Greed

Gabi is gone, like a part, almost a whole horn of this mountain. Nature adapts to human beings, or is it the other way round? Just try some time to meet a mountain, after all, the tourist brochure explicitly demands it of you! The mountain won't avoid you, but the human being, in this case you, certainly will. Or the mountain's removed from the playing field, where it was only tolerated on the sidelines, in smart, glittering wrapping, as a cheerleader and everyone jumps for joy at it and at its commands, when the team underground in the display mine wants a boost. Someone squeezes his button accordion and there's an incredibly loud bang. Every girl with a boyfriend among the players is already happy in advance, we simply must win, we must! And we, every one of us friends of the mountains, shake arms and legs, to be harvested as ripe fruit by our charges, when the time comes. The mountain's coming. We can do nothing at all about that, except conduct a conversation with it.

What fashionable shoes Gabi bought herself only last week from the birthday money she got in advance! She would even want to be buried in them, even if the layers of the soles have turned out a bit heavy, even clumsy-looking compared with the remainder that is built up on top of them. The mountain, full of understanding, thinks so too. The layers down below have become too heavy for it, and what does it throw off? It throws off its upper story, which is not to blame in the least. A very independent girl, our Gabi, sensible. The new shoes are gone, they still haven't turned up, perhaps because they're too heavy. She also has a boyfriend, who is now at a loss. Although she's only sixteen, with a discount, because she won't be for another two months, she's already had a steady boyfriend for a long time, he's very nice, I think, perhaps a little boring and pedantic for his age. At least he's not one of the inconsiderate, insolent kind, equipped with fashionable sunglasses and ugly haircuts and hooded sweatshirts. He has drawn up a life plan and is sticking to it, whereas the others only have a goal in life, with nothing in between as to how they want to achieve it: No, I'm being unjust, the goal is the fast car and the beautiful house and several beautiful women. Of all the other treasures one only needs one of each, oh if one only had it already!, apart from money, there can never be enough of that. So I'm slandering young people, because I'm no longer one of them myself, and everybody remarks on it. But I'm generalizing again, people are incredibly different, and life is an altogether far too dirty business, particularly if, like me, one doesn't want to get one's hands dirty. Money, that really interests us, but work, no. You will permit me to look at the carefully devised map of New York, as I write this. I would like to go there and as fast as possible! This lad believes in himself, it's only natural, that's he's got something to offer and looks attractive, both of which are quite true, only he doesn't dress well, nor does he come from far away, where for instance Saint Nicholas is kept in store until his big appearance, but he ranks, even among the youth of the village, among the also rans: not an outsider, but someone, nevertheless, on whom one would not place any money, even if one stood to win a lot. Let's wait and see, it'll look different in a couple of years, then he'll be earning a good wage and be able to afford a bit. After all he's getting a good training, even as shampoo and water are ru

Far, on the other hand, far away from me, something soft, like food, if you insist, I can have it prepared for you immediately: Whatever's lying there, it's not a boat, but we wouldn't need a boat now either, perhaps a shopping cart. The morning smiles, it hasn't read the newspaper yet. The mother, a cigarette bobbing nervously in the corner of her mouth, talks on the phone to her daughter's boyfriend. Both display growing disquiet: If it were really true, that Gabi has gone away, which is what it looks like? Consider the good mood, which disappeared the moment that these two people almost simultaneously picked up the phone, fortunately not the same one, but they wanted to talk to one another. What good does it do? Talking is like walking up and down on a small island. It's soon over again, because one has noticed that one can't get anywhere by talking. So does technology intervene ever more frequently in life, we didn't teach it to be constantly ringing as the signal for a good conversation, which we value more this time, because it costs something, indeed technology intervenes in the shape of Elise or Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, yes, I've heard them myself. And it spits us out again, pale and shocked, ready for the presentiment of a telephone bill. It's printed here: It must be right, we are dust! Except dust ca