behind us all the more quickly. Then the water can chew at the package for a bit or a bit longer, and see whether it likes the taste. It can open its jaws to draw breath, at the same time spitting out the human roll with the plastic cover, then snap at it again, or it can also keep the meat roll of course. Is it meat at all, or flesh? Everyone's always so nice to flesh, if it looks nice and is pretty in the right places, perhaps even transparent?, at least just barely covered in transparent motives, so that nevertheless a bit pops out of the wrapping which is scooped out in exactly the right places, and has been placed there for that very reason. So that one suspects what anyone can anyway see at a hundred yards. But it's important to the man that something more comes of it. The flesh is only the means, the mean value is the money and the highest value is a plot of land with a house on it. For that the country policeman carries out duties, of which he has deprived the community, because instead of directing the course of traffic he has been having intercourse himself, one of my tiredest jokes, I know, but I'm happy that I've found it, I had been looking for it. I know, I know, you've heard it all before. But consider this: There are nevertheless unbelievably few of you worldwide. The man, however, would do quite different things than I would (or than would occur to me), so that his desire for belongings is fulfilled. Two legs spread, for him alone, just like that, and a whole house puts in an appearance right in the middle. So this man puts himself down as an advance, but in the same breath demands himself back again, because himself is all he has to invest. But perhaps he needs himself again later, for something else. The country is supposed to be safe because the existing small stations of the Country Police are not being closed down, which have made and still make a valuable contribution to that.

Here's the charming, artificial, inner Alpine lake again, it's always getting into the picture when we don't want it to. But this time there's a special reason for it to turn up, we had almost lost sight of it because it's already so dark; it's not exactly soil protection, that nature and landscape pastoral care have done to it, but neither are they to blame for what has happened to the water. Nor is it because of prevention of air pollution and waste disposal, no, wait, perhaps it is because of waste disposal, because right now I can see how some kind of waste or whatever it is, at any rate someone wants to get rid of it, is being put into the water there. One wouldn't keep watching mere household refuse so long, out into the barely rising, gently rippling waves, the lake can also toss the roulade around a little, play with it, we'll see if we can't get the wrapping open later, it should be a snip. The man has tied it up well, made double knots, attached something to weigh it down and removed it again, because it could perhaps be traced back to him. He surely doesn't seriously believe that all that will work as permanent medication against the reappearance of the packet! Water can do a lot of things, but one thing it can't do: digest all the things thrown into it. Cyanide from a gold mine into the Danube from its tributary the Tisza! A gigantic dying is just starting, and you can watch it live, you're still alive at least! The poison speaks for an hour, and the fish would have to swallow it for fifty years, if they weren't dead now. Or shall we leave it wrapped up for a while yet, this death role, which someone is playing here? No turbulent river current is playing with it, and the lake is too dull to embark on a proper scrap with a completely motionless, tied up body. So now even the most stupid reader knows what's in there, because unfortunately I couldn't keep it to myself anymore. How does one do that, say something by not saying it? I fear everyone has known it all the time, from the beginning of time, even if not all of it through me. And the Austr. Food Standards Code does not lay down what people and their inland waters are supposed to eat. It only states what they're not supposed to eat. Meat is of course excepted, otherwise the whole of Austria, which subsists on meat and alcohol, would go on strike together with its mountains and lakes. This country always wants a little bit more of what there is, it doesn't matter what, at any rate always more than it can take. Cannibal country. And we like ourselves best when we are well disposed to ourselves, because we've been well behaved, that is our spice, in which once again we want to let the others stew until they're really hot for us. Perhaps, also, because no one can change the thousand schilling note for the taxi for them, not even the bank. Whenever the bank is really supposed to do something, it can be guaranteed not to, it would rather pester us with demands. And what the inland waters are supposed to eat instead, that's written down here, please read it immediately, although it undoubtedly doesn't particularly interest you: at least two hundred years of biodynamic, organic and ecological farming, in order to recover from its own toxins again. Everything should always be healthy. You, too, should start immediately by eating healthier food. Finally, I've attached a number of signal lamps, reflectors and colored adhesive strips to my poetic art, so that if all else fails you'll hear all the bells ringing at once, until you're almost deaf. It'll turn into a wonderful chorus once I've given the cue. And with the words "meat" or "flesh" I've provided an additional hint, superfluous of course, I didn't need to say it at all (at least when a heavy object is dropped into the water, then it's not hard to know who or what is meant), and now it's all no longer art, a pity, really.

But then again, the dumping of wrapped perishable objects is not entirely without risk, if only one man is available to do the job. I have a suspicion that otherwise, and ever more frequently, illegal waste is dumped from this point on the shore, because I've several times seen trucks with their lights out parked by the upper bay, where it's easier to drive up to the edge, and where one can also see more easily. There are no fish here who would like to turn themselves into sharks on a special course, to first of all eat out the eyes and then the soft parts of their catch. There won't have to be a long search for missing persons, because one will soon know and see on photos, that someone has gone missing and is now unfortunately going to be found in a terrible state. It really would be better for this young woman if she were in the middle of the ocean, with forty pounds of cement around her ankles. A father recently even inflicted ten pounds on his child, a little girl, and a beautiful, cool, merry river, whose secondary movements immediately rocked and pushed the child around, although it soon made no difference to the child with all the foam in her lungs and upper respiratory tracts and all the cement attached to her bound feet. Tomorrow the mother and the boyfriend of a young missing person will from the start have been convinced that something must have happened. They'll have some copies of the most recent photographs of the missing person made by a photographer they know and go with it themselves from house to house, into the shops, into the inn opposite the bus stop, and into the bus stop and show it, the photo. They will stop cars on the road and ask the occupants whether they haven't seen the missing person, a certain Gabriele Fluch. Finally they will have had just enough time to stick a kind of wanted poster of the missing person to the electricity poles along the route she usually travelled to her apprenticeship, but the adhesive will not even be dry behind the ears yet, when the packet, not a day too soon, will have been found in the lake. All without any success in life, on a day like any other, life rented an extra room in order to do something extra in peace and quiet, which it usually never does.