The evening got blurrier and blurrier as it went on. At midnight, most of the celebrants were still there, and the fire, though somewhat lower, was still going strong. After that, I lost track of time – and, I’m embarrassed to say, everything else as well.
I spent most of Sunday shuffling back and forth between my bed and the sofa groaning, with occasional trips to the bathroom thrown in. Around lunchtime, Franz called to entertain me with his account of how he’d more or less carried me home around 2:00 in the morning, as I loudly sang “We Shall Overcome,” making up half of the words. I would have laughed, had my head not throbbed with every tiny movement, as well as the visceral feeling of existential dread that seemed to have taken up residence in my body.
“Thanks for taking me home, and sorry for being so drunk,” I mumbled. “Did you stay any longer afterwards?”
“Nah,” he said. “The ones who were left were all pretty plastered by then, and getting quite stupid. They said they had to keep the fire going, so a bunch of them—”
But at that point, I had to interrupt him because I urgently needed to go to the bathroom.
“I’ll call you back,” I spluttered. (Which, of course, I didn’t.)
Over the course of the day, fragmented memories started coming back to me: Waltraud Ecker trying to persuade the mayor to jump over the (by then merely smoldering) fire with her, in the tradition of the young couples of old; the Romanian boy improvising a solo on a trumpet borrowed from one of the musicians; people bringing broken pieces of furniture, pieces of wood that were really still too green, old newspapers and so on to add fuel to the fire.
Then weirder things, too.
I had a flashback of a bin bag being tossed onto the pile that opened to release a shower of NO DOG POTTY signs, mixed with others sporting slogans like NO DOGS ALLOWED, PUT DOGS ON LEASH and other dog-related restrictions.
Someone coming with a wheelbarrow full of big, shiny letters that looked a lot like those above Nikki’s hair salon.
Someone hurling a sign into the fire like a frisbee that had – but surely not! – Welcome to Felddorf written on it.
And had I really seen Herbert Hütterer shove a 30km/h speed limit sign into the embers..?
Cursing Franz and his refills, I shook my head (which I instantly regretted doing). I wasn’t used to drinking so much; clearly, I’d been delirious. I spent the rest of the day trying to distract myself from my self-loathing by binge-streaming old episodes of Kommissar Rex.
I was still feeling a touch rough when I made my way to the office on Monday morning. Everything felt a bit off, disconcerting, almost; even the traffic seemed more unpleasant than usual. I walked past the supermarket, my eyes agitatedly roving over the familiar building like they were unable to settle on it; like there was something missing. At intervals, some weird, random metal poles were standing by the side of the road, like the kind that normally held… And then it hit me: my drunken hallucinations from Saturday night had been nothing of the kind.
I got to the entrance of the council building at the same time as Franz came strolling over from the parking lot. For a few moments, we stood wordlessly, taking in the clean, white patches where the Felddorf coat of arms and the office sign with the business hours had been removed from the wall.
I unlocked the door, and we silently trudged up the stairs to the office together.
“I think this mess is gonna take some time to sort out,” Franz said at last.
“Mhm.”
We looked at each other, nodding.
With a deep sigh, I switched on my computer, made some coffee and braced myself for the arrival of the first complainant.
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 6 – Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: A Regular Train Trip – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
February: Growing Up – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
March: Mess – Veronika Groke (Austria)
April: The Roads We Take – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
May: Need – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
June: “Next Sunshine” – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
July: Intentions – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
August: Planet Kyiv – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
September: Feeling like a Fool – Ulrike Bergmeister (Germany)
October: Stories of Outcast Souls – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
November: Ronaldinha – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
December: Aimlessly – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Left column (top to bottom): 1. St. Gilgen, Salzburg – On Lake Wolfgang – Betofoto (Shutterstock); 2. Oetz, Austria – From above – DirkVG (Shutterstock); 3. Sillian, Austria – In the village – Simone Crespiatico (Shutterstock)
Center column (top to bottom): 1. Brixen im Thale, Austria – Golden Hour – Stephan Seeber (Unsplash); 2. Stollhof Hohe, Austria – Into the Alps – Olha Siomik (Shutterstock)
Right column (top to bottom): 1. Cachau valley, Austria – On the Danube – Kochneva Tetyana (Shutterstock); 2. Hallstatt, Austria – The mountain village – Pink Stockers (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed