Operative Medicine and Responsibility. Helmut Lauschke

into nowhere. Where did all that go, that there was something to eat for the children?

      They still stand with their water bellies and wait for something more. They are still standing with the noises in the bowel, but not much longer, it will be too heavy.

      What is the matter with the ties when children scream with hunger; see the starvation plastic in the plaster of Paris when you greedily rush to the full tables.

      Can you endure eating when children sit in front of the door when they are hungry, too weak to stand, and the fat oozes from your mouths?

      Storms will hit the land, the waves are already raging on rocky walls; no one will ask where you found your arm, leg or anything else.

      Children are everywhere with their little hands, feet, and heads; starved, limp and crooked, they lie silent in the sand, on stones and between empty pots.

      Anyone who did not see their faces and bellies with their spindly arms and legs does not know what happened to children when they cry in pain.

      All only have a life like those who sit at full tables and constantly sweat while eating, but differently those who stand in front of empty tables.

      Don't stand in front of the mirror with your ties on, the time is too short for that; go see the children who fall silent before their last breath is gone.

      You in the food row, don't act so stupid if you stare at the full plate and hungry children sit in front of the door, because you only think about your stomachs.

      There are many other people who still have thin necks, for whom life is not so good, it is often shorter than for the short necks.

      There is talk and talk about equality, law and justice, and those who talk have those necks that are usually wider and even shorter.

      In the deeds, things get poor where it counts, often nothing happens, you shirk responsibility wherever you can, someone prefers to play the black rose in Paris.

      Indeed, it must be understood that it does not work without responsibility if some sweat while eating and others die of hunger.

      Whether black or white, they are the same, let equality run against luxury and not only go wide at the necks; they gather as if they weren't quite clever.

      If that is the future according to the big words, then the old people shake their heads, because they bent over backwards for freedom and are now poorer than before.

      So take the speakers by the neck, for there you can see who they really are; they cannot disguise themselves, but they do not let anything get on their necks.

      Therefore decency in the mind belongs to respect and better understanding; it is quite a lot when you consider how far down man has come.

      The girl Kristofina, who was struck by lightning

       In the night from Saturday to Sunday of the second week of February there was a downpour, the severity of which is remembered. The thunderstorms struck down with unheard-of staccatos of rocky hardness and rushed in quick succession, interspersed with tremolos of the most powerful drumbeats, and made the marrow and leg tremble. Downpours formed floods in an instant, filling the furrows and holes with mud. The lightning flashed at angles over the sponge floor, severed thick branches from the trunks with violent blows, ripped through the claws, shocked and killed herds of cattle and goats. The thunderbolts hit the anvil like mighty hammers, so that the floor shook and trembled until the blows rolled onto the spongy carpet of the night.

       The claps of thunder had torn the sky open. Flashing weather stretched behind the banks of clouds and illuminated the heaviness in the zigzag of the furthest stretch. Whether the glow was a message of peace that was announced in pink-light yellow colors, or, through the blood-red mixture, was the infernal fire sign, this question was expressed with irrepressible force when looking out the window. Then it was quiet as the answer to the question of existence gained weight, that the light spectacles could not be explained in one way or the other.

       It was three in the morning when the phone rang. The night nurse said that a girl who was struck by lightning had been brought in. I put on my shirt and shorts and set off on the seven hundred meter walk, sandals in hand. The hospital vehicle was not available to those on duty. It was pitch black. The feet trudged in the mud and through large ankle-deep puddles. I tried to stay in the middle of the street. The checkpoint at the exit of the village was lit with a weak light bulb. I showed the “permit” and passed. A vehicle did not come towards me to illuminate the path in the puddle landscape. Dirty I passed the hospital entrance. I left the right entrance wing with the bent frame open and trudged through the lakes on the sodden forecourt. I washed the mud off my feet, legs and arms under the tap next to the entrance to the Outpatient department. I put on my sandals and stepped dripping into the waiting hall.

       The night nurses widened their eyes when they saw the doctor coming with wet legs on wet sandals with mud splattered on his shirt and pants. But they didn't say a word about the unreasonableness of walking the path in the pitch darkness. A young girl, about 14 years old, was lying on the stretcher covered with a sheet and moaning in pain. I looked into the pale face of the girl who expressed the severity of being struck by lightning in a terrifying and stronger way than words can say. I carefully pulled the sheet from top to bottom and winced when I saw the charred right shin, over which half the length of the anterior and outer soft tissue layers had burned away. Further burns were found on the face, on the other leg, and on the left upper arm and forearm. The girl was already on the high-speed drip to fight shock.

       The signs of death were already on her face, which overtook her two hours later, when she was in the intensive care unit almost painlessly. It was good that the girl was spared the amputation and a life with only one leg. It was a whole new experience for me that a person survived the lightning strike. So far it was the dead bodies on the sectional tables that were struck by lightning as people. On the way back through mud and puddles in the pitch darkness, the thought of pain and agony, and that the girl had the last bit of life over, writhed in me had to walk the bridge alone without getting a kiss goodbye from her mother. On the way I remembered the lines from the 5th Psalm in the German translation by Martin Buber:

      “Listen to my sayings, YOU, / pay attention to my sighs, / note the voice of my groans, / O my King and my God, / for to you I pray. / YOU, / in the morning you hear my voice, / in the morning I equip you, / and I peek. // Because you are not a deity / you have a lust for sacrilege / an evil one is not allowed to dine with you / braggers do not stand before your eyes / you hate all those who suspect / you let the talkers of deceit disappear. - / The man of bloodshed and deceit is an abomination to YOU.”

      Kristofina and the fate of her childhood were "engraved" in my memory.