DEAR READER
Ivan Kmínek

I will try to amuse you,dear Reader.I am in truth a good entertainer,as you’ll see.
       Well then,I get married to my wife Veronika and I start work at a factory for razor blades of the brand-name Semper.The work oon swallows up all my being.Veronika also goes to work.She’a secretary.We don’t have time for ourselves or for our children.“Daddy,Mummy,”the children call, “let’go down to the lake!”How sorry I feel for those lovable little tots! “Can’t today,”I ay,and ruffle their unkempt heads.“I still have to finish writing up the quarterly balance sheets for the twin-bladed safety razors”Unexpectedly,I start to reveal the machinations of deputy Schwarz.He takes stainless steel heets out of the factory in a company car and uses them to cover the roof of his weekend cottage.Will I build up the courage to report it all?“Don’t you dare breathe a word,”Veronika tells me,“you have a family to support.”Only,as soon becomes apparent,she also has another reason for wanting me to be silent:for some time now she has been Schwarz’s mistress.She attaches herself to the children.“Pavlik, Marketka,let’go down to the lake!”
       It seems the story hasn’t caught your interest,dear Reader.I’m sorry about that.Your ilence is of course eloquent and justified theft and infidelity,who’s still interested in that sort of thing nowadays,eh?
       All the same,when you now hear how I will growl with existential nausea,you will certainly be shaken.I will damn the whole of this life of mine,made up of Semper razor blades and the one romantic interlude,on Thursday at eleven and I will set out to seek that ill-definable cleanliness for which you yourself indubitably pine as much as I…
       OK,dear Reader.Evidently you’re not pining for any ill-definable cleanliness.No matter.Our upple literary system will no doubt satisfy you in some other way.
       Look,deputy Schwarz has been murdered!It happened yesterday night, between twenty-two hundred hours and midnight.The crime is being investigated by Captain Stanke.That morning,he had already started packing for a well-deserved holiday,fishing rods in his shoulder bag and a box full of earthworms,when…Oh,hell!Headquarters is calling him! Well,a duty is a duty.I myself am,unfortunately,the chief suspect.At the time of the murder,my car was seen not far from Schwarz’s address,my fingerprints were found on his commode,and the stub of a mentholated cigarette of my favourtie brand was lying in the waste paper basket.The motive is clear:insane jealousy.Even my wife hots things up the disintegration of my personality has apparently reached pathological pro- portions in recent times.Only I myself and the All-Knowing can be sure that I am innocent.I sit in custody and most of all I want to see my children.“Pavlik,Marketka are we ever likely to go down to the lake again together?”The neverending interrogations break me like a reed.I am on the bottom.And just at that moment,Captain Stanke stumbles across a new scent.The evidence brought against me,those almost too conspicu- ous traces,has never in actual fact convinced him could a murderer, however shaky inside,really make such elementary errors?Our mutual distrust thaws and step by step is transformed almost into a ort of conspiratorial closeness.To him alone I admit things on the level:I really was at the scene of the crime that evening.I beg him,on my knees,“leave me Veronika,Schwarz,if only for the sake of the children;look,I’m crying,I’m screaming;I’m willing to pay,I’m willing to have my face trampled underfoot,just leave her alone…”That was how it was that evening…In the superbly trained mind of Captain Stanke,piece by piece, a meaningful mosaic is falling into place:Schwartz,the member of a quartet of big-time black marketeers,decided to talk.How absurd:his love for my wife led him to resolve that he hould abandon the crooked path! It is not possible,however,to leave a train with impunity once it is in full motion,Schwarz!The other ne’er-do-wells came to the conclusion that it would be best to silence the oversensitive deputy forever.And could they have found a more suitable time than that evening when I decided to visit him?They were already well acquainted with the details of our marital triangle…
      Dear Reader,are you still bored?I’m orry,really.What would you actually like?What sort of story would divert you after a whole day at work?Instruct me!I am,it is true,only a Mark Three,yes,and for a really first-class interactive literary hero you would have to pay a lot more,but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of doing requests.
      If you like,I could now bring you a scene sucked all the way out from somewhere in the marrow of the Earth.I aid that nicely,didn’t I?I’m already on my seventh beer,so as to forget about Veronika and Schwarz, and I can ee people in front of me.Railwayman Standa has bet a et of Mongolian stamps depicting valuable products of nature,and is lifting an oak chair with his manhood.And the student Lenka,seeing that beauty,is winding heatedly towards the student Milan.And the poet Vit Malinovsky catches himself by his asthenic nose and trumpets:“Hiss!Crackle!…Pay attention to this announcement of the health police.Due to the fact that life is highly dangerous to health,we prescribe its immediate disinfection with Fernet solution!And for everyone,mister maitre d’,because I had a poem published today,you understand?”“You won’t be sorry,sir,” ..........

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