themzini

Wie dem auch sei, ich warte, sehe wie der lagunendampf sich entlang dem neuland des horizontes hochschlängelt wie eine fette, lila python und wünsche vergebens, ich könnte poet sein. Still erscheint sie dann neben mir: eine mischung samtener stimme und haut wie velour. Auch dies: ein freier und ungezwungener geist, der den meinen in seiner klobigen rationalität umtanzt. Sie ist eine der wenigen offiziellen erzähler cum dichterinen cum mündliche historikerin ihres volkes.

Ironischerweise reden wir gar nicht wirklich so sonderlich viel. Meistens, empirisch betrachtet, machen wir es uns auf einem der schmalen bette im mannschaftsabteil gemütlich und stürzen uns übereinander her. Das ist häufig eine sehr intensive angelegenheit, geradezu gewalttätig, vor allem jetzt, da ich mir angewöhnt habe während ich auf sie warte, wie ein beserker gestrüpp zuzerhacken. Zudem, gemäss dem was sie mir erzählt hat, hat das flüchtlingsleben sex, für die meisten von ihnen, auf mechanische libido besänftigung und/oder fortpflanzung per se reduziert.

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Ich entdeckte sofort sein kleines, elitäres, asoziales habitat (am zweiten tag in der umlaufbahn) und begann ihn in dem moment zu hassen, obwohl ich, technisch gesehen, zu dem zeitpunkt nicht sicher sein konnte, wer da oben ist: feindliche aufklärungssatelliten, planetäre vorabkunder oder wer genau. Was ich zu sagen versuche, ist dass es juwelenklar war, dass ein asteroidengürtel nicht einfach so aus der tiefe des raumes auftauchen würde, um so einen abgelegenen planetoiden, den wir zu unserer zufluchtsstätte gemacht haben, zu umkreisen.

Die beobachtung musste dementsprechend unserem koordinationsrat mitgeteilt werden: eine mögliche gefahr, die es richtig einzuschätzen galt, aber auch potentielles materiall für unsere gedichte und erzählungen. All unsere leute waren bedeutend erleichter und glücklich, als das einzigste was vom himmel herunterkam ein einziges, orbitales shuttle mit einem verschtruwelten wissenschaftler war. Nichtsdestotrotz, seine neuigkeiten waren verstörende neuigkeiten, schlechte neuigkeiten und wir hatten richtig gehandelt ihn immer höchstens nur 1/10 unserer leute zu sehen. Uraltes täuschungsmanöver.

Wie klar ersichtlich ist, sind die rechtssprechungsprozesse der PanGal Konföderation was einheimische im vergleich zu flüchtlingsbevölkerungen anbelangt, signifikant anders „Wir sind alle im selben bildniss erschaffen, NICHT“. Also haben wir uns dazu entschieden, dass der bruchteil unserer bevölkerung, der mit aussenseiter in kontakt kommt, eine keulenschwingende darbietung von primitivität abliefern soll, welche im hauptquartier immer viel anlass zu gefoppe, ausgelassenheit und pubertären rippenstössen gibt. So gut wie jeder trägt sich für das „höhlenmensch ämtchen“ ein, sogar wenn es für und immer und ewig dauert an die reihe zu kommen.

Auf jeden fall, als dieser wissenschaftler/terraformations-guru endlich hinunter kam, hatte ich ein gesicht auf welches ich meinen zorn richten konnte. Ausser das nun, da ich sein gesicht mit eigenen augen betrachten konnte, hässlicher helm, anzug und so weiter, nun sah ich, dass es sehr attraktiv, ja sogar gewinnend war, mich gewinnend, dieses gesicht, so dass mein angestauter missmut in alle möglichen verschiedenen richtungen abgeklenkt wurde, ausser die des anfänglichen feindes.

Und nachdem ich an zwei oder drei der langen besprechungen, die er mit unseren ältesten hat und an denen ich macht meines amtes teilnehmen darf, anwesend war, wird sogar aus der eigenartigen besorgniss um den abgelenkten zorn etwas anderes. Ich werde die letzte person sein, die sich der liebestrunkenheit hingibt, aber genauso wenig halte ich es für sinnvoll dem bauchgefühlten magnetismus zu widerstehen, da er auf lange dauer andere früchte tragen mag. Wird. Also gebe ich nach, dem bauch und entscheide mich diesem drang zu folgen. Schliesslich stürzt man sich als flüchtling auf die möglichkeiten wie sie sich darbieten oder bricht vornüber gekrümmt in einen untiefen krater. So überleben wir, um die geschichte weiterzureichen.

Beim ersten mal will ich unbedingt, dass wir in den warmen, Bacteria Viridialis wimmlenden gewässern ficken, aber er erklärt mir sanft, weshalb er in seiner gegenwärtigen verkörperung auf keinen fall kann. Trotz all meiner zuneigung und meinem verlangen weiss ich, wie ich im so zuhöre wie er ständig weitertextet über den biotischen gehalt der lagune, unromantische exotypen die es „mir erlauben würden vollständig einzutauchen“…. realisiere ich, dass ich mich diesem mann, mit seiner unfehlbar rationalen art, nie ganz hingeben könnte. Glücklicherweise muss ich das nicht, affenliebe ist für meine zwecke perfekt.

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Die logischen aussichten der situation sind unwiderlegbar. Die dinge werden sich zum schrecklichen wenden, ereignisse in denen Celeste auf keinen fall eine rolle zukommen darf. Aber all meine bitten sind bisher umsonst gewesen, wie kann mit einer person argumentieren, die nicht auf die harten, numerischen fakten hört!

Ich habe diese einheiten auf den lebensfeindlichsten planeten eingesetzt, in den widrigsten atmosphärischen bedingungen in diesem quadranten der galaxie. Sie haben immer die genauen spezifikationen der geologischen oder meteorologischen oder ozeanologischen ziele erfüllt. Ich hab für die terratech r&d leute lange, dankbare memos verfasst, in denen ich die exaktheit, die robustheit, verlässlichkeit ihrer maschinen, der 7000-er familie der tektoformanten anpreise. In den attachments finden sie die genauen zahlen: die exa-tonnen an erzeugtem druck in den relevanten geologischen spalten, die multi-quadrillionen an verschobenem oberboden, die zuverlässige refluktuation von strömen geschmolzener elemente unter den gesichtsplatten eines jungfräulichen oder zerbombten planeten. Wo erforderlich, kann ich sogar eine hand voll 7K-LiquiFerranti heruntersenden  um einen kontinenten in glühende schlacke zu verwandeln: spektakulär!

Wenn man mit dem orbitshuttle  zur oberfläche hinunterfliegt, den graugrünen anzug anzieht, die gute, alte partikel-knarre, plasmachete, oder was-auch-immer zur hand nimmt und in den abschürfenden wind tritt, was sieht man da? Berge die hochgeworfen und gefaltet wurden genau wie man sich das vorgestellt hatte.

Meiner schätzung nach (und hier versuche ich mich in psychologischer extrapolation in der ich keine spezielle expertise habe) will Celeste, dass ich sie und ihre leute in einen entlegenen stellaren quadranten und ihnen eine planetares habitat erschaffe wo sie unverfolgt ihre tage ausleben können. Wir, wir beide, ein neues leben lebend.  Und das würde ich, gott, das würde ich!  Alles was sie tun muss ist etwas sagen, sag doch einfach was! Aber Celeste ist eine völlige geheimniskrämerin und verrät auch nicht das kleinste, ein paar kryptische zeilen poesie ab und zu. Das beängstigt mich, diese verschlossenheit.

Through the mirrored glass the first participant can be seen to still be unconscious, the chest’s slow, regular lift and fall of being down for the count. Female, early forties, skinny, disheveled from rough sleeping, still attractive, long black hair, prominent tits, totally worn brown corduroys, a purple blouse born of financial pragmatism, fresh mizunos and remnants of smeared mascara from the left corner of the left eye from, perhaps, an earlier struggle. Many more like her where she came from, foreclosed, new to hard living, more than willing to get back at the machine.

The machine, these days, is too abstract an expression when the culprits are so blatantly in evidence: A.I.G., CitiGroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, the list goes on. Corporate masters of the universe who had it coming ever since they willfully abandoned their capitalist niche for disastrous financial products green fields. Killing fields as it turned out. But naturally, it’s a bit hard to see your day of reckoning down the line, years, when you’re inside a world that lives and dies in 3 month periods, 12 at best.

She’s waking up now, raising her ill-clothed body and getting up to her feet. Then she scans the small grey room irritably.

-Hello?

She’s looking in the mirror, a shade too dark to be a simple mirror. Cups her hand and face against it to no avail.

-       Hello? What is this? Where am I? Hello! Can anybody hear me? If this is some fucking “Punked”  shit, it’s not funny, ok? Seriously. Hello!

-       Hi, Ms. Graeber, my name is X . Or if you prefer, Mr. X.

The voice startles her an insecure step backwards and she pans the mirror searching for a person to match the voice to, futilely against the unbreaking reflection of where she’s in plus herself.

-       Fuck you Mr. X, who the fuck are you and what is this shit? I don’t know what you think you’re doing or if this is some ridiculous TV show or what. But if you think you can mess around with regular citizens like this you have something else coming. Now just let me out of here, end of discussion.

-       Ok Ms. Graeber, I understand your agitation and I…

But the woman is already at the door twisting the knob, then jerking on it wildly. Her hair flies through the air out of control and she’s making shrieking noises. Within moments, scanning the door’s crack, she relents.

-       I don’t care what you think or who you are X, I don’t. Just open the door before all of this gets a lot worse, ok? Just open the fucking door, I swear to god.

-       Ms. Graeber, I will open the door momentarily. Let me just briefly explain to you this situation you find yourself in.

-       The situation I find myself in? The situation you find yourself in, X. I work for the Chicago Police Department and you, sir, are royally fucked. You’re going to get awfully familiar with how we do work at the CPD…

-       Used to. You used to work for the CPD. Ms. Graeber this here is not whatever you think it might be. It’s for your own benefit so to speak. Let me briefly explain.

They end up going back and forth for quite a while. At one point the former female police officer flies into a real tantrum, grabs the chair and starts banging it against the window, then screams and makes cutting gestures at her throat highly suggestive of what she plans to do with Mr. X. After a long, intense verbal struggle he manages to turn her attention to the documents available on the table, convincing her that she should be giving them some short consideration after which he will open the door. There is also a DVD, some photographs and other documents that clarify the situation.

When the door finally opens, Ms. Graeber stares through it to the other side for the longest time, rubbing the line of her chin. Then she walks through the open door, stops and takes another look. Nodding as if to herself, she steps a few quick steps forwards and delivers the hardest kick she can remember. Mr. X watching through the second mirror-glass pane to his immediate left is smiling too and rubbing his hands, happy to see things are going so well right from the start.

When he sees the kick enter into the midsection he instinctively grabs his own crotch, unable to not empathize at least minimally with the to-be-expected explosion of pain. Pain is alright but he mustn’t die. Following this bonafide kickoff, Ms. Graeber coughs down some phlegm and spits in the dead centre of the scrunched up face before her.

- My house! My life! My family! You guys have any idea how many people’s life you messed up? Probably not, probably to happy going on vacation to the Bahamas, buy a bentley or whatever it is you do that’s so fucking important you screw over everybody else. Well, it’s too late now, it’s too late. You’ll just have to take it now don’t you?

He twists away from her expectoration as best he can, fastened to the wall in five-point holding. It’s pretty darn cinematic. Satisfied, she walks off to the door set in the northern wall of this room, which is to the east of the one she regained her consciousness in.  This door, as she has been informed, has been open and perfectly exitable all the time.

[2 b. cntnd]

Everything is still getting worse, it is clear 

In the markets around the world I hear

Daily, the global economic crisis getting worse

Bad, bad stuff, we’ll need a sizable hearse

A whole world poisoned by toxic assets

Failed solutions forever revived like bad bets

The alleged messiah listening to yesterday’s grifter

Oh, Obama under geithner just a good-willed drifter

Statistics, headlines and natural disaster metaphors

Can’t keep pace with capitalism’s deceitful lore

Toxic assets, collateralized debt, $160 billion bailout

Are the euphemisms of average zillion citizen’s rout

Yes, some strange times

When even poetry don’t rhyme

Behind mountains of debt where

The sun don’t shine

Your house foreclosed, welcome to the lean-to

The depths of shit we’ve been conned into

A Cali tennis event sponsored by a french bank, yaar?

Alas my friend, the four horsemen cannot be that far

And so she does, does totally inverse the vector of her momentum, in the process almost loosing her grip on her raquet’s grip-tape fattened handle. Her eyes are aligned with the altitude-shedding shuttlecock due for pre-touchdown, yonex-sponsored interception.  Simultaneously, Lady-in-contempt-of-expectations, not satisfied with just having performed one of the most phenomenal shots in the long history of the sport, by further contortion managed to pull a full-body U-ey in mid-air and land on her taxed feet, planted parallel plus forward for a glorious return to the net and ultimate killing shot. Of this particular South East Asian tournament.

The lady in yellow gets lucky because though the birdie comes in aviation disaster steep, it still clears the bisectorial, fateful net by considerably more than a hair’s width, giving her enough time to do an extended, deeply-flexed lounge. The motion is performed specifically to stop the shuttle, as well as the ongoing exchange, dead at the net. Moreover by the time the feathery projectile has crossed N155 it is moving pretty slow already and it remains to be seen if there will be enough kinetic energy left for any kind of sufficient return trip. The idea of the fencer-esque move is a tumbling, turbulent, sheer drop along the cliff of the net, on the other side evidently.

The umpire is observing the border area of the net as in relation to Ms. Yonex’s racquethead’s carbonfiber frame, scrupulously, at pains to establish if one is touching the other or if there are yet some few molecules of air separating them. Unable to decide, she considers the surface area of the net as a whole and not seeing any wave-like interference patterns comes to the unvocalized conclusion that the play must be fair and continue.

One really anxious emergency guy is worried that some of the spectacle’s elderly passive members might begin fainting and thus experiences terrible tremors of indecision, abulia that is, of whether to simply keep following this cardiacally arresting volley or to fire up the tried&true CPR machine, courtesy of U.R.T.I. AID. 

Wary of any premature offensive actions after the woman in yellow’s earlier, mind-blistering clear, the godess of big smashes has aborted her forward march somewhere along the highly orientational service line. Well, not exactly aborted but slowed down enough so she will be prompted by the coming shot rather than her own temporarily discredited anticipation. The way they are positioned right now, Yi’s the one firing downhill anyway so there’s no point in adding any extra risk. In this universe of ours, there is a thin line between premature and preternatural.

Now yellow shirt has reached her destination for the next shot and so has the shuttlecock, wavering ever so minutely from its lack of any real velocity to write home about. And down comes the shuttlecock from Yi’s twisting, high above the ground, back to the net backhand. The really low ping of synthetics-covered cork against string, radiates from the court up the humming, hair-clutched, heart-stopped, mouth-0ed, standing tiers of the Tokyo International Badminton Federation Stadium’s South East Asian Championship Tournament’s tournament point, filling everyone in attendance with the hope that the unfolding magic will live to see a few more reality-rending shots and retrieves and reversals. It does.

Yi gets herself ready to defend any of the endangered 5.18m x (1.98m+3.96m+ 0.76m) of her own private space of badmintonia from aerial assault. The cyclical swapping of offense and defense has finally ceased and the rally’s strategic balance has been heavily tipped in favor of the good smasher.

J. Koreeda, perhaps temporarily startled out of being herself and only herself in which condition a strict logic of ability and given situation would have communicated with her body or instincts or internalized routines rather than her mind, is suddenly unsure what to make of the surprising, twisting, slow drop as it closes in on the many, many rectangles of synthetic string. A short play is the easy and safe thing to do but Yi is already close enough to get to it effortlessly and continue to dominate the play, while, on the other hand, a long shot might get her back into the counter-combative mix of things but carries the danger, if she doesn’t want another zinging smash headed towards her chest, of bringing her the little death beyond lines of pure play. The problem is that all of a sudden she confronts contingency full-frontal not as a

the thing of beauty she imagines it when she has the time to do any imagining, but instead a frightening node in a ramifying network of decisions, screaming down the back of her brain to do the right thing and do it in this blink of the eye, which, her eye, it isn’t even blinking to begin with: drop or clear, make up your mind!  But her mind, as far as it has any autonomy, is waiting for the body to adequately respond and vice versa. In this way the two distinct choices (and there are others more) blur and get entirely mixed up, indeed blended like passengers of the unlucky boeing at altitude zero, so that the motion that results from this is the worst, most unacceptable mixture between the short and the long shot that were originally running for selection:  an intermediately high shot into Yi’s midfield range, an invitation to end it here and now.

Again, beyond the court’s illuminated rectangularity, the majority of the people in the crowd are resorting to gasps, exclamations and the numerous sounds that signify vicarious participation. However, what carries most clearly in the turnout’s many tones is a frustrated recognition that this has been the pen-ultimate action of something that was much too beautiful to last. The flight home from vacation. A 9-year old boy drops his ice cream from distraction or disappointment. As with everything, so in badminton’s universe it is a terrible let down to see a great thing end on a shitty, imbecilic, altogether avoidable fuck-up that simply tells everybody in attendance that “Hey, these two playing down here are, after all, just your standard issue human being types” rather than flawless incarnations of athleticism come down to illustrate finer points about the finite and the infinite.

Rising slowly from blackness to consciousness: heat, insufferable goddamn heat. Lying on his back, a shifty, unstable feeling of slide&glide. Doesn’t dare opening his eyes, then for curiosity’s sake slowly does. There is only blue and brown, blue above and brown below.  Not brown but dun or ochre at times fading into rust and coppery tones is what he sees with his head turned to the side. Looks like… Where is he? Where in the name of fuck is he? On this…where is THIS? He tries to recall something from the past, the time before he opened his eyes but his attempt comes up against mute nothingness.

Heat, hot, sand. He is lying on his back on the back of a dune. The brain is sizzling in its box of bone with the heat of the day. The fucking sun, burning. Grains of sand are stuck in his eyes, his ears, his nostrils, lodged between his teeth, scrabbling along the insides of his clothes. Everywhere there is sand. He turns his head, a fight against everything that ever existed, to look the other way, up the dune’s shallow incline: more little grains. A world of sand, a whole entire universe of grains of silicate, a so-called desert. Each granule is innocent and tiny but in their massive million millions they are the end.

Slowly, in extreme slow motion struggling against the heat of the day, he levers his upper body upright to better scan his surroundings. Its strenuous for the muscular pain in his entire body, which is slow and weak to his will’s bidding. Finally, with the blood vessels in his head on the verge of explosion and a brief curtain of black, as well retinal sparks coming down, his eyes come level with the horizon. He looks about: sand, sand, sand, more sand, a desert, everywhere only sand. What is this? Where is he? What on earth happened? From memory only silence, accentuated by the desert’s light breeze.

His heart begins beating harder and faster: How come he can’t recall how he got here? He must remember what happened, he has to. It’s not possible for someone to wake up in the middle of the fucking desert, it’s not, is it?

The sun’s blistering hotness is the only answer the man gets. Shifting and sinking on the dune’s soft back, pain firing from every single limb, the man gets to his feet so as to get a better view. Nothing. Actually something: the desert and its sands in all directions. Dunes as far as the eyes can see and further, surely, beyond the horizon’s improbable gesture of the earth touching the sky.

-Sand, sand, sand, freaking sand! Fuck!

The desert doesn’t stoop to grant the cursing man any recognition, but instead mutely continues its business of existing. Within two or three moments he is not even sure if he really yelled just now or not but he is definitely panting from some sort of activity. Either from turning his head or from cursing. Having not much else to do, with some difficulty the man swallows. His throat is as parched as the rest of the landscape, no, no land here, just sand, the sandscape, burning him on the inside, the dry throat, with its rawness. The swallow feels like a drop of water in the middle of the biggest waste there ever was. The throat still burns.

Unmögliches Panorama, unmöglich! Ich habe die zahlen seit tagen studiert. Reihe für reihe von frischen, glimmernden zahlenfolgen, die in der definitiven weise wissenschaftlicher daten ärger bedeuten.  Ich kann nicht behaupten, dass ich bei dem hier nicht bereits im vorfeld ein wenig ein ungutes gefühl hatte, aber was ist schon ein bauchgefühl im vergleich zu empirischen daten? Genau, gerade mal gar nichts.

Diese leute, flüchtlinge, verstehen nur flüchtig was ich ihnen zu erklären versuche, also versuche ich mich so einfach wie möglich zu halten. Sie sind stur jenseits aller vernünftigen argumentation, weil sie glauben, dass harte überlebenswissen auf ihrer seite zu haben genüge völlig. Wenn ich ihnen eine umsiedlung vorschlage, lachen sie bloss und kreisen mit den zeigefingern in der nähe der schläfe.

- Was sind denn das für ferne welten von denen sie immerzu erzählen Professor Dadakind? Ja wissen sie denn nicht, sie mit ihren  kleveren Kis und exotypen, dass wir überlebenskünstler sind.  Partikelpistolen genügen uns völlig und wenn und sobald wir die entsprechenden rohstoffe finden, werden wir in unseren schiffen abheben,  altehrwürdige vehikel die wir kennen und denen wir vertrauen.

Sie weigern sich mich bei meinem alten spitznamen zu nennen, Dada, oder einfach Jonas. Wenn sie mich mustern, in meinem grün-grauen raumanzug, wie ich wie verrückt um die hologramme der geplanten planetären rekonfiguration herumfuchtle,  glauben sie es mit einem verrückten zu tun zu haben. Möglicherweise ein alliierter der konföderation.

Und ich? Ich habe wissenschaft und technologie plus expertiese in terraforming zu meinen gunsten aber ich gelange nie zum falschen, unnachhaltigen schluss, dass ich etwas besseres sei. Wie dem auch sei, alleine in meinem asteoridengürtel wo ich meine tage mit arbeiten und leben verweile, bin ich ziemlich blind, ja geradezu immun, gegenüber meinen eigenen mängeln geworden. Dicht unter der oberfläche frenetischer betriebsamkeit quer durch alle bekannten, aktiven sternenverbünde fühle ich einen drang… dem uralten würgegriff der einsamkeit zu entfliehen, etwas anderes zu tun als an riesige primzahlen zu denken nur um meine ruhe wiederzuerlangen.

Überhaupt, wer bin ich denn, den unterdrückten des universums zu widersprechen? Sie, die unter einer selbstverherrlichenden order der pangal föderation ihre zufluchtsstätte zugunsten von privateigentum beraubt werden sollen und die nun auf wunsch einer grausamen, weitenfernten obrigkeit erneut zur flucht aufbrechen sollen, müssen, um irgendwo inmitten der entlegenen, unfreundlichen sterne wieder zuflucht zu finden. In dieser rolle bin ich gewisslich ein niemand, reduziert auf den status eines zwitters zwischen diplomatischer unfähigkeit und kulturellem missverständniss.

Jetzt da ich so viel kontakt zu diesen leuten pflege lebt mein bedürfniss nach geselligkeit plötzlich wild auf und ich gehe oft weit über meine erklärungsverpflichtugen (festegelegt durch die zivilbevölkerungsevakuations-protokolle der panGalaktischen  konföderation, artikel 23-C1 §5) und werde… schwatzhaft, gesellig. Glücklicherweise ist es noch nicht so weit gekommen, dass ich vollumfängliche sympathien für ihre notlage entwickelt habe. Stattdessen findet ein anderer, beunruhigenderer prozess statt: ‘sie’ hat sich zu etwas anderem als einer homogenen bevölkerungsmasse gewandelt, um genau zu sein, sie hat sich in ‘sie’ und eine unglaublich hübsche einzelperson namens Celeste unterteilt. Celeste die hübscher ist als es die mir bekannten geometrischen formeln von schönheit zu beschreiben vermögen.

Nach meinen ansprachen und ermahnungen und dem langen köpfe-zusammenstecken mit den ältesten warte ich in der nähe einer riesigen, dampfenden lagune die vor bioluminiszenten bakterien glüht, auf Celeste. Mein shuttle auf dem westufer gleicht, wenn die dämmerung kommt, einem topaz eines ringes eines riesen. Gläsern, blass blau, kriminell entwendenswert.

Und wie ich so am bakterien-wimmelnden, schimmernden wasser sitze während das plyoglas visier meines helmes sich beschlägt, werde ich mir einer meiner vielen unzulänglichkeiten bewusst: ungeduld. Aber statt mich durch arbeit an den positionierungsalgorithmen der tektoformations einheiten abzulenken oder den transfiniten papierkram kommender projekte zu erledigen, erwische ich mich dabei, so ganz und gar nicht meine art, wie ich die plasmachete hervornehme, die maximalstufe eintippe und dann wie wahnsinnig auf das umliegende gestrüpp einzuhaken beginne, damit die zeit irgendwie vergeht. Ich verliere jegliche objektivität…

Auf jeden fall folgt mir Celeste mit einer verzögerung von (mindestens) zwei stunden zur glühenden lagune während ich mich versuche davon abzuhalten das gestrüpp und die darin befindliche, nichts-ahnende fauna zu massakrieren. Das interval ist ein ablenkungsmanöver, damit keiner ihrer leute wind davon kriegt, dass wir etwas am laufen haben…. in tat und wahrheit, ist es mehr als ein blosses liebesspiel, das kann ich rational so behaupten.

Celeste hat in meiner gegenwart oft geweint und die emotionale investition, die eine so offene zurschaustellung von gefühlen und enthüllung des selbst und das damit einhergehende herunterfahren lebenswichtiger psychologischer verteidgungsmechanismen, verlangt untermauern auf klare weise meine behauptung. Liebesspiele in definitionen die ihren namen wert sind, sind zugleich körperlich und spielerisch: eine zwanglose, romantische oder sexuelle beziehung. Aber hier geht es um mehr: Celeste und ich verstehen uns auf eine art von der ich offen zugeben kann, dass sie wahrscheinlich nicht mathematisierbar ist. Falls sie denken, das klingt absurd wissenschaftlerisch, dann denken sie bitte daran, dass sogar die liebe ihre ihr eigenen wahrheitsprozeduren hat. 

The shuttle cock hasn’t even cleared the imaginary dividing line in the airspace above the net yet when Yi realizes, by its nauseating speed and angle, that she has been thrown off the offensive and had better switch gears into „R“ without twisting her sore ankle. Which, without a moment’s ado she does, after all she is her body and nothing but her body.

In the stand’s densely packed shadows, hanging darkly upside down from the high cupola, the gasping, ooooohing, slack-jawed crowd is on its feet, upper and lower legs forming the 0degree angle of viewers roused to standing by the incredibility of professional athletes’ championship caliber rally. Michael Jordan moments, R. Federer moments, oneself on the court doing something one cannot believe oneself capable of doing moments. The approximately 40’000 eyes of the capacity crowd are glued to the shuttle’s exact, timeless, once-again long service line-bound trajectory, under which non-yellow aka Yi, is backtracking frantically. All footsteps of all matches in one glowing glyph, white on green, would be the concise biography, the runic insignum of her being.

Non-yellow more or less despises having to do rearcourt backhand chores and the snappy whip-motions they call for but right now, nothing like thinking impinges her doing as she sprints to retrieve. Her legs also, are scissors of white flesh. Meanwhile, a smile crosses her defensively ingenious adversary’s face above all that yellow yonex, which is perfectly permissible, flashes of positive emotion that are known for not messing with the autonomic functions of the body athletic are.

[Yes, three bodies: the medical body, the body politic and the body athletic. This last one being among the few things that, on regular daytime TV, affords the spectatorial society glimpses of the sublime, beauty on a human scale in a divine arena.]

Back there at the back boundary of the universe of her existence: what to do? Her strength, her strategy and their common position within the numerical advance of the match strongly suggest a high, clearing shot spanning the entire court. Badminton’s equivalent of a trans-continental flight. But then, at the almost blind outskirts of her peripheral vision she sees yellow-girl moving slightly backwards, a step or so, to attack the in-bound flight that is likely not to be as high and as long as it would have been, had she not countrepieded her opponent. Totally bargaining on her known, much-discussed weakness of backhand finesse.

The yellow in no way implies cowardice, the both of them are simply committed to doing what must be done in the given space of possibility and pure play.

„She of the beautiful smash“s whole body goes sort of „Ha!“ and as she soars lightly upwards through the air from thousands of hours of plyometric excercise and begins with the motion of the to-be-expected shot, at the very last moment’s notice her right arm almost already fully extended, Madame Jaune having taken yet another step back, Yi contorts this arm of hers in ways otherwise only seen by circus artists, thus performing a cross-court drop shot which she fervently hopes will clear the 155cm’s worth of pole&net by, maximally, a hair’s breadth at her adversary’s very left side line for singles. It seems that she wants to empirically ascertain that while the court in its dimensions and the game in its set of rules are limited, the possibilities of play are not: this is what makes the universe infinite.

Numerous hundreds in the dark clap both their hands over their mouths’ sonorously opened O or even 0, permitting further Ooooooohs to escape, while other spectators’ bodies, by this point in the rally are also very much autonomous, finding it more appropriate to clutch their hair and temporarily neglect such life or death activities as breathing or letting their hearts beat. This be pure spectacle.

The shuttle reverses direction from her complexly red-sprayed strings’ surface and once more begins descending at an angle and velocity actual boeing passengers would not be amused by at all. However, the landing of the boeing is always a good thing, the landing of the shuttle is always death.

The woman in the yellow yonex shirt’s face mirrors some of the expressions way out in the standing stands upended shadows because now, out of nowhere, it is her pieds that are contred and are called upon to perform a surprise, ankle-endangering reversal of direction, momentum, velocity in the direction of the still net.

The net which divides the known space of being and becoming straight down the middle, dictates angles of attack and now and then gets to double as the reticular hand of fate. Like the best players and the shuttle itself, it has a notorious rep for occasional defiance of the laws of physics.

I have to wonder what it could all mean,

To give everything and more to those who have merited nothing,

Who deserve a slap in their self-serving, overstuffed faces

To take the majority’s livelihood in one fell uncaring swoop

And give it to the criminal few, “bonuses to retain the best talents”

Then to turn around and say “We are outraged.

But sorry, nothing we can do…..this is the letter of the law”

To stick to the law while it is continually being broken before everybody’s eyes

What could that mean? Which best talents? What outrage?

And what, Oh what are  $170 billion? How many family homes? How many jobs?

How many new Lamborghinis in the driveway?

I don’t know but how could I, this is absolutely impossible gaga

I wonder sometimes, if there is anything nicer in life than reading. No!

On other occasions, I ask myself if there could be something more satisfying in this life or the next than writing. Again, no!

And when the sun is out with clouds playing along her eight-and-a-half minute old rays while a basketball and its flight basketwards is battled over by friends I gladly inquire if there is any activity more fun than basketball? No, no way!

Finally, as our bodies bob and gasp towards climax, it is impossible to even think of asking questions at all. Only later, drops of love or sex beading our bodies, I can shake my cleansed head at the notion of something surpassing this pleasure: no, NEVER!

These imagined absolutes of enjoyment are juxtaposed in time and space quite randomly, un-united. I confirm their claims of absoluteness not to establish a scale but to validate them of their own kind. I do it to overcome for fleeting moments the staggering incompleteness of being human and thus subject to failure, paradox and death.  I say ‘the nicest’, ‘the most fun’, ‘the best’, ‘unsurpassable’ from wanting to accord words to those outrageous pleasures that hold meaning all within themselves.

Naturally I fail, fail, fail and fail again, happily fail and in writing, hope to fail better still.

All she can do is bundle herself back into herself, try that paradoxical feat of becoming herself, only just herself, without effort, without even trying. Unlock the lock to complete self control, the racket as an extension of her species being, the dropping to the ground of the shuttle on the other side of the net as her ultimate purpose as long as she is alive to haul air.

The boisterous sound of the crowd and its many-headed chant for her opponent, Junko Koreeda, who is out of focus beyond the filigreed haze of the net, falls back to the level of ambient noise. There is only the deca-sected area of the singles badminton court, which is the sum total playing field of her existence, the space of possibility within which she must actuate herself. Beyond that there are dark shadows, like vultures encircling the court, from which the mass of spectators voice their approving, stimulating, uncoordinated roar.

Absolute being within herself, only relevance of her own body. This is how Yi was trained to approach the match, the games therein and the points within each game, each single one: there are no “big points”, there is only the single drop, slice, drive, smash, clear… know which one! Know before you know you know. Every hitting of the shuttle is its own big point is the point. At the centre of the point is Yi.

It is, possibly, the last serve of the last game but it might as well be the first of the first, in her mind, is how she’s been taught to think. The head of the shuttle faces down, her weight shifts to her right leg, the back one, followed by a forward and upward swing of her right arm. Without delay the shuttlecock describes a high arc of ascent against the far-above ceiling, past the apex of which it will begin its descent towards, within centimeters of, the long service line for singles. The long service lines are two out of four boundaries of the existing universe. The specific name of the universe is badminton.

Yi’s yellow-shirted adversary moves to the rear of the court, her legs like quick blades of scissor and, at the exact correct moment, propels herself up into the air. She knows what’s coming before it’s coming but, due to not being able to afford to give Koreeda an advance notice, can only get her body ready and positioned to do what she knows she will have to in another split second. Then does. Side step back across the court blindingly quick in what looks like the mirror motion of what her enemy across the net just did. Except Yi elevates higher and, instead of replicating the high clear, goes in for the slashing downwards devastation of a true smash.

The shuttle accelerates towards the chest region, perhaps even the heart, of forward moving J.K. at about 300km/h, a velocity generally considered blinding. The crowd gasps and yells, having fallen apart into multiple individuals with differing loyalties and sensibilities. They have just been offered a rich sample of one of the game’s distinguishing gestures, the smash, which unites the central objective of the rapid descent of the birdie towards enemy territory, attained by elevation and precise power, juxtaposed with the delicateness of the instruments: spindly racquet and feathery shuttle. These latter two disappear with the celerity of Yi’s right arm’s movement, entering a pure field of play.

Yi’s smash in particular, high, elegant, zeus-like in its high-on wrath, is considered something of an apotheosis within the sporting community. To her, its just another part of being herself, breathing, running, defending the court against the calamity of shuttle impact.

Yellow shirt’s pupils widen with the shuttle’s heart-targeting approach but her arms and legs are already at it, marshalling a counter-offensive.

Meanwhile „she of the divine smash“ is en route to the net, fully and understandably expecting a weak, too high return for her to mercilessly kill of. In this universe, the shuttle touching the ground within the four boundaries is death. Beyond them, death returns to the dispatcher.

Her opponent’s reflexes manage to get the racquet’s head between her minimal boobs and the oncoming birdie, which would seem to want to make a nest there amid all that yellow shirt and yonex branding. But rather than just desperately deflect it back across the frighteningly proximate dispatcher of the original smash, J. Koreeda finds a tiny leftover of space and time to flex back her lower arm and put some unexpected zing on the thing. What’s more, into the direction of the unbeloved, defensive backhand of „her looming at the short service line in forward motion“. The technical term for this is french and it is identical across a wide variety of athletic activities: contrepied. To a certain degree, it comes close to being the very opposite of anticipation: one sees what the opponent is doing, what path of action s/he has committed themselves to and then one makes them pay for it by doing the contrary of what they thought one would be doing to begin with. Within this particular rectangle of existence, where there are neither big points nor big boobs, such a thing is considered beauty.