[37] D’Alembert’s end

D’Alembert does not end like a king or a hero. He is not found on a battlefield of any kind in 373: having sacrificed himself. He does not disappear in a mass grave. He is not a degenerate. He is not discovered: after days, in front of his bed, half-naked, defiled. He is alone. He dies alone near a window on the steps of a staircase. He has some realisations before his death and tries to share them. But there is no one there to listen to him. He says something before he dies and sings a song. No one has heard it. When the youngest of the Wildermuth brothers, Andreas, called Andie, who was d’Alembert’s last friend, finds him and not Andie’s sister Ottilie Wildermuth, whom d’Alembert loved, his open eyes stare at the deceased and he thinks he hears words like: Denaturation Decorporation Excefs. Andie Wildermuth screams so loudly that several people in the neighbourhood wake up, including his sister Otilie, who is unable to identify either the author or the character of the scream, and the man coming in, who lives on the ground floor below d’Alembert, is speechless. But it is he who finds d’Alembert. The coming man, whose metamorphosis is still to come, who is not yet the man he has the opportunity to be, finds d’Alembert, cause of death unknown, artificial respiration inconclusive and scalped like a pale face attacked by Indians. The sticky red-haired toupee lies on the platter of the switched-on record player and spins evenly around itself. This is the first such case known on the mainland. Others will follow.

Heissenbuttel — 37 — Projektnr1. #machinetranslation