Chapter 2 No.2

?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.