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AT THE BRIDGE
They
have patched my leg and given me a job where I can sit: I count the people who cross the new bridge on
foot. It amuses them to prove their
efficiency to themselves with numbers, they intoxicate themselves with this senseless
nothing made of a couple of digits, and my mute mouth moves all day, all day
like clockwork in piling number upon number in order to present them with the
triumph of a figure in the evenings.
Their faces shine when I share the result of my shift with them, the
higher the figure, the more they shine, and they have good reason to go satisfied
to bed, because many thousands cross their new bridge on foot every day …
But
their statistics do not add up. I am
sorry, but they do not add up. I am an
unreliable man, though I know how to give the impression that I am honest.
It
is my secret pleasure to sometimes hold back one and then again, when I feel
sorry for them, give them a couple as gifts.
Their happiness is in my hands.
When I am angry, when I have nothing to smoke, I post only the average,
sometimes below the average, and when my heart is full, when I am merry, I let
my generosity flow into a five-digit figure.
They are so happy! They tear the
results every time out of my hand, and their eyes light up, and they pat me on
the back. They do not suspect a thing! And then they start multiplying, dividing, calculating
percentages of I do not know what. They
calculate how many cross the bridge on foot each minute today and how many will
have crossed the bridge on foot in ten years.
They love the future perfect, the future perfect is their specialty—and
yet, I’m sorry that none of it adds up …
When
my love comes walking across the bridge—and she comes twice a day—my heart
simply stands still. The tireless
ticking of my heart simply stops until she has turned into the alley and
disappeared. And I keep everyone who
passes during this time secret from them.
These two minutes belong to me, only to me, and I do not let them be
taken from me. And also when she comes
back from her ice-cream parlor in the evenings—when she, on the other sidewalk,
passes my mute mouth that must count, count, my heart stops again, and I only
start counting again when she cannot be seen any longer. And anyone who has the good luck of marching
in front of my unseeing eyes during these minutes does not go into the eternity
of the statistics: shadow men and shadow women, void beings who will not march along
into the future perfect of the statistics …
It
is clear that I love her. But she does
not know anything about it, and I also do not want her to find out. She should not suspect to what monstrous
extent she messes up all calculations, and she should march unsuspecting and
innocent with her long brown hair and her delicate feet into her ice-cream
parlor, and she should get a lot of tips.
I love her. It is completely
clear that I love her.
Recently,
they monitored me. My buddy who sits on
the other side and has to count cars warned me early enough, and I watched out
like hell. I counted like a madman, not
even an odometer can count better. The
chief statistician himself took up position over there on the other side and
later compared the result of an hour with my hourly records. I had only one fewer than him. My love had walked by, and not on my life will
I let this handsome kid be transposed into the future perfect, this love of
mine shall not be be multiplied and divided and converted into a percentage
of nothing. My heart bled that I had to
count instead of watching her, and I was very grateful to my buddy over there who
has to count the cars. It was about my livelihood.
The
chief statistician patted me on the back and said that I am good, reliable, and
trustworthy. “One miscounted in an hour,”
he said, “does not matter much. We add a
certain percentage of error anyway. I
will move that you be transferred to the horse-drawn carriages.”
Horse-drawn
carriages is, of course, the scam. Horse-drawn
carriages is a springtime like never before.
There are at most twenty-five horse-drawn carriages a day, and to let
the next number fall into the brain every half hour, that is a springtime!
Horse-drawn
carriages would be splendid. Between four and eight, horse-drawn carriages
are not allowed on the bridge at all, and I could go for a stroll or to the
ice-cream parlor, could look at her for a long time or maybe walk her part of
the way home, my uncounted love …
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