An evening at Volker B.'s

Evening at Volker B.'s. He was having a slight crisis, since the first of this month. One should write a good article, "a damn good one". He was, his publisher told him, "already late". "We need it until Y-E-S-T-E-R-D-A-Y!". Blue letter. Thrown into the trash can, he continued writing. Text Number 4, 26th of April 1993. The chaos in his room looked like a backyard in Bronx, New York City; the noodles were heating up, he didn't have a name for his story. Public bankruptcy of a writer. "That's your problem" (the publisher) to have a good idea. Good ideas don't grow on trees.

He heated the noodles a quarter hour ago;the empty piece of paper, starving for ideas, waited in his typewriter since Thursday. He liked to, "wait for an idea until it jumped right in the face". Infact he was looking, looking for an idea somewhere in his apartment, but he spotted only a map. Volker never liked to borrow ideas; it was a school map. "Lesson 7: Write a text which starts with 'An Evening at...'. You may incorporate personal feelings and experiences or create an entirely fictional story..." A task, an idea; "once the idea is there, it's here to stay"... and the noodles were liquid like melted butter.

by Matthias Jaap (1995)