TE23 Double Feature

Anke Laufer

“The Island”

and you head towards it, avoiding the potholes. You slow down but still almost miss the entrance – an abrupt break in the guard rail, with a gap in the vegetation behind it. As you drive in, the regrowing weeds scrape along the underside of your car. There is a pulsing beneath your temples as you climb out. You take a flat sip of mineral water from the plastic bottle and stride off. Rucksack. Compass. Walking boots. A knife would be good. A knife? Yes, a narrow blade glints on the edge of your hypothetical word The concrete pillars grow fearlessly into the burning sky, while the sallow grey structure above casts its shadow down as if shrugging off a geometric burden. Down here, the polyphonic roar of the carriageways sounds like the sea surging against a dizzyingly high cliff. The island ducks away below it, lurks amid a 196 list. 16:23

shrill cacophony of insects, and as you walk you try to keep your eye on its overgrown back, which seems to arch and swell the closer you get to it. Down here (where suddenly everything feels, smells and tastes different – rain-damp, swollen, hairy, putrid) you walk along the edge of the road at the speed of a beetle, towards the south-eastern bridge pillar, the place where you suspect there may be a path up onto the island. Hover flies buzz around the silver-fuzzed thistles; small, orangey-brown moths romp about; needle-fine dragonflies flash. You’re sweating; you listen to the rhythm of your crunching footsteps and see the scenery pass by in slow motion. A kilometre further on you feel thirsty, take a swallow from the bottle and wonder if the water will last. Then, after three quarters of an hour, on a sharp left-hand bend, precisely where you think the entrance to the island lies, your eye falls on the weathered wooden cross leaning against the guard rail. Fixed to its centre with a rusty drawing pin: a yellowing photo. The face has faded, the smile has become 197