Batzenhofen, I-VIII
Adam Siegel

I

I thought that they might refer to me as "Mister High Energy," but I was mistaken. They never did this; they were taking me underground. I was living in thinner air than that.
I had it all at my feet, at least in springtime.
In the winter I had spent so much of my time indoors, and there was nothing much for me to see. I could have called them the invisible people, but it would have been wrong, and it would have had little or nothing to do with the creations, with my creations.
I resisted, the way all of us resisted. I let them go.
I should have approached from the south; I should have made the approach toward those mountains from the south. I called it "the range"; I should have called it "the mistake."

II

The floors were waxed; the floors were buffed. They gleamed. Everything was empty.
I knew that I would be alive for them in ways that they never could have managed for me.
They said, "We're unusual; we're free."

III

I was in the first or second building; I was eating what they cut from the huge wheel. I had a larger purpose in mind; I was building a new cartoon, almost without meaning to do so -- this was not my intention.
They gave me only accidents, and I saw them for the first time in the best kind of light. It was kind light: it flattered me, and it smoothed out those imperfections. I saw them, always, as being both complementary and sequential. I looked only for the hole in the ground.
I was in the first building. I was in the second building. I was in the second building, at first.

IV

I was torn; I was of two minds. "Format and ideology," I called them. We were living in the dark, almost; we did not see what they had to say to us. I waited in some sort of dim silence until I knew that it was safe to go.

V

I wanted to return to Holger's house in the village, because it was known ("far and wide," he mourned) as a place where people could be left alone. I said, "Please leave me alone."
I did not want to see them hopping all over the fields like rabbits; I took their side, and I told them how I wanted to make them happy. I gave them the taste of what was good, and of what was good that was going to come.
All of that happiness gave me an erection, I supposed.

VI

Now I was buried in the underworld; now I was tempted to find out where everyone else was going to go. I had no time for any of these -- I called them friends, but they were out of the country. They floated through this grim, accepting world, constantly aware that I had given them the power of weightlessness. This was something that I had awarded them; it was not something that was immanent within them. I loved that word, "immanence." It took me years to remember what it actually meant.

VII

I was underground, now; I was listing to one side.
I knew only what they would not tell me; I did only what they would not give me. I wanted to arch my back for them and proclaim that I was an animal.
I said, "Is there a counselor here?" I said, "Is there someone here who might tell me how to proceed?"
This was a special time in my life.
I told them, "There is a time for fierceness; you have to find it."

VIII

Who would give me back the money that I had been told to spend? Who would be able to accomplish the same things that I had? I did not see where they were going with this -- I did not know what I should call "this." I had certain concerns, and they were feral, they smelled of biology, and I could not fight them, although I longed to do so. I could have been a sea turtle, for all of that; I knew that I had a certain responsibility. I knew that there were many things that I got to do. They cradled me, and they embraced me, their breath sweet and their eyes mild, and they began to move against me, even though this was not what I wanted them to do. I said, "Dismiss it, dismiss it, dismiss it."

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