Herbert Achternbusch

A young couple make their way through fog and industrial snow to the stone bridge of Regensburg. Their agreement: here, their life will be at a turning point. They take their time, talking about buying a winter coat or about pubic hair that got left behind in the tub. Unsentimentally and profanely they talk about ending their life: “It’s only stupid that we will be all over the German newspapers tomorrow”.
After jumping, the existence is inverted: “Nearly all behaviour was considered not right. (…) I believe, that all behaviour upon Earth was nearly wrong.” As a photographic negative relates to its print, life relates to life after death. Jumping into the Danube turned everything inside out: inability changes to ability, knowledge to ignorance, secrets are recited in an embellished way, people who existed are absent and the dead meet, going about their business. “In darkness, everything is brought to the light of day.”
An angel redeems them and brings them to the next stage of being: they sit naked under seven blue mountains (each has a vase on its top) and chat (“I don’t know what you are talking about”/ “It’s not even worth talking about”). Then, events follow in quick succession, until HE finally rides off, lance under his arm, with the words: “Be told: others may attach their imagination to reality… I attach reality to my imagination.” This tempts HER to out herself, too: “Now I can tell you who I am. I am a tree”.