nightmare

gregor samsa died one morning. that book was never written. nor did i ever read it. no, i did not wake once more at midnight drenched in sweat. in one of my nightmares, they were crucifying jesus. a prophet! and a crowd killing him! no, no... that was not a nightmare. i think.

you selected all your scalpels, all your pincers with care. now plunge them into my chest. i can imagine it! a warmth, a little fire, a little ice. then at last it will be over, all right! a statue made of wax. a statue waiting for state officials to come and cover it with a piece of cloth. a body of the state, waiting to be taken by a state vehicle to the state cemetery of the state. one of the state’s own, who has spilled his blood into the state’s soil. how shameful! throw it into the furnace and be done with it.

but in the end, she is right too. forever trying to prove herself.

echoes! echoes, echoes everywhere! there are echoes everywhere. why is it always the same words, the same frequencies, the same images, the same yous, the same yous reflected in exactly the same way from the same reflections of the same mirrors? why must mirrors keep reflecting the same things again and again? what a shapeless order of shapelessness! mirror, mirror, tell them this: is there anything faker than them in this idiotic world?

ah, stupid blonde girl, why do you keep stumbling stupidly over the same stupid stretch of the same stupid road every day? i wonder what you think about on the way back from that café, in one of those few moments when you are alone. do you grieve for your loneliness? why do you not wear, on this five-minute stretch, that grin which sticks to your face beside your café friends like a bloodthirsty tick?

i woke up. my intestines are in my mouth. ashes of burnt-up tobacco have run first from my lungs and then from my lips, the hottest hellfire has rubbed the sharpest pieces of coal from a mine across my face, flaying and flaying and flaying and flaying and flaying my skin as if to draw the honorable flag of an honorable state. at least that is what the mirror on the ceiling tells me. perhaps this time it is lying too, out of envy for those on the street.

i realize only now that i am rambling again. what was i saying? yes, it was a nightmare. it is over. there—that fire, that ice, that dense brown blood... you have already driven the scalpel in, straight into the middle of my chest at last! this disgusting blood, mixed with the sweat drained by familiar nightmares, is filling the room; soon i will drown, i will fade away. was breathing always this difficult? at last these damned lights are dimming... and yet the room was rather large... high ceilings, room service, a view, and all that... which hotel was it, on what floor, which room number... i should tell the rotting homeless man who died at the corner... i still have my reservation...