Doppelgänger. Drndic Dasa

is behind muddy fields because it is new and unfinished. But the furnaces are all right, they work. The furnaces work perfectly. The cemetery is behind the crematory. It is an old cemetery, orderly. It is the third crematorium in the city. It is a big city.

      The hall is like a mausoleum, a church, the ceilings are high and painted, it is cold inside. When the music stops playing the coffin disappears and the people look up at the painted ceiling because they feel uncomfortable. Down below are the ovens. Here they do not let the fire lick a glass cabinet in front of everyone, as there are no glass cabinets here. Where the fire burns, in the glass cabinets, the corpses lie in open coffins like jewels in expensive boxes.

      In America, they light a fire that fizzles. It’s a gas fire, that’s why it fizzles. I’ve seen it.

      Printz had been in America, working.

      The flame blazes, blazes, blazes, soft music is played (by request), the deceased person bends at the waist, slowly rises, rises, rises and sits, nicely made-up. Deceased American people have nice hairdos and cardboard shoes. So, the American deceased people sit in their nice new coffin until it twists like a burned-out match. They sit in a fine interior of white, pink or red satin. If it is a man, he sits in satin as blue as the sea or sky. That is the way it is from birth. Recently yellow has been introduced, for the sake of equality. Now deceased people glow gold, as though bathed in sunshine. That looks dazzling. Biblical.

      What about the eyes of American deceased people? Do the eyes of American deceased people watch? Do they see the beauty of their own departure?

      There are no data about the eyes.

      Here there is no transparency. There is no watching. Mother is nailed up. The coffin is cheap. There is music, someone makes a speech, Mother disappears, Mother burns but no one sees. Mother is ash.

      The urn stays in the depot for five years.

      That comes later. Father is still alive.

      The depot is large like a warehouse, with white tiles for the sake of hygiene. A store of urns, a store of the dead. Here, within reach.

      That comes later. In this city there are two rhinos.

      This city used to be handsome, it is not now. It has grown old. It has let itself go. It has been let go, allowed to fall to rack and ruin.

      I was handsome once as well. I’ve let myself go, I’m ruined.

      Printz was handsome, he still is, he has let himself go a little. He has not yet been ruined. He will be ruined later on. He will be allowed to be ruined. He will let himself go. Fall to rack and ruin.