Lisa Spalt: Delirium of the Ants

Excerpt de en fr span cz

To sell, to sell a glimpse of happy excitement – the image of an African boy with foreign flowers in his hands, attracting the love of all those hurrying past paying him any attention, and who – laughing down from the city’s advertising space – pleads for nothing more than a bit of candyfloss, something which – just like the affection of his parents – the child has naturally never experienced in his life, thus giving us the absolute assurance that he is still totally unspoilt – and will therefore be able to value your gifts even more highly, however fleeting they may be – such as your hand inquisitively caressing his little head.

In gratitude, this child becomes the pastel-coloured object of his own desires, his child becomes interesting for the female photographer, within the setting of the Third World, which is how you describe this palm-covered island in your homeland, this meeting point of the unemployed, here, where the job centre employee, fluttering in her white tunic, proclaims the oracular pronouncements of the advertisement, resulting from a paradoxical lack of personnel, but also plays the role of fate, producing colour contrasts that suggest an almost obscene glamour. Since you would like – precisely on account of the present ebb inside your purse or wallet – to guarantee him the sweet happiness that he so desires, which, incidentally – while his health has to date been furthered through the deprivation which almost killed it – represents an attack on his well-being, so that after a long time you are once again allowed to enjoy the feeling of having done something really meaningful, and it could still make a personal profit, which should at least consist of a well-endowed art prize, shouldn’t it?

Ah, you lean forward, clamping your hands, symbols of that power of action which is forbidden to you here, between your thighs, indicating the possible setting for joyful conception, which you sublimate with medication, thinking of your career, since you are, after all, unemployed, if not unoccupied. You wait, even though you no longer believe in the realisation of this dream, that it will come true, yearning to be selected by this company which makes its appearance as one single man, represented on the paper of the advertisement by his ingratiatingly smiling little head, so repulsive to you. What a trophy...

Yes, with your mind made up and visualising your goal, which – although you cannot imagine how you have learned it – you recall at the very moment of fulfilling your desires, since you will not be able to keep a grip on yourself, at least you hope not, for all the surprise, much like taking an absolutely fatal hit from a bullet, namely finally jumping up triumphantly from your chair, which symbolises the shit in which you have been sitting until now, and this expression of inner movement, which is the least that you owe a society which has no need of people like you, as they have told you often enough by means of objects held accusingly under your nose, or mysterious words muttered as they passed by along the wall, and then emphasise it still further with a raising of your arms – the recipe for success, by which means your life has accidentally emerged, having perhaps – although you will never know for sure – sprung, in a roundabout way, from your calculation, thrown to the people – which, because it whitewashes your horror at it, is from now on trapped in this enactment, chosen by you yourself, since there was no alternative, transforming the brusque job centre employee into a happily laughing girl who looks up to you like a big sister, whose sweet secrets, right down to your ultimate failure, she is only allowed to suspect, while you fall into a trance, in order to throw yourself, at the moment of this dramaturgical climax, into the arms of your audience – of course, simply a figment of your imagination – which now, as you hit the ground, catches you as if you were coming round, like a mother demanding absolute obedience with the rolling pin.

>>Incentives