Mahler in love with Monroe?. C.-A. Rebaf

      An oven against potatoes

      On a warm late summer's day, I was about to go to the nearby town. The path, which used to be a paved country road, was today just a collection of potholes. I just left my village, passed the last ruined house on the road. Then the open fields , of which only a few were ordered, popped up in front of me. Between them grew conspicuously high bushes, from which a few giant trees stood out. The radioactive fall-out after the disaster is said to have caused such a growth. When these giant trees had first appeared, they had wondered. Today, they are already part of the normal landscape: trees like tropical jungle giants here in Upper Bavaria. In Hiroshima also over-sized flowers are said to have flowered after the bombing. But that was long, long before the catastrophe that few people had survived. Most, however, had died of their consequences, not of themselves. Today after that, we still suffered a lot from the impact. But most of them have arranged like me. My parents survived the disaster. They were among those who had a natural tolerance to radioactive radiation. Only such people survived. But my parents have died in the meantime, too. By contrast, I had been very small when it happened, and I have inherited her resistance genes.

       There was something golden metallic glittering next to my way out in the field in the midday sun. A sharp beam of light, a reflection hit my eye. I paused and went to the field: the top of a cylinder sticking out of the ground. Obviously the object had been thrown to the surface by the last plowing, but had not been noticed. Quickly I began to dig with my bare hands and held shortly thereafter a barely a meter long cylinder in his hand. It was made of bronze or copper, and verdigris covered almost the entire surface. Why did a small area of the metal at the top remain exposed, allowing me to see the light phenomenon? The cylinder was divided in half; the middle worked so that you should be able to unscrew it. I tried, but I did not succeed. Without further ado, I put the thing in the backpack and went my way. What would be in it? Gold? Diamonds? Papers?

       From afar, a burnt-out bell tower loomed out of a pile of wall fragments. That was it, the nearby small town or better, it used to be. Only a few houses were inhabited. We did not need the other ruins anymore. It lived today, after the disaster, maybe one percent of the people, maybe less. Nobody knew that exactly. We were back in the Middle Ages, living in small groups, without networking. My parents once told me something about traveling. We did not really know that word anymore because you could not travel anymore. There were no means of transport and no roads. It used to be possible to move through the air like a bird. I could not imagine that at all. We only used to walk and put back distances that we could do in one, two hours at the most. Longer you should not stay at one piece outside.

       It was quiet here on my walk, and I was able to devote myself completely to my thoughts. Only the birds were twittering. From a distance, behind me, I heard one of my neighbors picking a field with his Paco-Paco. I knew the engine noise. After the disaster, a surviving South American built this type of vehicle out of old junk cars and gave it the name of his native tongue. "Paco-Paco" was as loud as the sound of the diesel again. These monsters consisted of an old engine powered by a wood gasifier. Wood grew in abundance here after the disaster. We needed it for heating and for the little light in the evening. Usually we got up with the sun, and when it went down, life went out and we went to sleep. In my backpack, I felt something hard pressing my ribs. "Oh yes, there is still the enchanted metal cylinder!" I remembered.

       Only our neighbor in the village owned a Paco here. Once every family should own a car. They had sold fuel for it at petrol stations. I can not imagine that. Where did the devil stuff that drove the cars come from?