Wood Wool [1]
Peter Bichsel [2]
Translated by xia23
Now he showed his slides. The guests seem to agree.
His wife said, that they were colorful and always a beautiful memory. While the sofa set was rearranged, he explained the merit of his camera to the gentlemen and she enthused about the sea. Then he held the screen, pressed a button, and it rolled out from the black box. Then he pushed it back, so he could demonstrate the mechanism with a spring again. He brought the projector into the correct position with stacked books. An extension cord was needed and was not found for a long time, then they looked for a triple plug.
Then they turned the light off.
Then they are always the same pictures. Very blue sky, clouds look like cotton balls and here are some more shots with Madelaine.
Madelaine laughs and says she looks terrible in the pictures. Then they discover that that one is romantic and that front one is Gothic. And all slides look like slides from Greek temples. After the presentation, the light will blind you.
Madelaine looks really terrible.
You can now close your eyes again without further ado and think of something, a teddy bear.
As they had cut it in the stomach, the mother said: “now it is broken.”
“There is something in it”.
“That is just wood wool.” Wood wool is found in bears, glassware is packed into slaughtered bears.
First, years late, today perhaps, and often in glassware stores, they regret the murder.
Today the teddy bears are much smaller. They were big and yellow, and they had something, that people looked for in the wood wool.
Now it is broken.
There must be something in snowmen too. You will never find it. As soon as you look for it, the snowman is no longer there.
Just like the teddy bear was no long there.
In glassware stores you can feel the longing for it.
Teddy bears have much more expensive eyes than dogs.
“Now it is broken”, the mother had said.
Now they make teddy bears without wood wool. Soon the glassware is packed in something better.
No one will then dissect teddy bears, dig in wood wool and dip the fingers in their warmth, no body.
And now some pictures of Madelaine.
[1]. p. 27. Hozwolle. Eigentlich möchte Frau Blum den Milchmann kennenlernen. Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main, Walter-Verlag AG, Germany. 1996.
Wood wool. A product made of wood slivers cut from logs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_wool
[2]. Peter Bichsel. 3/24/1935 - . Swiss writer and journalist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bichsel
