If we could hold the world between our hands like a globe and observe, in one moment, all the things that happen right then, what would we see?
North America. In ten days, Stefan Seifer, retired proof-reader of a German daily newspaper, will be released from a central jail in Vancouver. The man had gone to Canada with his wife in pursuit of their mutual hobby: the experience of idioms. After he had made his wife a bed of roses many times, and carried her around everywhere on his palms (in accordance with a German expression that means to treat someone like a princess) he had attempted, at Rosewall Creek, to tie her to a little brown bear (a German expression that means to tell someone a fairytale). The ranger, who had seen him doing this, simply could not understand it.
South America. Jutta Baumkötter, specialist in international insurance law, and marathon runner from Hannover, enjoys the sensation of mild pain that the sweat-soaked T-shirt causes in her rib-cage during a jog at the Copacabana. Tonino «o pescoço» Andrade pokes his fork into the flesh of the three-kilo table boiled fillet of beef at the Churrascaria «Carretão». He holds the world record in Picanha eating – though nobody knows that, not even Tonino. As Jutta Baumkötter flies by «Carretão», she feels a sensation in her stomach as if a dog is sitting in there, wagging its tail. Two days later, shortly before midnight, at an altitude of 10'000 metres, in the business class of TAM flight 8078 to New York, Jutta gets this wagging-feeling for the second time. Sitting next to her is Tonino «o pescoço» Andrade, who is licking the mayonnaise from his eighth salmon sandwich off his fingers. Seven days later, Jutta Baumkötter and Tonino Andrade are standing together before the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to be wedded in holy matrimony.
Antarctica. While excavating a terrace for a new container, which is meant to be situated east of McMurdo Station, dredger-driver Clive Corleone comes across an undamaged can with «Nestle’s Kindermehl» («Nestle’s Children’s Milk-powder»). He has no doubt that it comes from the supplies that Robert Falcon Scott had carried with him to Antartica. The previous Christmas Clive Corleone’s stepmother had gifted him a Swiss knife with 40 functions that he has carried around with him ever since. So, it can only be God’s will that leads Clive to open the can at that very spot in that very place.
Europe. In the Vatican, resident-cardinal Giorgio Vinanser suddenly opens his eyes; a small pressure on his bladder has woken him up. He heaves himself out of bed and his feet grope for the cardinal’s slippers, which are lying around somewhere there – if the devil hasn’t stolen them. He cannot find them; the pressure builds up and Giogio hurries barefoot into the bathroom. Toilet lid lifts, gentleman sits, relief. As he shakes his hips slightly to shed the last few drops, Giorgio notices something white under his feet. It is a bath mat, dark green with a golden border. What ideas these interior decorators come up with! The feeling is nevertheless very pleasant, as if something alive lies under your soles, such a caress, soft, tender yet firm, almost damp but not wet. What a deep feeling, what a wonderful stimulus. In the morning he will get his interior decorator to bring him another bath mat: perhaps there are variants in that sensation. Until the end of Giorgio’s official tenure the Vatican will own the largest global collection of bath mats – but it will come to light only in 2024, when a dissertation about the peripheral sections of the Vatican collections is published.
Africa. Moïse Enie Tsenie, autodidactic physics genius and chief of the south Congo village Utubomo, explains to his son Isa the simple trick with which one could halt climate warming with immediate effect. The son looks at the formula that the father has inscribed with his finger in the sand, hugs his papa, runs into the forest, and unhesitatingly uses his stone catapult to shoot down the last fertile big-nosed bonobo on the planet.
Asia. In the Officers Mess of Project «667BDR» with the code name «Kalmar» and the pet-name «Kroliki», U-Boat captain Witali Wassiljewitsch Petrow sacrifices his greatest passion: the high art of serviette-folding. For his First Officer he creates a boar-head, for the Radio Officer a bishop’s cap; the ship doctor gets a pin-cushion, the woman-weapons master gets a fan-shaped slipper, and he himself a serviette folded like a cactus, which, as always, doesn’t quite succeed. He brings his works of art carefully into position on the plates, steps back a little, and allows his gaze to glide over his creations. Soon the «Kroliki» will need to enter a harbour in order to bring a load of serviettes on board. What Witali Wassiljewitsch Petrow has forgotten once more is that his team has not eaten on board for months and Project «667BDR» waits in the dry dock of Sewerodwinsker Swjosdotschka-Werft to be broken down.
Oceanica. After the farewell party of the 24th International Orthodontics Congress of Adelaide, Philippa Magomeni, research chief at 3M Unitek, and Manuel van der Graaf, jawbone surgeon from Utrecht, discover to their amusement that they are next-door neighbours on the tenth floor of Hotel «Stamford Grand». They have had an excellent conversation all evening. Philippa requests Manuel to undo the zip on the back of her evening dress. He slides the metal clip gently down the dress. Manuel asks himself whether he should tell Philippa that she has a beautiful back. As his hand lingers on the gentle hollow between her hips, however, he simply asks: «Good, so?» Philippa retreats into her room and writes an sms to her older brother – in two weeks she will marry her childhood sweetheart, with whom she has lived for eight years. Manuel collects a bottle of «Johnny Walker» from the mini-bar, opens the window and lies down in bed. Outside, the waters of the Indian Ocean lash against the shore. Manuel tells himself that, next door, Philippa is surely thinking of the fact that he can hear the very same waves that she can.
In a corner behind the section on Minerals in the Indian Museum in Kolkata, Peter Polter discovers an old globe. He searches for the island of Santa Lemusa and is preoccupied with the task that he fails to notice that the attendants have locked up the museum and long gone home.
First Publication: 23-6-2013
Modifications: