Things being written [1]
Hans Daiber [2]
Translated by xia23
Karl Kornemann was a freshly baked civil engineer, crisp on the outside, and he would still be, if he had not glanced into a shop window. He could not have known for sure, what lay there behind the pane of glass.
He came from the main station, had just arrived, wanted to take his first job, but would like to see the city a little before he checked in for the company. He dressed to the teeth, in order to make a good impression, whistled to himself, swung his suitcase back and forth, looked at the young girl and in the shop windows.
Suddenly in the display of a bookstore among different books he spotted a red dust jacket with the title “Kornemann comes in the city”. Over it there was a photo which showed him, with the suitcase, in the new jacket. The tie on the photo was crooked. Without thinking about it, Kornemann straightened his tie. Then he looked again at the photo. The tie of the young man on the photo was now ok. Kornemann thought he was dreaming, so pinched his leg. But the book in the display did not disappear.
He walked in the book store, let someone hand in the book, paid and left the store. The saleslady did not notice anything. Quickly the young man, wrapped book under his arm, looked for a park bench and found one quickly near a pleasant goldfish pond, sat down, unwrapped the book and read: Karl Kornemann was a freshly baked civil engineer, crisp on the outside, and he would still be, if he had not glanced into a certain shop window. He could not have known for sure…
The reader stopped reading dumbfounded. He got goosebumps, and looked around. Everyday life in a big city was around him. No one paid any attention to him. He continued his reading hastily. Everything was there: the book purchase, the promenade-bench. And then he read, that he was reading. And that he looked up dumbfounded, but the surroundings were all normal. Horrified he jumped up, so the book fell down. The glossy dustcover shone in the sun. The guy on the photo stared at him with his eyes widely open in fear. Kornemann turned away from the book, picked his suitcase and went away. “Hi, you have lost your book!” A boy called after him and brought the book to him. Kornemann expressed his thank to him and opened the book once more. There was the scene, that he had just experienced.
He sat down again and tried to read into the future. But he only read that he tried to read into the future. He tried to read the end of the book, but the text at the end of the book continued, to where he had stopped: “he tried to read the end of the book.” He turned the page at random, read a sentence randomly and book said: “he turned the page at random, read a sentence randomly.” With a scream Kornemann threw the book in the pond.
Immediately he was seized by a desire, to find out if the reaction of the panic was also already in the book. At the same time he had difficulty to breathe as if he himself were lying under water. He rushed to the edge of the pond and was just about to pull the book out, when he was pulled back by a park attendant. “The water there is too shallow”, the rescuer said soothingly. Then he noticed that Kornemann had difficulty to breathe from a presumed suicide attempt. Kornemann grew pale, and clung to his rescuer and collapsed with rattling noises in his throat.
The park attendant loaded the unconscious man on a cart of the municipal park department, with the help from passers-by, and drove him to the nearest hospital. Under the oxygen mask he regained consciousness. The doctor diagnosed the circulatory disorder as the cause of the breathing difficulty and the fainting spell. The patient recovered quickly. After the examination he stepped in front of a bookshelf, threw the medical literature out and lay down on top of the shelf.
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[1]. Es steht geschrieben. p. 141, Der Weg zum Lessen. 3rd Ed. Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort Worth，Philadelphia....Tokyo, 1986.
[2]. Hans Daiber.
From wikipedia:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Daiber_(Journalist)
