Matters II

Matters II  ist die fragmentarisch erzählte Geschichte zweier Menschen, die sich in den Lebensbedingungen des neuen Dienstleistungs- proletariats verfangen. Unkonventionell und brutal schildert der Roman die Arbeits- und Alltagsrealität der Protagonist:innen, Grete und Gregor Matters, und deren Versuch, in einer brüchig gewordenen Gegenwart Zukunst zumindest noch denken zu können.

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## Again and again, the monotonous routine, which she voiced, at always the same interval after she pressed the confirmation button, the cash register sprang open, she handed over the change, or the discounts were recorded:
thank you … thank you very much, have a nice day … thank you … thank you very much, have a nice day … thank you … thank you very much, have a nice day … He heard the bromazepam in every word she spoke, he supposedly said. He heard the dreadful syllabification of an unreal reality. Every single syllable came from her. But not from her. Every syllable: protection. Every syllable: self-defense. The struggle not to succumb. Here in a market-determined democracy, in the best of all possible worlds. The dictatorship of profit determination. For: the service workers of the proletariat, the most precarious, the temp workers, the click workers, the gig workers, the unnecessary ones. And every one of her [Matters] movements, every single muscle, every desire that spurred her each day to drag more than 2000 kilos of goods across the conveyer belt was an act of self-defense, an effort not to drown or at least to reach the surface in time for her next breath. ##