Читать книгу Hollywood to Vienna - Donald Ellis Rothenberg - Страница 19

So, back, now. I am still walking. I keep on walking, as the gray skies lift, and I remember where I am. Back from those thoughts across the great divide. These are the Vienna Woods/Wienerwald, and it is all right to drift and let the thoughts fall where they may. How old am I? And what does all this thinking have to do with living? Keep on trucking, I say. It seems like it’s been a couple of hours now, and I haven’t seen anyone, anyone human, that is.

That’s great, because in the U.S. there would often be city people up on the trails, and rangers with pistols acting like policemen, and concession stands selling hot dogs, and a lot of litter and parking charges and admission tickets to nature. Paying to maintain the upkeep of walled-in, maintained nature, just one step ahead of the developers and mineral rights activists and progress. Can’t stop progress, and as for the developers, forget that tamed old spotted owl and all those endangered animals. Why, man is growing endangered. We couldn’t lose our jobs over a little bird; they will have to find a new habitat. It’s survival of the fittest, isn’t it, and if those critters were meant to stay, they would adapt or retire into oblivion along with the other endangered species. Either that, or go extinct. What were they ever good for, anyway? You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Besides, it’s not us, it’s those farmers digging the roads in Brazil that burn those trees, and in Indonesia and elsewhere, fueled by self interest again, that cause us to deplete the ozone hole, that warm us all up. It’s often the scientists on the payroll of corporate America that dispute the real facts and figures in order to preserve profits at all costs. Why, we eased out of the Kyoto and Rio global warming agreements, for instance. Besides, the “have not” nations don’t have to abide by it, even China and India. Why should we, who are 8% of the world’s population, use 25% or more of the total energy of the world?

Besides that, you people in Europe can’t even get your own act together, what with Bosnia-Herzegovia, Kosovo, nationalistic interests first, the IRA, Chernobyl, ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust, the Middle Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades. There are still imperialist types of colonialism all over the world, couched in other, so-called beneficial, names, such as globalization, the G8, NATO, the vested national interests using the “information highway.” The Armenians and Ruandans experienced genocide, the Kurds and Palestinians are struggling. And then there’s Israel. There are the Islamic Fundamentalists under the guise of sanctioned terrorism, Algerian massacres, and in Africa, blacks murdering blacks. The Taliban, the Iraqis, Iran, and Al Kaida, needless to say. What about the previous so called middle/far right anti-foreigner regime in that small country called Austria? I see those skin-and-bones babies awaiting death from malnutrition, like 12 million preventable deaths of children worldwide every year.

I could go on and on with facts and figures and horror pictures seen on CNN. What is the UN doing? Hey, step back pardner, get off your wild horse and tie it to the hitching post, relax and smoke a cool Marlboro man, or is it Mann? Who is talking here, inside this man, disturbing my peace? Is this some internal inner-leftist holdover diatribe?

Why, it’s the boogeyman inside, taking that American point of view and allowing no other perspective. How dare he climb into my head, here on this peaceful day in the woods?

I think I’m getting a little tired now. Oh, good. Here is this green meadow. It doesn’t look wet and is full of those yellow little wildflowers. I’ll just lie down now and call it a day.

I still have a few hours of light left. It’s about, let’s see, my little Swatch watch says it’s 16:00, that means 4:00pm out West, and it seems like the clouds with their drops of water, their gray foreboding, are moving eastward. I can lay right down here, next to this tree. Maybe I can put this little pack, rucksack, as they call it here, down, and lay on my sweater, that brown pullover v-neck which blends in so nicely with the earth and leaves.

Those birds sure can sing, and it seems like so many different kinds now. What am I going to have for dinner? Wasn’t I going to cook for Anna, my Austrian girlfriend? She was supposed to come over about 19:00/7:00pm, and I was going to have an American-style barbecue. Let’s see, I can have those frozen green beans with that French style bread. Maybe I’ll put garlic butter on it along with the meat that I bought. I sure didn’t eat so much meat in the States. But here the meat is so good, and I found a bio-fed natural beef that I like, that tastes so good. No BSE/foot-and-mouth disease and additives for me! I’ll have to start the coals about 18:00, so that when she arrives they will be hot enough to put the meat on. Besides, I’m getting hungry. Where was I? Yes, here I am, lying down out here. The sun feels so good now. I’ll just close the eyes a little more, and bye-bye . .