Wer hat mir solche Worte in den Mund gelegt? Wie kann ich, ein Verächter und Feind alles Digitalen, zu solchen Äußerungen fähig sein? Sie sah mich an und der Funken unserer inneren Verbindung war wieder da. Sofort. „Wieso bin ich nicht selbst draufgekommen?“ meinte sie. „Dein Text ist übrigens fantastisch. Wir machen das so wies dasteht.“
“AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING,” said Rebecca. “Then I realized: He means it.”
She probably expected me to react with outrage, to jump on the bandwagon of complaining about some insolent service provider that once again wasn't working as it should in this country, but I didn't feel like it. Her story about the crashed laptop and the non-renewed contract with some company, probably about creating a new website for her great new action series, didn't get through to me. I was still hung up on the way she had looked at me from the beginning. The long detour she took before coming to my submission, my suggestion for a possibility, already prepared me for what was to follow. But it wasn't the expected “no” that was about to come—not formulated as a no, of course, but as an amalgam of excuses, unavailable financial resources, blah blah blah—but her gaze. Until then, Rebecca had radiated confidence, an aura of approval of me, me personally. I was always aware of all my weaknesses, but with Rebecca and her alone, I always felt a sense of certainty that she was grateful for what I had to offer. That she needed it, that very special scent, that taste that makes up my personality. The spark of independence, brittleness, irony that, I thought, was connected to my being and on which my existence at this station depended. It didn't matter whether you delivered good or bad goods. You had to give decision-makers the feeling that you were adding this unique spice to their program. When she looked at me today and her gaze fell back on the paper in her hand, I sensed that it was over. She no longer recognized me in it, and how could she? I no longer recognized myself in what I wrote. So now it had obviously come to the surface, you could see it, you could feel it: my time was up, the specific Erhard Demelius touch had evaporated, the flavor had dissipated into thin air. Why was I still sitting here? My career to date, which had always seemed like flying on a cloud that didn't actually carry me, was doomed to crash. Bottomless. “Maybe you should just ask Chat GPT,” I heard myself say to my astonishment, “they might explain how to bring the two paths together.” Who put those words in my mouth? How could I, a despiser and enemy of all things digital, be capable of such statements? She looked at me and the spark of our inner connection was back. Immediately. “Why didn't I think of that myself?” she said. “By the way, your text is fantastic. We'll do it as it is.”
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