Pravles Redneckoff 🇷🇺 Z

Friday, September 6th, 2019, 20:00

Tim's flat, Helmut-Qualtinger Hof, Daringergasse 12-20, 19th district of Vienna

Lisa sees Timur leaving the flat together with an unfamiliar woman. Zoe approaches the group.

"Excuse me," Lisa says. "I need to talk to someone in private."

"I am about to leave, and I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me," Zoe says. "We're having a little dinner, me and my new boyfriend."

"Gladly!" Lisa says.

Lisa and Zoe say goodbye to Tim, Franz, and Annalena, and leave the flat.

They wait for the cab.

"I am so happy you got me out of this nuthouse," Lisa says.

"No problem at all," Zoe says.

"Sometimes I think I'm in a mental asylum," Lisa says.

"What happened?" Zoe says.

"Four of my most important contacts at the university turned out to be…" Lisa says.

Zoe looks at her attentively.

"I'm trying to find that a word that is not obscene," Lisa says.

They both laugh.

"Irrational," Lisa says. "That's if I put it mildly."

"And if you don't?" Zoe says.

"It's like a mental asylum," Lisa says. "The patients there believe themselves to be geniuses and great leaders. When you start asking intelligent questions, they start trying to numb you with food, alcohol, and drugs."

"I know what you mean," Zoe says. "But a devil's advocate would say you confuse numbing with delight."

"I don't mind eating well," Lisa says. "But when someone you thought was a genius turns out to be an idi… a mental patient, like everybody else, well, that hurts. It makes you lonely in a place with two million people. Makes you question your life choices."

Lisa sees yellow and red leaves being blown by a breeze.

It's autumn, and the leaves are dying, she thinks. Next year, another autumn will come and go. You may be as lonely then as you are now. Except you will be one year closer to your own death.

You might believe in the eternal life of your soul. That's a consolation.

Except it's not. What if that eternal life is as lonely as this one?

"Everything alright?" Zoe says.

"Yeah," Lisa lies. "The usual autumn melancholy."

Why do you feel lonely? Lisa thinks. You have Timur. You can depend on him. Maybe. Why doesn't this give you a sense of peace?

I'm used to relying on myself, that's why, Lisa thinks. On my judgment, on my intellect. Today I learned I was wrong about Dr. Zemanek, Tim, Annalena, and Franz. That's four instances of where my judgment failed me.

If you misjudge one person, that's an accident, Lisa thinks. If you misjudge two, that's a coincidence. With three, it's already a tendency. You misjudged four.

And this didn't start yesterday, Lisa thinks. You've been under this illusion for, what? Four years, five years? Your poor judgment is becoming chronic.

Lisa looks at Zoe. Zoe looks back with a friendly, Austrian smile.

That's an interesting specimen. She certainly has an agenda, Lisa thinks. What was the business with her introducing Timur to that woman I don't know? Who says you aren't as wrong about Zoe as you were about those four other people?

If she aided and abetted that skank in stealing Timur, I'll beat her so badly that she will envy those blood cancer patients she treats at her hospital.

Don't you dare, you slimy, tanned, trust fund kid!

I'll shove that Eiswein bottle down your rectum until it comes out in your mouth.

I'll cut your body to pieces and make a broth out of it for the borscht soup.

I'll stick that tattooed hobo into a MRI and turn it on so that the magnets rip the piercings from her nose.

Then, I'll make minced meat out of her and make dumplings with it.

We'll have a meal together, just the two of us, me and Timur.

Lisa shivers for a moment from these images.

"Everything alright?" Zoe says.

"Yes," Lisa says. "I just got a little cold."

The cab arrives.

I almost forgot, Lisa thinks. I can also run over those bitches with a car. Break their filthy bones in a million pieces and mail the fragments to Ivano-Frankovsk, L'vov and Koncha-Zaspa, so no orthopedist in the world will be able to reintegrate them.

Lisa and Zoe get into the car.

This person sitting next to you may be a collaborationist of your frenemies, Lisa thinks. Why maybe? This kind of scum will screw you over one day. Don't know when, don't know, but it will happen. Maybe she was trying to take away from you the most important person in your life fifteen minutes before.

It's better to break her neck right now, prophylactically. It's the rational thing to do.

Speaking of rationality, I suddenly understand why the mouse in "Tom and Jerry" is so violent. The cat poses an existential threat to the mouse. If the mouse is not extremely and fanatically violent – and I mean IDF-grade torture and sadism – then the cat won't be afraid enough of it. The less afraid the cat is, the more likely it is that the mouse will be eaten.

The mouse's sadism serves as a deterrent.

Zoe and Dr. Zemanek and my lovely classmates are worse than the mouse. I pose no threat to them whatsoever. So why are they trying to make me irrational, that is, crazy?

Lisa shakes her head. Zoe says nothing. She senses it's a bad idea to mess with Lisa now.

What a world we live in, Lisa thinks.

Not "we", there is no "us." There hasn't been "us" since, at least, 2014.

It's you who is alone. It's you who live in a world dominated by people like Dr. Zemanek.

And it's you who chose to live like that.