Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)

I. Für eine Kulturgeschichte der Eisenbahn / Towards a cultural history of railways - Peter Waugh: Allegory

ALLEGORY

Peter Waugh

I dreamt I saw a serpent, uncoiled, slide across the land and wind a devious way through wood and field, up hill, down dale, curving bend after bend, a voracious monster that devoured the ground mile for mile, ripped clear through bushes and trees,

circular teeth biting in fury into gravel pebbles and timber planks which it spat out as fast behind.

And in the clouds a ghostly coach-and-horses hung,

whipped by the driver’s silhouette only to disappear floating wanly in misty evening sky.

On tablets of stone the iron laws of the demon serpent were writ small in neat letters in dark columns and rows.

And the slaves who administer these laws of steel were crows with stiff sharp beaks and smooth feathers primly preened in black or navy, red tufts at their throats.

And they waddle, hop and strut about maintaining order and inspect the vast halls of the iron monster’s palace, or suddenly appear at the door or the gate of caverns as the serpent slides through, or stops to hiss or drink or disgorge a bellyful of its gibbering frantic prey of small fish. While imprisoned deep in vast underground caverns other birds inscribe copies of the eternal stone tablets in darkness.

And all travellers who pass through the mechanical kingdom must pay obeisance to the serpent monster’s god