His father had then removed his mother's soiled underwear, he had shaken his mother out of her panties like refuse out of a bag, the chicken bones are sticking out in all directions-the bag can be used again, not the refuse. Stop, the other way round, away with the urine, the shit, and as always everything that stinks is between the legs. Can they not find another resting place, those two, which would let us, at their center, be cozily all human, because there at least we would be allowed to be so? That's how it was. And then his mother got clipped round the ears again because she was constantly shitting herself. The flourishing of this woman, the wife of a police colonel, don't forget, seems for an eternity before her actual end to have consisted of dying, and unfortunately God/father, very much against his will, should have put an end much earlier to the lying there in bed above me. You try living on a dunghill and doing exercises at the same time! No one in the village suspected anything of the drinking campaign of the country policeman's mother against herself. Or everyone knew it, because they all do it themselves, and if they haven't got the time for it, their closest family members have to do it for them. I know nothing, but say it anyway. I can still see her now, forcing her tiny great-grandson to get into the pedal boat with her, yes, exactly, Patrick, I've just remembered his name again: all alone with his bawling great-granny, screeching abuse, who at this moment also starts to rock the boat like mad. Something terrible could have happened on another, deeper lake, Lake Erlauf, which would have hardly felt this little burden, but swallowed it nevertheless, it hardly bears thinking about, so I'll spare myself the thought, too. Nothing happened, did it: An elderly woman, a child, and how quickly they're gone again! Yes, this stretch of water, this favorite place close to the Mariazell Mother of God, where one can learn sailing and even diving, wanted to do something itself for once and swallow a little boat as well as a whole lot of pee. It's surrounded by the High Alps and the high mountain springs, and in return it's allowed to eat something from time to time, I just made that up, and the lake would perhaps contradict me if it could. After the victims had been recovered, the lake would still look beautiful in the newspaper photo, twinkle playfully at us and immediately tempt new strangers, who are supposed to become friends.

In between, however, she always really pulled herself together, she tried to at least, the mother of Kurt Janisch, I have to admit that, one has to be fair. And that's something God would never be; on the desolate plain, in the deep fir forest, on the mountain peaks and in the valley bottoms they all drink, why only the men? No, the women do it, too, but one wouldn't so readily believe it of them. Well. Ever since, all these years, Kurt, the son, wants to build his own paradise, for safety's sake here on earth. It's true that one can save oneself from awkward situations by swimming, assuming one can and just happens to be in the water, yes, swimming, if you have to, but one can't get very far ahead on life's hard path with it. And only what one does oneself is a job well done. In principle he's always been a teetotaller, the country policeman. But once doesn't count, and so this principle should no longer apply to him. And when it happened, that another well-known local drinker chum (yes indeed, in the school of life she sat right next to the mother of Kurt Janisch, take a look, there in the last row but one! And the other rows are almost all occupied by her friends) in the final stages of a liver value-decline lent out her house for a life annuity, and did so to a Mr. Ernst Janisch, whom she knew personally-I really can't remember ever having heard a single cry for help from her since her fiance failed to return from the last war, and that really is very long ago. So country policeman Kurt Janisch, who helped this crooked deal along a bit on the quiet, stuffed his son together with the latter's little clan, three people in total, into this old lady's padded envelope of a house, stuffed them in with a woman who, stamping like a whole herd of animals, walked and still walks, night after night, and anywhere in the house, whenever she happened to think it necessary to control all kinds of evil living creatures, and does so right up to the present day, yes indeed, she's still alive, she just keeps going! Is it getting too complicated for you with all these old ladies? Don't worry! If you know one, you know them all. Their husbands hammered away till their hearts came to a stop, and the wives boozed, till their reason came to a stop, because it had trickled out of them. In any case no further inquiries may be made about the life annuitant, so that she doesn't end up in a home and her own home at the last moment ends up in the hands of strangers. But the creatures she's looking for always reliably disappear as soon as they've been caught, that is, of course, only when the old dear pours water, flour, sugar or fat or whatever onto the glowing cooker. Only the spilled and buried memories should never be awoken, those we gladly abandon each time to the fire, when they rise up and want to cook something, an ancient passion, for example, which has long ago ceased to be true. Fire gets rid of everything quickly and cleanly, even things which are not there at all. Only our relatives should stay a while, although only in our memory, and then the worms and maggots, who are allowed to gnaw the bones in peace in the endless mine underground, get them. The relatives in their friendly earthen shell, into which they have been thrown, are somehow not quite as dead as all those burnt almost without trace, don't you think? I think that's the way Christ wanted it, and then he founded our state so that the people there can be dead while they're still living, which makes him especially happy, all things, all people belong to him, before and after. They already want to have their death in life. Jesus believes it's all a performance just for him alone, what a fabulous event! In fact there's only one who's truly and madly for him, an archbishop by the name of Krenn. God promises eternal life, and of course the people here go on living every day as if it were forever. That's why they've stashed their savings bank books. Well done. Soon they'll all have to bear names, the dear books, nothing at all can be done anonymously anymore. Well done. That too.

The men in the country policeman's family, including the half portion, our Patrick, are on top of it, no flies on them. They still remember all the fun and games from great-granny, but of course when she joined the family the son's wife naturally first had to get used to creatures appearing to a person outside of wood, meadow and TV, real beasts that aren't there at all. But they weren't on TV yesterday either, so where are they coming from?. In future I'll say nothing about great-grandson Patrick, one less!, because he's already got headphones in his ears, a TV tuned into a space channel in front of his eyes and the door locked. Soon he's going to hear, know, and understand better music, and follow it until the car, in which he's allowed to take a lift, will have wrapped itself around a roadside tree. Today sadly he's still too young for that. To accompany all that the old lady wears, in all the abundance of her house, a not exactly impressive negligee. She doesn't need to. Because only in a house is one really protected, outside one can go for a walk naked and be chased back inside again, for arms and legs and the rest aren't nice enough to be presented to the public; only for the price of a house does one voluntarily face such a sight. So, the rolling thunder, the piercing flash of lighting are on no account allowed to drive in here and stay, as if this were their garage. That is, if one has a lightning conductor, which one should please no longer connect to the water pipe, I don't know why either. It's not allowed.