A Story.
In “Alfred Hrdlicka und der Fall Flora. Reportage einer mörderischen Hörigkeit”
(Alfred Hrdlicka and the Flora Case. A Report on a Deadly Dependency)

Molden Verlag 2000

I came across a real-life story. I’ve known the people who lived through this story for years, who survived or didn’t survive, as the case may be. I heard some things after Flora’s death, and I saw some things while she was still alive. I put my own picture together. It is fragmentary. I did not content myself with that. I told the story of Flora’s death, not the actual events, which I was not familiar with, about which I knew only the few things that Alfred told me, who himself did not have much to say, because he, as he said, knew nothing or next to nothing. How and why Flora took her own life.

(Introduction to “Fred’s Doll”)

You leave and leave behind a wound. It will heal. As if nothing had happened, if just a little more time has passed. For life is one thing and death is another. Whoever loves life cannot bear the countenance of death for long. You have passed away. A gravestone. The memory of you grows weaker with every day. The tears of rage have dried up. The tears of longing do not last.

Translation Geoffrey C. Howes