Sports Play (18 page)

So,
Die Zeit
is informed and has captured the images. First the horrors of the weapons, the howling of the hounds, the whimpering of the wounded – war its very self – oh you women, even you are grey figures running with blood,
at least on this photo that is guaranteed to be real. They stagger over this way, the men, in order to succumb to you voluntarily, and what do I see: the women are hesitating, hurrying along appalled, look around, call to you, knock, but it's not opened to them. Doesn't matter. If you men invade unannounced, it's so that some voices can sound anguished and fearful before a vote can be cast. Yes, so why is there not a participant amongst you today who's defeated? A defeated person has to be found immediately in order to appear in front of the world's press.

Doesn't matter. I don't know. I'm of a completely different opinion. Nevertheless no one listens to me. I'm a figure of fun to whom no one wants to lend an arm. I don't let a hair of my head be seen, otherwise it's my turn and I'll have to found another religion. Perhaps one this time where you don't immediately lose face the moment you appear in front of your superiors. Ha, that's all I need, my boss hauling me, of all people, over the coals. And in the meantime those that live in that country over there, the one for which I did so much, will be living there again as though nothing had happened. And now I'm in for it because once, or maybe even several times, I said something loud and proud, although luckily not too loud? But no one was ever listening! I'd prefer to be properly punished for my utterances.

Ach, women, look how far they are to the willing, friendly indulgence of mothers towards children. Look how they, moaning and screeching, descend upon the aid transport that was meant for other mothers, who have enough to carry with the scarves over their heads and the pullovers over their bodies. Not a pretty sight! That's another photo, thank you, I'll show it immediately to the world which, without this photo, might have spotted me only from behind.

This hair underneath their headscarves is not dressed either, like mine, these pullovers went out of fashion a long time ago, unlike mine, of course. Trees line the promenade
and yet are no more upright than these women. They've snatched a sack of flour, and a packet of cocoa powder, and a pack of panty pads, and they're sitting on them so that no one else can get hold of these temporary gifts. Because they fought with such tenacity for this one sack of flour, cocoa, chocolate and the sanitary pads, they remind other mothers how many of their sons died for freedom. Their shoes are dusty as they set off now. Yet their ululation will keep this region occupied for many years. It's jolly to die during a war but please, it should be the result of an enemy hand if at all possible. And not, because someone's laid a timid hand on themselves.

Mothers are the only ones who can lay a hand on someone if their son has been cowardly. Mother is God and can punish as He can. Father is sadly never home. As hell is my witness, I saw something terrible on screen, who on earth could have sent it to me? And then straightaway I noticed something else that was also horrendous. Doesn't matter. It all comes out in the bloodwash.

OTHER:

So you have to imagine what we all learned from our mothers, from these organisations which, as you said before, are like God, no, actually more like God, no, actually more than God: more state-like than the state. More stately than the city. Every son is so much that he kicks everything else into the background and lets it fade there, like a gloomy stairwell that swallows him along with his briefcase each day. Someone must have unscrewed a screw in his head and put in something much stronger. A screwdriver. So let's strengthen our connection to our small, musical war-playgroup in peace, us rogues with the cheek-pits that someone once burnt into our flesh with a cigarette.

Next year we're going to go to school! And at some stage we're also going to pass the entrance exam to the tremolo group that was once set up just for us. With dear aunt Elfi, who, cannot seriously want to forbid us everything
upon which the group was founded. Our mothers are applauding in the background, as you can see, applauding somewhat jealously it has to be said. We go up to the piano and bow clumsily, our collective approach to this recital could not be better. Our inclination to kill started in our delinquent deviation from the norm already. Our social services building rises up tentatively from its dog's blanket upon which many of us have already had to leave our hair, it's growing, yes, it's growing with ever greater rapidity! Like a plaited plant that didn't make itself but was knitted and came from one person, from one only, yes, exactly, our dear mama. With plants you can't do anything to stop them flourishing. Just rip them out, there's no other way. Or, and there is no simpler method, let it wither. Like our author herself. Well, she doesn't actually look that bad.

Horror is gaining a foothold, horror grabs a hold of what and whom it wants. On my command, each of us grab the hand of their creator, a woman, who has completely extra-judicial ideas about the norm and has passed these onto her son, onto her one and only son, who's branded with his mama's fat or silicone, her eyes still weeping from cutting onions. Although these norms are no longer of any value nowadays, they're still called values anyway for the sake of old habits. Oh yes, for example there were still some tickets about last year that were suitable. Apply now to ensure you get one! They're cheaper than an instant lotto! Yes, I can see you nodding, women and mothers against the war. Only available from me and then tonight you can go on the rampage. And so let's dash off, struggling and stumbling, tied firmly to your hands, bright blue woollen hats pulled over ears so that we don't get earache. The dogs were there as witness and stayed sitting next to their dead masters in the ditches, fortunately the dogs can't speak. Later on the women who created us will have to weep and wail when they talk about the ways and means of the fatherland, and the orphans of the fatherland. By then we'll be dead, however, and no longer have to listen to it.

Basically our fathers have nothing to report. They might perhaps report ‘mission accomplished' in terms of our crimes, but we were taught by mummy, as daddy as always never had any time. Right now he is to be found in his self-discovery office. This dark man with his patented deterrent effect, which he reported to the patent office only to learn that there were already millions of similar pieces being produced. Yes, he had to learn that this patent had been assigned long since. He can step down again straightaway, that man. Mama – stay there!

So now you can release the lever, whose short arm you are sitting on, all by yourself, mother. You can hurl us into the air. As if we were still children. I've never seen a woman achieve that before, bravo! She's squashing us with her bare hands. Father should just steer himself to distract mother's opponent. It doesn't work. Father is running and thinking, mother is now doing the steering. She got her driving license long ago.

OTHER:

Look, there! Over there our future victim is asking me, asking me without a by your leave, as he if had the right to some symbiotic offer that we've not even conceded to our members since we were allowed to put away the Lego villages into the drawers of our childhood bedrooms – so my victim asks me what time it is, and if it wasn't his, the victim's time, that had come. Well I can say that for you the time is over before you could even begin. That's right, this time is now here and you can't give it back, unless it's been demonstrably spoiled.

OTHER:

Now this time is starting for me! I made it a better offer. Time is now starting for my team. I borrowed the tape on which you can see what time can do and how you can turn it on and off. Just wait til next weekend! I don't know any more just at the moment. Thank you for listening to me as I let out my victor's shout. Perhaps I'll never have an opportunity to do so again.

OTHER:

Well, I didn't hear that man asking about anything earlier, what do you think? After all, as members of a group you have learnt to replace a father and mother, the latter was painful as we'd much prefer to be men! That means practising absolute honesty, at least amongst ourselves. And now it's being maintained that our victim offered himself up when he asked us, who does this ownerless time belong to and why has it suddenly got so big that, all at once, even sportsmen can become important. All these years we've not celebrated time's birthdays, and now it's taking its revenge. Our contemporaries, in the meantime, have learnt to stretch themselves obediently, appropriately, before they set off. Just because of the one victim, yes, the one in the ditch with the dog, we cannot allow ourselves to abort that which we particularly trained for earlier! Or is the photo a fake? No, could be real! This muscle is beautifully large, we're not going to let it tear now, simply warm it up a bit and stretch it till it fits. We've finally found the time to do it, time that fitted us straightaway. It's the only thing amongst all those wimp-bags that fills itself up again and again, even if it was ripped long ago, after it had cracked loudly a couple of times.

OTHER:

I sling my breath firmly round my face so that I don't cool down and have to miss out on training. Bravely I kick out with my head and legs. I can't quite imagine how that's going to work. The victim saw us beforehand and immediately his personal needs situation switched to flight mode, a behaviour similar to those group dropouts who've recently dared to undertake the detachment process, but for that reason have not even half won. Maybe the victim thought by creating personal contact to us he'd escape annihilation, what do you think? Get rid of him like dandruff. Open the bottle! Give him one!

What, our victim might even have been a women? We didn't even notice. We noticed too late. This dead peasant woman in her floral apron should have been my victim?
Impossible. This victim was not even worth being mine. So why am I still kicking this woman in the head in my fighter-type boots? Oh, that really wasn't necessary. She's already dead. A frightful figure dripping in blood, I can't execute anything more on her, that's for sure. What she was doing in a duel I really can't imagine. I have to push my not quite genuine Ray Bans briefly away from my brow in order to see where I'm kicking. She might be cunning, that woman, and bite me on my bad foot after death. She'd eat the hand that beat her.

OTHER:

We are, after all, an exercise culture, in that we're weighted down with the heaviness of our lives, no no, no, not all at once, and then fall forward, in order to weigh down someone else all over again. In order to be forged together in one pan with the melting cheese that's rising out of these thousands, in fact millions, of ownerless socks. The opprobrium brought on us from the outside quite naturally intensifies the inner contact between us. On the other hand, we try to bring movement to a halt in others. Lovers show their figures, we show others who's master. Where's the difference? Although I can already envisage an objection in the future: wherever destruction and inhumanity become routine, then there might not even be room for us neighbours any more. Excuse me for trying to be good just now. I've just come from an antique shop, where I stocked up on antique values – I couldn't find any new ones anywhere, they sell out straightaway – and right next door is a jewellery shop, where I stocked up on jewellery, and next to that is an umbrella shop, where I stocked up with an umbrella. And right there is a handicraft shop, where I covered myself with a blanket. No, you have to go to the other side to get to the Wehrmacht exhibition, I armed myself against it in despair, sadly without having any power to keep it closed once and for all.

OTHER:

There are actually people who want to have their dead loved ones back. And that woman is crying the whole time
that no one has any values any more. Please follow me. The pit is over there, I'll make sure you fall in. I'd happily meet up with the Furies if I knew where the value tokens have got to. I want to stick one to you, and they're not there. Or maybe the young woman that I just weighted down with a concrete ring and threw into the river already made herself out to have a value? I don't think so. Or maybe the golden necklace with diamonds in a heart shape that I tried to smuggle already had a value apportioned to it? Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Just follow me. What? There are still a few women left behind who wish to rest on the corpse-pale kisses of their dead men. It's incomprehensible. Where are we to get them from, the dead? Should we dig them up again? No question of that. Others should procure them. We prefer to make music that hits our stiffened ears with shrapnel-like stones from the Zillertal or Oberkrain. That music props us up. That music could bring the dead back to life. But we don't want that either, otherwise they'll be demanding their own show again. And the other thing we're not so keen on: the outsider who's not discovered yet in what clothes he'll be buried and with what he can shelter and protect himself. And with what music he can let himself be wrapped up.

OTHER:

But yes, but yes, but yes! It's precisely the outsider that we like so much. We approach him, he's naturally still a bit shy. There's a notice hanging in our TV room – absolute silence, please! Okay then, we remain silent. He doesn't, and so we don't have to either. And no smoking, even if you've been burning for some time. Okay then, we don't smoke either. It's this outsider who continues to smoke. Fine, then we're allowed to too!

OTHER:

All by himself, this beast managed to smash up sixteen cars in one night, and now the insurance won't pay. It's in our very own new car that we find our place, the newly-gained place for the outsider who's allowed to do everything. From there you can get out of the brand-new
plane, already on fire or swimming in the river, quicker, or out of a smouldering nylon nightie. There might even be interesting things to say about us. Do you know what? We could all become outsiders, if needs must. But then where is our inside?