"The renunciation of ecstasy is a betrayal of our true possibilities." R.D. Laing

*

Persephone: Finally the original. I like this re-reading of my own text. You have spruced everything up so beautifully and gilded the wording. That makes text sex even more beautiful. It's like a combination of fine fabrics, an exclusive perfume and a constellation in which everyone is allowed the maximum, without the slightest reduction, without disruption. It takes so much for that. Intelligence, money, status, exciting bodies and language, my dear Language Master.

Persephone

Persephone - The parents undoubtedly had something incredibly ambitious in mind when they named her: the mythical Persephone was the result of divine incest. Demeter, her perhaps not so well-known mother, owes her birth to an erotic collision between the Titans Kronos and Rhea. Kronos was notorious for eating his offspring. He did not always succeed. Persephone was born from the sibling union of Demeter and Zeus. Consequently, Persephone stands for power on a divine scale.

Her domain is a combination of glamour and lifestyle. Persephone performs the abolition of the separation between work and life on a fine line between melancholy and lightness. She swims in the pool of the money-grubbers in a very special retreat on the Baltic Sea. A Baltic mafia consisting of former GDR state security agents and other ex-Eastern Bloc sharks shares the territory with all kinds of gangsters, including Latin American drug barons and other La vida loca-representatives.

For the gun-bearing foot soldiers, politics had always been the great lie. In politics, the hit men said, victories (in battle) were annulled.

They give away projectiles that have been deformed in their bodies. Since the 1960s, the offspring of illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been strengthening the criminal brotherhoods "Mara Salvatrucha" and "18th Street Gang" aka "Mara Dieciocho" aka "M18" in Los Angeles. In the transcontinental rollback, the rival "families" brought their barrio concepts to their communities of origin. They have such a detrimental effect on public order that in El Salvador mere gang membership is a criminal offense. A blood religion connects the adepts. Tribal symbols mark them - blood in blood out, only death can break the connection.

In 1990, a yearning for exoticism found new targets in the East. There was still the GDR with Lothar de Maizière as Kohl's governor. Western interest was already seen as a scourge. German citizens were ruining the prices in the East with their currency. They appeared like mercenaries in dance halls, where requests were combined with polite address and ego-compact solo efforts were unknown. Suddenly there he was, the Mallorca-experienced Manta Tiger with his two grand after all deductions. Used to being ready to answer questions when it came to: And what do you have on your hands? If there was no ashtray to hand, the cigarette butt was stomped on the carpet. Objections raised against this were unacceptable patronizing by those who had been patronized for far too long. You had to be over eighty to be able to remember a free and secret parliamentary election as a GDR citizen: before the CDU party on March 18th. Since the Reichstag election on November 6, 1932, the Ossi, who had been hardened in order to gain membership, only knew the party line.

Manta Tiger was not allowed to simply light the candles on the table. The lighter appeared at the appointed time and woe betide anyone who tried to get ahead of her. Special requests for side dishes were dismissed as inappropriate extras.

"We order the dishes as they appear on the menu."

That was the socialist table order, and it had to be taken with a sense of humor. Some usurpers lit cigarettes with East German marks. That was at the time when the Rolling Stones were giving surprise concerts. The group had disbanded in 1986. Their reunification was a world event that dwarfed the impending end of the division of Germany. Colombian cartels discovered the GDR as a safe haven. The police seized tons of illegal goods, and Pablo Escobar's motto plata o plomo - silver or lead (either you accept a bribe or you get shot) was among the top ten in the Leipzig slogan Olympics. Innocent narcotics moved into quarters on the Baltic Sea. Short, fat men appeared who waddled like penguins and had the demeanor of mayors. They had themselves and their families guarded by Israeli, South African and British mercenaries. They leisurely attempted to kill the Colombian Minister of Justice Mónica de Greiff. A bounty of two million dollars was offered on his head. The politician's lifespan was a subject of a bet. De Greiff held office temporarily in Washington, where her family lived as persecuted people for years. I came across the subject in a seaside resort, where I was infiltrating a Republican attempt to gain a foothold. The impending accession gave Silesian professionals a boost. According to the revisionist understanding of the law, a decision on Poland's western borders could only be made after reunification. The recognition of the Oder-Neisse border was therefore provisional, and Germany within the borders of 1937 was possible. The Republican Manta Tiger came from a Franconian Spessart village and had inherited from his parents a fate as a refugee that was exhausted in feelings. In a Kursaal he recommended sacro egoismo - holy egoism for Germany. A few days earlier, in a dispute with a leading figure in the East SPD, Wolfgang Schäuble had almost gritted his teeth and declared that the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border was a necessary accompaniment to unification. I had already heard him say Central Germany in reference to the GDR. Manta Tiger said Central Germany, of course. His audience was pleased. I was surprised at the number of young ex-pioneers there; there were no diehards sitting there.

*

The men Persephone goes out with are masters of disgusting self-dramatization; snobs who find fault with every drink selection. A wine list is basically just an excuse for an acidity exegesis. They belittle waitresses with Olympian zeal. Their meanness bears the trademark of deliberateness. In their presence, Persephone can't order an Aperol Spritz without being told that her decision makes her a person of the past. She laughs at the polished performance of those who always order the most expensive things so as not to leave any doubt about their status. Persephone fishes her lovers out of this pool with the necessary indifference. The cock or even finger replaces the vibrator. That's all in most cases. There are exceptions. Some qualify because they allow themselves to be led and controlled, others because their claim to power is not limited to mere assertions.