Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843 in his everyday life, because this was his official administrative code, was already dreaming of the unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5.00 o'clock in the morning – soon the dream would be terminated by the alarm – Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful valley could smell so repulsive.
When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real. The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast and walk to the production complex 42-B.
„Damn!”, hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply produced bed.
„Hmmmhaaa!”, yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left-overs from yesterday`s supper.
The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee.
„Nnnhhaa!”, uttered the young man, a statement, that could be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could have referred to his life situation in general. At 5.27 o'clock, Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that had been torturing Frank`s nose for days, was somewhere here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left his garbage in the corridor.
„I don`t know...”, he muttered.
Each morning it was the same old story: „Rising, eating, walking, slogging away...“, as Kohlhaas always said.
In the past years, he had learned to hate his life. He was 25 years old now, living in a more than shabby flat on the outskirts of the former FRG capital, Berlin, working for modest wages as a temporary help in a steel plant. In former times, he had wanted to study, but this issue was over - for reasons that Frank never mentioned.
Actually, he was not dumb, but, according to his own words, he couldn`t hack it yet. However, the job at the steel plant was better than nothing, because it gave him the chance to earn some money and to survive – an advantage that was not enjoyed by millions of Germans in the year 2027.
As he now groped along again on this particular morning, step by step towards the plant, he passed demolished houses in the twilight and crowds of homeless people lying in masses in the dark corners of the streets.
„What would be, if I simply didn`t care about the consequences and went home again, got back into my bed and just slept until tomorrow?”, he thought sometimes.
„What would it be like if I just packed my bags and disappeared from this rotten city, this scruffy country?”, he asked himself occasionally.
But where was it any different? He should enjoy, what he had – he`d got a job and didn`t go hungry. That was at least something, thought Frank.
After the worker had gone through a very long and dark underpass without giving a Globe coin to the drunken beggar there, the production complex came into Frank`s vision. It was 5.53 in the morning and the workers for the early shift stood there waiting, smoking, jawing.
When the factory gates finally opened at 6 o'clock, about 200 workers poured through them like a viscous mash. Most of them were not in any rush to begin their work, but it had to be, there was no other way.
“No alternative!”, as Frank always said.
After ten hours, they went back home again. All were dirty and tired, but happy that the work was over for the day. Frank crept through the corridor on his floor, which was still dim even by day, and unlocked the door of his apartment.
There were no new messages on the Scanchip and that was good, because it were usually only calculations: electricity, water and such things. Frank had placed the television in his bedroom the day before, so if he couldn`t fall asleep, he could turn it on. The program did not interest him, but with the sound of anyone talking, he didn`t feel so alone in this dark block of flats.
Kohlhaas just knew his neighbours from brief encounters. Many of them only left their apartments to go to work and some of them had become serious boozers in recent years. From time to time someone would bawl from his balcony or accosted people, passing “his block” – but after a while, everyone was sleeping.
Citizen 1-564398B-278843 watched television till 22.37 o`clock: the news („War of the global armed forces against dangerous terrorists in Iran“), talk shows, easy entertainment on all fronts, warnings of the second dog flu epidemic and the necessity for the immediate compulsory inoculation. Then he fell asleep, although meanwhile the foul smell from outside seemed to have lodged itself in his pillow….
Next day...
„Good morning, Frank!”, muttered Dirk Weber, one of the foremen. „Good morning, Dirk!”, answered Frank listlessly. It was 6.03 o'clock, the morning shift began. A-341, this was the designation of the young man as worker and temporary help in the steel plant, gave his helping hands for many operational steps till the clock indicated 10.30.
Now it was time for a short lunch, and when Frank unwraped his only bun which was covered with a piece of salami, he did not suspect, that an unpleasant stroke of fate would wait for him in the following minutes.
Since approximately half a year, the production complex` administration had arranged the singing of the “One-World-Song”, due to a new international regulation, before every lunch time in each production complex - for the increase of work moral and to strengthen the international doctrine of „peace, freedom, prosperity and equality“ that was propagated by the World Government since 2018. The official of the “Ministry for Production Supervision”, stationed in this enterprise, Mr. Gert Sasse, who was mostly in his office above the factory building, had conscientiously come down to the workers to sing the “One-World-Song” with them. It was always the same.
„Workers, now is lunch time! But we will sing first!”, he shouted through the hall and the steel workers formed to a bored line, in order to enjoy the short break after the singing:
“We are the children of One-World and we are all equal!
We love our One-World, the great realm of peace!
We don`t know any classes, we don`t know any races...”
Frank heard ever more rarely on the text in the last weeks, didn`t move his lips and stared at the ceiling of the dirty production hall. „Hurry up!”, he thought and boredly scraped with his left foot over the dusty ground. Then the singing was over.
„Gosh! This stupid song is really getting on my nerves!”, said the labourer very quietly to himself.
„All right, men! That could be done - halfway! Enjoy your meal!”, called the official of the “Ministry for Production Supervision” and A-341 looked forward to a hungry bite in his softened roll.
But while his teeth eagerly crushed the salty piece of salami, he was hit by an angry look of Mr. Sasse. The supervisor narrowed his eyes to slits and looked like an aggressive bulldog.
„A-341! Yes, you! Come to me! Hurry!”, he roared at the top of his lungs.
This got Frank`s adrenalin flowing. He didn`t need quarrel at work anymore.
„Come on, A-341!”, yelled Mr. Sasse, waving the worker nearer. Kohlhaas followed the order immediately.
„I am just a fool for you, isn`t it?”, hissed the man.
„Eh…no! Of course not, Sir…eh…Mr. Sasse!”, stammered Frank.
„I fail to see what you mean…”, he added stumbling.
„How I mean this, you idiot?”, screamed the official with a look which gave the young man the biggest possible uneasiness. A malicious silence prevailed for several oppressive seconds. Meanwhile, the eyes of the superior threateningly became smaller and bushy, black eyebrows were pushed over them.
>
A second later, Frank saw a fist with fatty fingers fly towards his face. It suddenly hurt and his nasal bone reacted with a cracking on the punch. While some blood threads flowed down from his nose, A-341 heard a growl: „How I mean that, you numbskull?”
„If I give the instruction that the „One-World-Song“ has to be sung, you have to sing it too. This was an order!”, completed Mr. Sasse his powerful argument.
His intonation varied now between satisfaction and rampantly growing meanness. In the meantime, Kohlhaas had gone to the ground. This punch had been really hard and Sasse gave him another kick in the ribs now.
„Do you understand, idiot? You probably think, that you have a special status here, isn`t it?”, he roared.
The other workers googled at him and hid their faces behind their rolls. Meanwhile, Kohlhaas felt like a kicked dog, humiliated in front of the rest of his colleagues - what was very close to reality. Without considering his action, he jumped up and positioned himself in front of the official of the “Ministry for Production Supervision”.
“You can be glad, that you are my superior, otherwise I would break you every bone!”, screamed Frank with boiling fury. Gert Sasse was baffled. A-341 obstinately wiped off the blood from his lip.
One hour later, the worker still waited in front of the door of the production complex leader. Sasse was in his office and Frank heard him swearing and ranting. This was no good sign.
„A-341, come in!”, resounded the voice of the highest boss of this work plant over the brightly illuminated corridor. The young man started moving and took a seat on the chair in the middle of the office room. A short silence followed, then it began.
„I took a look on your Scanchip, A-341!”, reported Mr. Reimers, the production complex leader. „In the ten years of your activity here, you had come too late three times. Apart from that, this is not the first time that you make a spectacle of yourself. You are already occured to me, because of subversive statements at work which can probably also be confirmed by your colleagues. We have even marked you with a blue code 67-Beta, if you didn`t know it yet, A-341!
We will examine the video tapes of your working days in this complex in the next days, with our new “Voice-Analysis-System”, and I`m sure that we will find some more subversive statements.
But what you have done today, is a real scandal! Threatening an official of the highest authority of production supervision. Is there just air in your head, boy? If I don`t take drastic measures in a case like this, my superiors will make me a lot of problems.
I must dismiss you, A-341! Further, I am correctly obligated, to react on such an unbelievable incident with a message to the responsible administration. Disappear now from this production complex, and never come back, A-341!“
Frank Kohlhaas, the just dismissed worker, was struck dumb with horror. His vocal chords seemed to be rusted, his throat was tied and his courage was put on ice somewhere. He went out, just went out, pale as death, with a roaring head, without answering. Frank had lost his job, his source for subsistence. And this was no fun in these joyless days.
Like in trance, the young man went into the changing room of the production complex and absently opened the baggy sheet door of his spint. „Dismissal“ - this word sounded like the cut of a razor in the ear of each listener in this time. It was related to the word „liquidation”, because it was the destruction of the social existence. Being dismissed meant to get no more Globes, as the international currency was called since the year 2018. If Frank would not find a new employment as soon as possible, he could lose his apartment, his food and finally also his life. Any social security, warranted by the state, had completely been abolished since the total collapse of world economy in winter 2012/13. And it was more than difficult, to find work in a time, in which the industrial production in old Central and Western Europe had mostly been outsourced to the Third World. Therefore, millions of Europeans tried to survive by doing extremly bad paid jobs in this dark present. They had nothing to lose, so they were glad about every breadline wage they could get. Those, who were not able to find a possibility to earn some money in any way, ended as beggars and homeless people, hanging around under bridges or in vacant house ruins.
On the next day, Frank was not awaked by the shrill sound of his alarm, after an sorrowful and restless night, but by the disgusting stench which came from the stairway. The smell had not been liquidated by anyone – against the spirit of the age.
Only in the early morning hours, he had been able to sleep for a while, because of his constant brooding and the unpleasant thoughts that had tortured him during the night.
As first thought of the new grey day, the face of Mr. Sasse appeared in his head and the face of citizen 1-564398B-278843 changed to a hateful grimace, when he mused about killing the official with an iron rod.
„This damn hybrid! If my life goes down the drain, because of that guy, then I will smash the skull of this bastard before I go to hell!”, hissed Frank, erupting in anger.
He finally crept out of his bed and stared down at the dirty street in front of his apartement block.
„Damn! What shall I do now?”, he thought. „I must find a new job, otherwise they will close the account on my Scanchip, because I can`t pay the fucking calculations any longer.“
After a further hour of useless musing, he left his dwelling, tried not to inhale too deeply on the corridor, and walked the dark stairs down to the ground floor.
The elevator was defective since months and nobody seemed to waste a thought about repairing it. The only one, Frank could imagine as a potential employer in this hardship, was Stefan Meise, the junkdealer, an old schoolmate.
Meise`s scrapyard was about half an hour foot march distant from Frank`s apartment block. He hit the road, walked down the ugly street, which was covered with garbage, and finally reached his goal – a place full of rusty cars and all kinds of metal debris.
Nevertheless, Stefan Meise was not difficult to find between the mountains of scrap iron. He was very tall, thick, bearded and looked hardly differed from what he collected and sold.
„Hello Stefan! How are you?”, welcomed him Frank quietly, trying to smile.
„Oh, Frank Kohlhaas! What`s up, man?”, answered the thick junkdealer. “You haven`t been here for ages!”
“I just thought, I could visit you. Does the scrap metal trade still run, Stefan?”, asked Frank. „You have here… eh… a lot of rusty stuff...Where do you find so much junk?”
„Ha! I collect, what I can find. As all junkdealers do. Why do you ask me this, Frank? Can I help you?”, returned Meise.
„I have lost my job yesterday”, told Frank, while the fat man looked at him quizzically. Then, Meise stroke with his oily, broad fingers over his dirty black overall.
„That`s a disaster, Frank! And now?”, asked Stefan and shook his head.
„Now, I`m looking for something new. Some kind of temporary job, you know? Perhaps, you still need another helping hand?”, murmured the young man.
For half a minute, Meise just googled at the unemployed man with his yellowish, bulging eyes. Then he looked around and tried to give his unpleasant answer as carefully as possible.
„Working for me?”, he inquired. „Thus, Frank, the situation is…eh...the times are bad. We all know this, my friend. I almost run everything alone here and only Ralf helps me from time to time. This is actually enough. I don`t need a second man, sorry!”
Frank Kohlhaas had never been a good actor and who saw him now, could feel his disappointment.
„And only for two months?”, he asked.
„I need none here, and I can`t afford a second man, Frank!”, explained the thick, filthy man and turned away. „I'm sorry, but I have to do some work now. No offense, but there is no chance for you to find work here.”
Back home, Frank hissed one of his worst curses and kicked against the kitchen table. He desperately scanned his brain for other possibilities of employment and checked all
production complexes around Berlin in his mind. But the problem was, that his boss had given him a negative entry in his Scanchip register after the conflict with Mr. Sasse, what made it difficult to get a job in another steel plant.
He still had 246 Globes on his electronic account for this month. More than 400 Globes he had to pay only for his apartment in this rotted estate of prefabricated houses. Time pressed now, with each day a little bit more, and the dark shadow of despair grew with the passing hours. It occupied Frank`s mind like a malicious ulcer.
After the young man had watched an extremely stupid sitcom, he switched off the television and tried to sleep. But it was only 23,00 o'clock and regrettably the exhaustion had not achieved the necessary level yet, to turn off Frank`s brain and give him some peace of mind.
Several hours followed, when Frank was staring at the dark ceiling, cursing the production complex 42-B with all its superiors, supervisors and workers.
Then the stench from the hall became noticeable to him again and the fog of despair in his head swelled so strongly that the young man thought about killing himself.
He mused about operating the bad thoughts and concerns under his skullcap with a heavy-calibered shotgun which would completely spread his brain over the yellowed wallpaper behind his bedstead. And Frank Kohlhaas still thought about many other things in this terrible night.
He brooded over his so far senseless life, the isolation, the monotonousness and the gaping abyss that waited for him now. Frank came to no solution in this night and not even the smallest glimmer of hope seemed to shine somewhere. Nothing. Outside it was dark. In front of the house, Frank could recognize a few ripped garbage bags, which already lay there since several weeks. Then he was finally so tired, that he fell asleep with his head on the window sill.
Up to the end of the week, the search for a new job was unsuccessful – as he had already expected it. It seemed that there was no more work at all, in the periphery of several kilometers. Furthermore, a inquiry at the local administration had proven that Frank had meanwhile a negative entry in his Scanchip register, because of „disturbance of peace at the workplace”.
„Perhaps, the idea with the shotgun is not too bad at all! But before that, I will visit this Sasse!”, grumbled Frank on Friday, when the short weekend for his former colleagues of the production complex 42-B began.
On Saturday and Sunday, he invested his last Globes in the cheap liquor from the kiosk at the corner. Alone in his small, modestly furnished apartment, in the dark block of flats, in a much darker time. His fate and his pain was not noticed by anyone else. Just like Frank Kohlhaas had never noticed the pain of the others who lifed their lives in their honeycombs, behind the shabby, gray walls of this plattenbau.
If he would drink himself to death or blew his head away, he would soon smell like the corridor on his floor, and it would probably not even been noticed by his neighbors. This thought was somehow so sick that it elecited Frank a tormented smile.
Hard alcohol had not the best reputation, but one thing was clear: It had already given millions of desperate people a good sleep. No concern could be so big, that it couldn`t be drowned in a wave of the good and, above all, cheap booze from the nearby kiosk. Frank checked this old truth in a “self-experiment”.
„Beep! Beep! Beep!”, it resounded on Monday at 6.30 o'clock in the morning from the kitchen, where the drunk man had forgotten his Scanchip. „Beep! Beep! Beep!“
An electronic woman`s voice always repeated...
„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!“
„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!“
„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a
message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!“
„Hmmm…”, hummed Frank, still a bit dazed from the night before.
„Damn! What?”, he muttered and rolled out of his bed which still smelled of alcohol.
„What the hell? Damn! Shut up!”, he grunted and walked with a bad headache to the kitchen table.
It lasted a little eternity until Frank had remembered the pin code and had found his way through the message-menu of the Scanchip.
“What...?”
“Citation? What?”, whispered citizen 1-564398B-278843. He had to read it twice, in order to believe it. Did somebody try to kid him?
„What the fuck is that?”, he could only say.
Official citation:
Citizen 1-564398B-278843,
You are officially cited to an automated trial on 14.08.2027 at 8.00 o'clock.
Accusations:
Massive disturbation at the workplace
Theoretical aggravated battery
Appear at the mentioned time in court cell 4/211, at your local juridical complex. In the case of nonappearance, you will be punished with the deletion of your Scanchip or arrest! (*§127b, „Citizen Obligations and theoretical Sanctions“)
Official document code: 257789000-0100567-2345441113-EGN-59900-4/211
Culprit number: 319444-556.77
Thank you for your cooperation!
Frank`s atomised brain began to hurt and to rotate. „Citation? What do you want from me?“
He was totally confused and couldn`t remember any crimes in his past life.
„Just because I`ve yelled at this damned Sasse?”, he thought. „This can`t be true! I finally did not touch him. I have just lost control for some seconds. I don`t understand this. And what the hell do they mean with „theoretical aggravated battery“?”
And there was no doubt. Frank Kohlhaas, the helping out citizen with the official code 1-564398B-278843, had never done something bad to another person. Except for the time in the kindergarten, back then, as he had given this stupid Kevin a little slap and his parents had been called to the authorithies. The local education officials had briefly become anxiously and had explanied that Frank would have some „subliminal aggressions“ and a „precarious masculine behavior”. Then they had suggested a therapy with tranquilizers.
But this was many years ago. Furthermore, the therapy could be avoided, after the child had repetend its “sins” in front of a committee of psychologists and social pedagogues, and his parents had insured, that they would immediately report Frank`s next “crimes”, if he would become noticeable again in this context.
But he never became noticeable again. He always stuck to the rules until this day; in the kindergarten, the elementary school and everywhere else. Since his fifth year of life, he had always been a good boy. No, he was not noticeable at all. And of course he was no human being with „subliminal aggressions“. Sometimes in his thoughts or dreams, he beat up a superior or an administrative coworker, but this was a secret and Frank had never talked about his thought crimes. He was just “normal”, as he meant.
Apart from this, it was also the first time that the otherwise perfectly inconspicuous plattenbau-inhabitant Frank Kohlhaas had come in contact with an „automated trial“. The citizen had already heard about this, once in the news, since it had been introduced by the World Government three years ago. But the young man could not imagine, what this strange process really was. But why should a decent person like Frank think about such things? He had never become culpable and had nothing to do with criminality.
Therefore, the accused had not the foggiest notion, what waited for him now and so he wasn`t too much concerned about this citation.
It was probably nothing but a pure formality, circumstances, which could be clarified. Frank had not hurt anybody and therefore he also could not be condemned. The young man had already lost his job, because of the so called “disturbation of peace at the workplace“. There was no reason to be worried, thought Kohlhaas.
Now the unemployed man absently hit the button „Voice Presentation“ so that the message was slowly read out by a computer-animated woman`s voice. This was also a novelty. The administrat
ion had introduced the “Voice Presentation” some years ago, because more and more citizens of Berlin were illiterate, above all, the younger generation. So an important official message had always to be available in read out form.
The rest of this day wasn`t very spectacular and the “automated trail” was already tomorrow. „Then I will have a reason to rise”, said Frank to himself and grinned cynically. Shortly afterwards, Kohlhaas tried to call his father to ask him for some money, but he didn`t reach anybody during the whole day. Nevertheless, there was some more liquor in the kitchen. Frank decided to get royally drunk once again, and fell asleep at midnight. He almost forgot to set his alarm-clock…
Automated Trial