SHOCKWAVE, THE FIRST

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, but no matter how I turn it, no matter how close or far away I am, the bitter truth remains the same: I need a new telly. The box has to be at least 55 inches. Maybe even more, perhaps 60 inches, who knows. A diagonal similar to my eyes when they spot the hot deal in the brand new leaflet of the local electronics store during my morning newspaper browse. Dolby Vision IQ & Atmos, Airplay 2, native 144 Hertz, 4k of course, and at least 3000 nits on approx. 140 cm, and all that for a legendary £599. That is phe-no-me-nal. Unbelievable. A deal of the decade, and I witnessed the heyday of the first Aldi PCs. From experience back then, however, I am well aware of how fast one must be with such special bargains. Being fast is no longer enough; you have to be faster than the rest. The fastest of all! The first!

Like an obedient soldier, I jump out of bed the next morning and stare soberly into the bleakly empty fridge. It is not going to work out with a balanced breakfast, the notoriously most important meal of the day, and today would be one of those special days on which I most urgently required the most significant fortification for my later mission. In the furthest corner, I discover pickled eggs that my gran gave me some time ago. How long had she probably had them? I ponder while holding the jar up against the sunlight, turning it left and right and swishing it a little so that the eggs inside sway back and forth like little buoys in a stormy sea. Eggs are nutritious, plenty of protein. In that sense, exactly what I should be eating now. I tuck one egg away for the journey, shovel four of the things straight in, add a slice of toast with a bit of butter, branded butter even, wash down the half chewed warrior food with a proper swig of coffee and run straight out of the flat to the nearest bus stop.

It must have rained during the night, for it is a misty morning and small puddles are gathering at the edge of the path. Rain is always a bad omen for such activities, but thank God it does not affect me directly, only the bus driver, for whom it will surely pose no great challenge with his years of bus driving experience. It is not raining for the first time! In the distance, however, I have to watch in disbelief as the bus driver drifts around the corner like Schumi in his high performance carriage. A certain panic spreads within me, after all, the next bus is not due for another 20 minutes and that would be well after the shop opens. “I will never catch that,” I think to myself as I start sprinting. And I certainly would never have caught it, had the bus not had to stop at the red light, the red phase of which feels much longer than usual. Perhaps it is just my imagination. At least the traffic light knows that I have great things planned for today.

I would have expected the mid fifties bus driver, who wears his cap backwards like a cheeky lad, to be much grimmer when I board the bus, but then I remember that he did not wait for me at all, but rather the traffic lights thwarted his plans. This certainty calms me down; the sweat, caused either by the panic or the running, cools off and I steam slightly like a cooling engine. Through the misted windows, I see the blurred red brake lights of the many cars flowing like blood through the veins of the city. Green, yellow and orange colours also break their way through the double glazing of the pane and mesmerise me with their kaleidoscopic effect. I zoom out. My God, we are standing still! Gridlock! We have not moved an inch for what feels like ages! Because of these stupid lights with their mysterious play of colours, I am going to be late. “Excuse me, could I perhaps get off here?” I ask the bus driver cautiously. His gaze remains fixed on the traffic jam, as if a completely free motorway could open up like a wormhole in front of the bus at any moment. “Nope,” he answers drily. “But I have an important appointment!” – “Oh, is your mother dying, then?” – “Uhh, no?” I reply questioningly. “Then: Nope,” and his gaze remains on the road. “Okay, so it is not my mother who is dying, but my father! Exactly, Dad! He is dying,” I try to convince him, but he just blows up his bubblegum and lets the bubble burst, so that the remains spread over his moustache and he catches them enjoyably with his tongue and continues to chew on them like a camel.

In the driver’s cab, the time of 07:47 warns me that I have to get out of this bus very quickly now, and I look around my prison and imagine with what insane devilish action I could break out of here. I spot the emergency hammer and imagine tearing it off, but the alarm goes off and just as I am about to smash the nearest window pane, the bus driver grabs my arm and we fight for the emergency hammer. I push him away and hit him across the temple with the thing with a powerful blow, and the bus driver tips to the side with his noggin split open and blood spraying, and a woman screams at the top of her lungs and I hiss at her, covered in blood like a vampire, and flee from the bus as quickly as possible. That is how it would play out; the emergency hammer is therefore not an option.

Then I look at the many buttons the bus driver has in front of him and study them a little. Once I am sure which is the button for the front door, I wait a moment for a suitable opportunity and then hammer on it energetically so that the door pops open, but the bus driver immediately presses the button again to close the door, but by then I am practically out. “Stay there! Stay there, damn you!” he shouts after me, while one arm holds him trapped in the closed door and makes him appear like a zombie who desperately wants to taste my flesh. So I start running and this time I am sure that the sweat comes from the panic and the racing, as surely double the amount of perspiration is currently running down my body. The sap of exhaustion even flows into my eyes and it is hard for me to keep the burning peepers open, which, however, does not seem so bad considering the fact that I have memorised the way and it is actually not a difficult path, as it is the only electronics store in our small town. So I wander through the streets with half closed eyes, bumping into a poster here and there, brushing against a few bushes, but basically only the red lights hold me up, at least sometimes. In the distance, I venture to recognise the shop, now nothing can stop me anymore. Only one last traffic light interrupting the traffic of the large, multi lane road. To my amazement, I find that the doors of the electronics store are already wide open. How many minutes late am I? God, the televisions must all be snapped up already! At that price! And now I am quite sure that the current outbreak of sweat can certainly be attributed to the panic again. The despair. The fear that I will have to go home without a television and be satisfied with the measly picture of my current heap of junk and then have to wait for perhaps weeks, perhaps months, yes, perhaps even years, to get such a deal, this price-performance hammer, again. And those years will be plagued by eternal despair and what-if thoughts. Why did I not just walk? Too lazy again, old man! And while these thoughts shoot through my brain, I try to squeeze my eyes together again so that the picture becomes sharper and I can recognise everything in HD from my sofa distance after all, but it just will not happen and tears shoot into my eyes and blur the picture even more, until at some point I take the remote control in a fit of rage and hurl it into the bloody screen and the telly is finally broken and I am forced to buy a new television, the price-performance feeling of which, however, does not satisfy me nearly as much as the current offer, and every time I watch TV, I am reminded of how everything could have been different. No, I cannot let that happen. I will do anything for this television. Just wait for the last red phase, as the two roads are truly not to be crossed with this much traffic.

A squeak beside me wakes me from my trance and I lose the fixed gaze that was so ironcladly directed at the shop doors. An old lady is standing next to me with her shiny black mobility scooter and has the shop doors on the other side of the road just as firmly in her sights. I look down at her and freeze: in her coat pocket, the current leaflet is clearly recognisable, open on page three, the page on which the television is advertised. Mustering her scooter, my eyes tremble up to her. She looks at me briefly out of the corner of her eye and snorts quietly. I understand. Her or me. Gran wants it. Now I have had enough, now I have completely had enough. I am not letting some old fossil steal my thunder! Gran rummages in her basket and pulls out two racing gloves which she pulls on, the leather creaking. I am impressed, but signal by pointedly cracking my knuckles that I am just as ready. Then the pedestrian light turns green and the wheels of the scooter spin, creating scorch marks. A smell of burnt rubber wafts over the starting area, which rather motivates me, so that I am directly a little ahead of her. But Gran shifts up a gear, she gets faster and faster and the 1000 hp scooter just pulls her along behind it, so that she flutters behind it like clothes in the wind. I must do something quickly, otherwise I can forget about the television! Then I remember that I still have the pickled egg in my jacket pocket. I take it out and stuff it into me while running. I feel it permeate my body and unlock unprecedented powers. This old, pickled egg wanders towards my rear where it rumbles and cracks. This miracle thing ensures that all the pent up farts of the last years are catalysed, so that my buttocks bloat and an ultimate mega fart forcefully clears its way out. Flames burst from my backside and the afterburner accelerates me extremely, so that I whizz past the fluttering Gran. She just looks at me with wide eyes and an open mouth and can do nothing as I break the sound barrier next to her with my mighty arse afterburner. Steam shoots out of my ears and nose due to the immense energy being released there inside me. I realise with horror that I have opened Pandora’s box, for I have no idea how to brake now. This realisation sends me into a skid, I lose my grip and absolute control over myself and crash with a loud bang into a lamp post, not 20 metres from the electronics store.

The gran pulls past me laughing shrilly and I have to watch through tears as she drives her missile safely into the shop. Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it! She has won and I have lost. Once again. The thoughts of the missed deal whizz through my head again and I throw up. Was that it then? All that for absolutely nothing? Determined, I wipe my mouth and pick myself up. No, no, that cannot have been it. I stand up like a soldier whose last battle has not yet been fought and walk resolutely towards the shop, getting faster and faster, push the doors open energetically like in a saloon and see the old gran already nattering with the dealer. “STOP!” I scream through the shop, “SHE IS NOT GETTING IT!“. The dealer looks at me bewildered and I march over to the two of them like a man possessed. “SHE MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAVE IT!” I add with wide eyes. “Umm, could you also explain to me why this old lady should not get her electric foot spa?” the dealer counters. “F-foot spa?” I ask, trembling. “Yes, foot spa.” I look at the gran, who now looks much smaller, dearer and more tender than just now at the traffic lights. “I have got corns,” she says in a croaky voice. “And the television? What about the television now? Is it gone?” I ask the two of them. The dealer looks at me irritated: “Which television do you mean? We have a fair few here,” he says laughing, while presenting the numerous televisions in the shop with a wave of his arm. “Well, the one from the new leaflet, the super deal!” I quickly shot back. “Ah, right, they are all still there and are standing over there,” and points to a corner where there are definitely ten boxes of them. “All… there?” I ask, trembling, as if I could not believe it. “Yes, all there, we have only been open for four minutes after all,” the dealer repeats.

I turn away and walk slowly towards the holy televisions, whose glisteningly bright aura makes me forget everything else. My whole body trembles and tears of joy shoot into my eyes. I have made it. First, as always.