Amberville - By Tim Davys Page 0,12

not, soon formed a neat pile on the sidewalk, albeit considerably smaller than Snake had wished for and imagined. Before anyone was able to stop him he lit it, and when the flames were leaping high the neighbors called the police. Sirens were soon heard at a distance, and Snake—who hadn’t foreseen this—went into a panic. He fled from the scene, and ended up—after a cold night in a foul-smelling trash room—at Casino Monokowski.

The years he then spent along with Eric, Tom-Tom, and the others, Snake chose to conceal deep down in the archives of his memory when he took over the position as administrative assistant at the Environmental Ministry.

For Snake Marek had a Plan.

During his time at Casino Monokowski his artistic endeavors weren’t given up, but the surrounding world was no longer allowed to share in the development that Snake Marek underwent as a poet, prose writer, musician, and artist. The insight had smoldered the whole time in his subconscious. His talent was depicting Reality. Cut the symbolism, skip the subtexts, and weed severely in the poetry. He would become a Realist.

And the time at Casino Monokowski gave him, if nothing else, stories enough to tell for the rest of his life.

So with great and somewhat unexpected patience he set to work. Day after day, well-formulated and then corrected and edited manuscript pages were added to the others; notes were joined with care to notes; colors blended with a careful, sensitive brush, without anyone on the job knowing of it. It didn’t go quickly, it was an artist’s life as far from the romantic myths of impassioned creation as you could go. Nonetheless, Snake Marek found a deep satisfaction in his methodical mission. By day he lived like a normal office rat at the ministry, evenings and nights and dawns he returned to being an all-around artist in the small apartment he’d purchased on Knaackstrasse in northwest Lanceheim.

Even if Snake Marek began his career in the public sector in the Environmental Ministry, from the first he already had his sights set on the Ministry of Culture. And when the possibility of changing departments arose, he seized the opportunity. So many signs, he felt, indicated that the grandiose—not to say fantastic—Plan he had put together in orgasmic haze was completely plausible.

For three long years he was forced to carry out idiotic office tasks at Culture before the next move became possible. But only a few days after he had taken the position at the Office of Grants, the years of waiting proved to have been worth the trouble.

He became one of five processing assistants to the department’s then boss. Snake was responsible for poetry and related cultural manifestations, that is to say sung, improvised, and dramatic poetry, and no one questioned the proposals for nominations that he sifted out from the applications. As long as there were candidates to give grants to, everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

But in the energy that he showed, Snake was alone in the Office of Grants. The other administrative assistants were older culture workers who capped unsuccessful careers with jobs in the department, and in that respect Snake stood out as an obvious candidate when, a few years later, a successor to the boss’s position was discussed. No one put as much effort into preparatory work as he did, no one showed as much interest in the individuals behind the applications as he.

One fine spring day a little less than five years after Snake Marek had changed departments, he was named head of the Office of Grants in the Ministry of Culture, and the distinction was celebrated at a run-down tavern right next to the office in east Lanceheim. Snake was a happy, contented, newly named boss; it was striking with what ease he took on his new role. In his imagination he’d had it for a long time.

His first decision was to refrain from replacing himself with a new administrative assistant. When another one of the assistants took retirement six months later, this position as well remained unfilled. Snake himself took on these duties. In the ministry this unwillingness to recruit personnel was seen as positive. Reality beset the Ministry of Culture’s finances, and having a manager who was not too refined to do some of the heavy work was unusual.

Four years after Snake Marek had become head of the Office of Grants, only he and a secretary were still working in the department. During the same period the combined appropriations