Mollusk
His early morning hours – 4 am to 6 am – he had spent reminiscing about the luscious curves, the surface that was soft and rough ad seriatim, the beautiful blue: looking down, looking up; here one could have it all. The sizzling, the oily crunch of a freshly fried raspatat. Oh, how he loved to think about it. And how he hated the rude awakening at 6 am, when his bedfellow rose to the soft melody of bells, the default alarm, trying its hardest to be calm but he loathed the sound of it, the hypocrisy. Grismel, his wife, rose every morning at 6 am. She’d look over at him, her wrinkles would stare at him, her dry, chapped lips, her sunken eyes. She looked old. He knew that without returning her look. He closed his eyes as soon as he heard the alarm. He wanted to see her as little as possible. Instead he thought about his love affair with the island. Sand, water, oysters. Bitterballen, Pannekoeken, fish. Unceasing satisfaction of desire. This morning especially he was so lost in memory that he could smell the salty sea air. Until he rose, took his breakfast (sausage Grismel knew how to make – every few days she would spent hours preparing them, forming them, seasoning them, grind, carve, flavor, all for him – he could have done without, but he also knew that this pathetic process filled her life with meaning that it would otherwise lack), he put on a tie and left the house.
A building made of glass, but crystal it is not. A soft carpet floor, but camel hair it is not. Everything was mid, he had to face that fact every morning when he stepped through a glass door into the lobby of the most flourishing, most successful and lucrative publishing company this side of the lake. He wasn’t proud that he worked here. There were things much bigger, much better, things that only he knew and that filled him with pride all the more. Vague memories of a time past when he had been proud of his hard work, his position in the company, came to him every now and then but only momentarily. Now it meant nothing to him. Grismel’s father, a grey, stout man, easy to despise, hard to believe that he had it in him to be involved in the birth of three children: the oldest, Grismel, a darling to the father, a speck of dust to her husband; the second-born, Frasier, a hero to many, wicked to those from whom he had taken one of the few pleasures, delights, treasures in life (he had, in the name of animal, earthy and bodily welfare, not mentioning once words such as veganism, vegetarianism or religion, taken away a burger of such divine taste, had caused its censorship, its banishment, that all that was left at the betroffene eatery were balls of dry grain); the youngest, Cleopatra, of her nothing much could be said, she was of no importance whatsoever. His name had been Horace – he had died not long ago in a reckless jump (a foul attempt to prove bravery) from a stone into a stream of cool mountain water. Horace was the (former) owner of the company, he founded it, he brought it to its glory, he even designed the very building, the very doors that Frederick was walking through now. Doors of the greatest simplicity, silver metal, unornate, freckled with tiny scraps.
The tiniest of toilet booths on the fifth floor served him as shelter from the gaze of his colleagues whom he hated almost as much as his wife. Here he laid bare his right thigh and with a silver knife that he had taken from the blue-tiled kitchen he cut into it with just the tip of the knife. Feels good, he thought. Drew back, went in again. And again and again. He pulled his khakis back up and now he was ready for the day to come. Through narrow hallways, over green carpeted floor (green like the piece of spinach that he had so often seen caught in Grismel’s teeth), turn left, then right, “straight ahead”, left, left, labyrinth-style. His name on a door, his smell in the room – he could distinguish his own smell, an unusual trait that didn’t do him any good. Over the years he had noticed the merge of his and Grismel’s – mongrel smell. Now he noticed the red stain on his khakis and took them off. Air around his knuckles, he looked up, nothing there but the stained, age-old bulb that he hoped would one day fall down, explode in mid-air and kill him right there. But no, he didn’t actually want that now. He had good things coming, and he didn’t wanna die here. A day of work lay before him and he chose purple pants from the white plastic box that stood in a corner of the room – the box that housed five pants and a bunch of nut bars that “gave him a kick” whenever needed.
His way home, after a long hard day of work – no way, it was easy to him, all that bullshit. All he had to do was file, correct, read, email. Doesn’t get much easier than that. He was tired now though and his train of thought kept stopping, cycling around and zooming in on the time he had spent on the island. Of love. Of consummation. Of exhilaration. And he began dreaming the most beautiful dream his mind had ever conceived. Then he pulled into the driveway and on entering the house his peace of mind vanished instantly, evaporated with that fishy, oh so familiar smell that greeted him – Grismel was taking a steamy bath and as always she won the battle of bath soap and body odour – her smell overpowering the cherry blossom microscopically added into the slimy liquid that for god’s sake was supposed to clean, to purify and rid of smells such as this one. Then he knew it was time to ease all that had (in the past hours) collected in his brain, the tension that he felt in his joints. Still he stood in the hallway (were the walls painted light yellow? Or pastel blue? He wondered) but didn’t wait long until he turned around and left the house to walk down the street, to reach the little patch of grass at the end of the street, to reach into his bumbag that he had been carrying around all day, it was like his own flesh, and he got out a stick of glue wrapped into foil and sniffed sniffed sniffed as hard as he could. Sticky, sickly, white smell reached him – flew through him, no streamed, no slid, danced? He felt good and for all he knew this he could endure much longer than was him allowed. Minutes of sick pleasure and it was over – and the relief he felt was washed over by the desire he had, the repulsion he felt for all that awaited him. That was: Grismel. Or himself? Didn’t matter. She was in him. As was… better things, impossible to spell out. So he returned and the house greeted him and he greeted the house with lust for blood.
Further away, many, many miles further away a letter arrived for Sir Bleurt – he received many a letter but this one excited him and he opened it with zeal. It was addressed to him and it concerned his little island off the coast, it was to be bought by a businessman – finally he had gotten rid of it. Splendid day, simply splendid. He skipped through the long yellow hall and, forlorning his cuban coffee, jolted through the bedroom door. His wife at the dressing table – blush with rouge, tan with bronzer. The cat streifte his leg, the soft fur, it warmed his heart. A smooch for his wife – would she care? he wondered – and he scanned the dressing table – anything suspicious? -- round, square, rectangular tubes, that was all: golden red, light pink, shimmering brown, pure gold, so much texture, so much color – you’re an artist, he wanted to raunen, but he didn’t, it would’ve been too much, too much affection, it would’ve repulsed her, so he thought. She smiled and her bronzer klickte shut. ‘I’m bored.’ He got mad. All this beauty, his happiness, his success. With two (or was it three) words she had taken all that away and he was left with mad rage. But who was he, not a brute, not a fool – he wouldn’t reveal his madness. “It’s been bought, my darling. The island has been bought.” “High time.” He remembered that she was a cold woman. Soft, but cold. He remembered the island, his island, his property. Warmth, a distant memory but he could feel it still, if he let himself. So, what was all this excitement for. He didn’t want to sell. He wanted to keep. It was high time, yes, but for something else…
Then, as if in an instant, a pumping and pulsating, Sir Bleurt was where he belonged, his blood knew it, all of him knew it. Sand that shone silver. Speck. Speck. Be careful or it’ll get in your eyes. The breeze told him that. Someone else was there too – a little man, so little compared to him. And this man was new, relatively, hadn’t known the island as long as Sir Bleurt had and the way they each loved it was different and it would never be the same. And the island would give each of them what they deserved. And if they treated the island badly, then that would show. Everything depended on it now, because nothing else was left. But everything had always depended on it anyways, because nothing else had ever been worth even a speck of the island’s sand. The man couldn’t see him because he was ducking behind a bush of lush green. The other man had just arrived and was bathing in the sparkling shadows of dunes. Shadow was warm here. Sir Bleurt was bored. He wasn’t here to watch another man roam this paradise. The island owned him, and no one else. So he turned around and disappeared into
Slime so beautiful it was impossible to resist. He felt like a newborn, a newborn with all the knowledge of lust and pleasure and love. Standing in the sparkling shadows of the dunes. The sparkling shadows of the dunes that seemed to infiltrate his body. He was basking. And slime was building all over his naked body, golden slime, so beautiful, the finest thing he had ever touched. Like dusty canyons it seeped in and out of his body so that all of him was vibrating, matter that never stopped moving and it showed. Swirls of slime that flowed on and on and he laughed and he was so happy. Then it was time to move on and he moved through the sand until he came up on a bay where he spotted a Imbisshütte, tucked away between two dunes that threw shadows on one another. And he was pleased to see, as he approached, that the hut was occupied only by sizzling oils, cooking appliances, bitterballen, krokets – waiting to be thrown into hot oil. He entered and now he was the
Besitzer, Koch und alleiniger Betreiber einer exklusiven Traditionsimbissbude. His first customer arrived rather swiftly, too swiftly he thought, solitude was, so he had hoped, the price he had to pay to be here. But he had entered new terrain and new space was bound to change his time. She had the skin of a mollusk, shiny, slimy and slightly wet, somewhat beige. He was horrified when she approached but soon the sweetest scent reached him and horror quickly became delight.
17.06.2024