"Hello"
- "Hello"
speech, mental health
"hello"
i say to my reflection.at the level of spittelau i see it. my reflection.recognize it, but not myself in it.
these are days on which i believe i've forgotten how to walk.
on the way back from heiligenstadt i put one foot in front of the other, but it feels so ridiculous that i stop every few meters to watch other people taking their steps.
measured in time i lie as an undetermined number of points on a ruler which is neither rect- nor triangular, the ruler, a compass, and thus without any apparent use. i cannot observe them and myself simultaneously. i would've to record myself taking my steps. then i could place the recordings on top of each other and compare them.
"hello," i say again.
no one answers.
i tell myself, hey, these are personal words, you could certainly answer. this is personal, this is a person that stands in front of me. i don't say that but i think it every time another person jostles me in the subway, hey, this is a person that you are jostling. they want to simply be, this person, you don't have to understand them. this person could also be personnel, but sometimes they don't want to be personnelled anymore, then the personalization wants to have passed. then also the personnel data are no longer, then this person has become an alien, an alias. when i let my gaze wander through the subway car—the conversation with myself isn't working anyways—i see only aliens. that's already been the case before the aliens began to wear small displays in their faces instead of books or expressions. [End Page 167] but it strengthens the impression. until i had come of age i had never sat on a seat for four persons to avoid possible eye contact with others.
"please draw a number."
i press the keys.
"please become a number."
147.
"are you just reporting a change of your residency or a registration"
i am reporting myself.
"we'd also need your name"
i say my name.
"and you didn't tick this."
i say: i don't know.
"just tick one of the two."
i am overwhelmed.
09.07.99: m's major impairment is the spoken enunciation—with this it is often difficult to understand his statementsso that one has to ask him repeatedly which can bring himto the edge of despair since he keeps tryingto express himself understandably.he holds the pen tensely and thus can hardly makesmooth movements and also changes his handinessfrom right to left although he is right-handed.m's major weaknesses are his speaking abilities.
"oh well, we never had that case." [End Page 168]
i don't want to continue.
"please draw a new number."
i want to leave.
"please become a new number."
i hesitate.
"report yourself."
—
"report yourself."
—
"do you hear me."
yes.
"you hear me."
i can't and hang up.
the vocabulary is not sufficient. i ask myself if others listen when i talk. ask myself how they read me, if it is simple language, if they are out of words, if they don't want to lose their words. i have come across a word and i notice that i feel like words, i long for it but have not yet found my word.
but i have now picked up a name, listened to one to which i want to listen to, it's just that no one knows it and because only i know it i do not hear it.
so i sit in waiting rooms for hours until my name is called. sit in offices for days until my name is called, so i get up—hungry—and visit fast food places for minutes until my name is called, almost correctly, [End Page 169] and collect my food at the counter. i wipe my being and slide across the mat at the entrance which is now an exit, and sit in the municipal park.
it feels...
