The End of the World (translation of 'Der Weltuntergang' by Franz Hohler)

(translation from German, Veronika Bond)

The end of the world,
ladies and gentlemen,
given what we know today,
will go something like this:

In the beginning, on a fairly small island in the South Pacific,
a beetle will vanish,
an unpleasant one, and
everyone will say,
That beetle’s gone, at last, thank God
the horrible itch it used to cause,
and it was always full of grot.

A little later, the inhabitants of this island will notice
that early in the morning
when the birds are singing
one voice is missing,
a high and rather shrill one
like the chirping of a cricket
the voice belongs, so much is clear,
to an insect-eating warbler,
and the grotty little beetle was its staple.

A little later, the fishermen of this island will note that in their nets
one kind is missing,
a small, but very tender fish which –
Here I must interrupt and mention
That the bird with the fairly shrill voice
Had, or will have had the habit,
to fly across the sea in a big wide loop,
during this flight it would drop its poop,
and to the small but very tender kind of fish
the poop of the bird
was its daily bread.

A little later, the inhabitants of the continent
not far from the fairly small island in the Pacific will notice that everywhere,
in the trees, on the grass, on the handles of their doors,
on the food, in the clothes, on the skin and in the hair, tiny black bugs start to appear,
no-one has ever seen them before.
And they cannot understand
for they will not be aware
That a bigger fish in turn, and not a tender one at all,
which used to feed on the small and very tender one,
has begun to hunt another kind,
a yellow stickleback of equal size
which used to snap up those black bugs.

A little later the inhabitants of Europe,
— that’s us —
will notice the rise in the price of eggs.
In fact, they will soar.
And chicken farmers will say
that the corn
of which the chickenfeed is made
and which comes from the continent near the fairly small island in the Pacific
all of a sudden can’t be bought,
for there was a plague of insects
and though the plague could be defeated with success
alas, the corn was poisoned in the process.

A little later
Now things speed up
no chicken is left for the plate at all.
In exchange for corn in the chickenfeed
the fishmeal was doubled
But every fish contains today
a certain mercury amount
low enough, till then, not to wipe anyone out
but now, worldwide, the chicken bite the dust.

A little later
The inhabitants of that fairly small island in the southern Pacific will
get a fright and they will run into their houses because they had never seen what happened then.
The tide that day —
and here one must mention that
the sky was blue and there was no wind
the waves were small and the weather nice
and despite all this —
The tide covered the island’s shores,
And of course nobody knew that on the same day
People all over the world ran into their houses
And called the rising of the sea by name.

A little later
The inhabitants of that fairly small island in the southern Pacific
will climb onto the roofs of their housed and from there into their fishing boats
To sail towards the continent where the thing with the corn happened earlier.
But the sea has already risen several meters, and the cities on the coast and their harbours lie already deep under water
Because here is the thing,
All of the fowl, thats six trillion pieces
Had to be burned, poisoned as it was,
And the coal dust,
with all the strain from the warmth and all the burning,
Pushed the atmosphere over the edge.
It let the sunshine in as before
BUT IT LET IT OUT NO MORE
And so the air became so hot
That the ice on the poles began to melt
The cold succumbed
And sea levels swelled.

A little later the people
Who have fled meanwhile into the mountains
Will spot behind the summits
Far away on the horizon
A strange pale light,
And they don’t know what to make of it,
For there is a distant grumbling
And some of the elders may assume
That the fight of the Great ones now begins
over the last pieces of space for their people
And one asks in a bitter tone
How on earth could it come to this?
Well, ladies and gentlemen
The sea level rose because the air got warmer
The air got warmer because the chicken burnt
And the chicken were burned because they had mercury
Mercury got into them because of the fish meal
And fishmeal was fed to chicken because there was no corn
Corn grew no more because poison was used
Poison was used against the insects
The insects came because a fish no longer ate them
The fish didn’t eat them because it was eaten, because another fish perished,
Because a bird no longer flew, and the bird didn’t fly because a beetle disappeared, that
filthy beetle who started it all.

The question remains
Ask it without further ado
Why did that beetle vanish?
That, ladies and gentlemen,
remains to be explained.
I almost believe it ate the wrong food.
Instead of eating grass, it ate grasses with oil.
Instead of leaves, it ate leaves covered in soot
Instead of drinking water it drank water with sulphur,
and that’s how over time it destroyed itself

There is another question,
And I’m getting ready,
When will that be?
Here the scientists usually scratch their hair, they say
In ten years, or in twenty
Maybe in fifty or in a hundred…

I thought about it and my verdict is quite contrary
In my view,
The end of the world, ladies and gentlemen
has
Already
begun