Now at last it's today again, that's how I want it. Can't you hear?, now one only feels the water's soft approach, like that of the mother who delivers a blow unexpectedly, while one still has one's hand in her purse or one's own fly, a game that one really wanted to play all by oneself; yes, the water's almost noiseless soles, they absolutely don't need to be the latest model from the shop window, with bold streamlining letting fly, they're always on the move, tirelessly!, the main thing is, downhill, but it doesn't see the light of day anymore, the water. It remains hidden from our eyes. There are also tiny offsprings for the hikers and their water bottles, clumsily feeding into little metal pipes, under which was shoved, lovelessly and with no sense of proportion, a hollowed-out trunk of unprecedented ugliness. Tired trickling, two little corpses, wood and spring, which flow into one another and into the bottles or straight into mouths. Let us not be a fearful band, let us be strong, proud, yes of course, it's my pleasure, right away!, whom one must involuntarily follow, as this animal, a fox, follows the call of the wild. But one cannot also expect the animal to clean up its wilderness itself. That or something like it is what the country policeman's daughter-in-law might be thinking, as she scrubs the hotplate and screws the diapers tight around the old woman, so that the woman doesn't immediately pull them off again. There's a strong smell of burning, of urine and of shit, the dear old sisters whom we know already, they're my favorite relatives. As proof of his inability to do small and unimportant things, the man presents his wife as his partner, who is supposed, if you please, to deal with all of that quickly and odor-free, what else is she and the drugstore there for. The partner should already consider what and how much we're going to have later on, namely the whole little house, plus land, that's how it's put down in the good books at the notary in town, and in the beginning was the word, fortunately not mine, you should be thankful for that. Now that would have been something! Now I've characterized love, I think, as well as I could, love, in which women always think they have to do all the talking. I've got nothing more to say about it now. This time, in a solemn ceremony, I'm going to skip all that sighing and complaining that goes along with love and that I bought especially, no one else is going to give me a break. I'd prefer if something as complicated as love doesn't come near me again, let it come to the beautiful and the young. It's only fifteen years or so since it called, please, not again!, I've got nothing in the house. What I know about it really is enough, and it'll be enough for you, too, if you stretch out your arms, to ward off the brutes, whom no one has cut down to size yet (or who have come to nothing), who want to enter you at the wrong end, from art, from piano playing, from the CD player. I and another woman were always so hard working and then that happened. Now we're both older than then, when we were young. Who wants to blame someone if first he wants a house to get to know himself and find out what he's actually capable of, of murder, of roughcasting walls, of sanding down floors, of painting kitchen cupboards or putting up new wallpaper. As if one had to shake bones instead of plums from a fruit tree, which is theoretically and practically impossible, so day after day one has to exert oneself in vain before finally reaping the fruits of one's actions. But one mustn't go too close either, otherwise it falls on one's head. But one has to go up close nevertheless, otherwise one doesn't get anything. Property is the only thing that counts, we are so happy that we got to know it in good time, and that, even if not entirely of its own accord, it has promised to stay with us. But we do have to feed it decently. Property, I know, I know: There are some who don't like the food, and they want to go away again, or the neighborhood doesn't suit them. Sometimes we lose our heads at the mere sight of property, we're quite beside ourselves, how beautiful this house is and the one over there, too, we'd like it even more, and soon we ourselves don't count anymore, we only count it, PROPERTY.

But now swiftly to the other side, to the opposing party, who wants to be loved for her own sake. That's her hobby. What does she tell us, the lady, who plays the piano and is serious about it? This is what she says: My love, you can nail a mirror to the wall over there, if you like, in the middle of the furniture, which you will additionally choose with premeditation. But please don't go! You can nail the whole house to yourself, but please don't go! I would otherwise have to prepare myself to become lonely. My affection would have to change to disaffection, and it wouldn't like to do that. All my life savings are in this house, I accumulated them so that I can make myself comfortable one day, when I am no longer young. Now the time has come. I have personally and laboriously raised the house, first when breaking it in and then at the topping-out ceremony, hasn't it turned out well? What am I pleading for now? I'm pleading, don't go! Take the house, but you: stay! At least give me the address where the house will be put up, once you have taken it! Because I have one or more catastrophic relationships with one or more awful men behind me, and now I want to be unruly one last time, thank you, and sincerely beg you, don't go! Otherwise I've got nothing else left. You can also sell my dear porcelain dolls I've been collecting for years, some of them presents from my old piano teacher, I must call her again some time, but I don't feel like it, I only feel for you, so you can sell all the dear things if you like, because, as you've been saying for a long time, they only take up space, which afterwards you will make up with me. If only you stay here, by my side, you're surely not a man who's afraid of relationships? No, that won't be you, because in this magazine it says that it would express itself quite differently, and you never express yourself at all. You surely won't be the kind of man who admits to having made mistakes and talks about a shared future without there being one? No, that won't be you either. If you like, it's all right by me if you break through that inviting wall over there, it seems, just like me, to have virtually invited you to do so, it seems, like me, to be calling to you: I would like nothing more than to cave in, and if I survive that, I would like to marry you, and then I'll be so happy that on the other hand I could die. We lonely people also like to flee into seclusion, but we are then so happy when, like refugees, we are allowed to come out again, even if only to go to prison. You can smash a hole in the wall with the sledgehammer if you want, even if then the hole doesn't lead anywhere, do it do it, just to love me even more. You'll never understand me, but you must not forget me nevertheless, and you can knock down the wall over there right away as well, I don't mind, you don't even need to ask me if you want to do it, please do it. Knocked out by the effect on my poor wall, I'll sit there but not for long. Soon I would want to come again, like a child to the heavenly father, to whom all children are allowed to come first of all, so that he can give them his kingdom. And you are also very welcome to build a conservatory made of thermoglass onto the garden front, but then, however, one won't be able to get into the cellar anymore, because the steps would also have to be walled up. So you'll have to think that over and look at the plan once again, but instead you can break through a door at the rear, by which you'll be able to come straight into the house. You will, however, be unable to reach the ground floor from the cellar, because you have got rid of the proper door. Where on earth is the architect's plan, I can definitively prove to you that I'm right, only I can't find the plan now, what does it matter, who needs it, why do we have to go down to the cellar, and what do we need plans for, we're already fulfilling them before we have them. After all, we found each other without any plan. At a crossroads, quite naturally. Simple and natural.