News from Kroko

1. Kroko was a grim wild monster and his heart was full of anger and the desire for blood. That’s the fact. Everyman was afraid of him. He lived in Black Forest.

2. Kroko’s greatest enemy was an old Antiquarian named Shepherd. For many years he hoped to pack the reptile und so to deliver the mankind from a big nogood. But Kroko was careful and he always stroke Shepherd back. The fight most finished fifty-fifty, though Shepherd had a well-functioning bookstore with a hand-library and Kroko only his short legs and his greengreen swife.

3. Kroko’s preferred meal were always young Antiquarians in the circumstances of innocence. Oh what tasted they excellent! Kroko’s heart was sometimes so angry, that he caught them, ate them, kotzed them and ate them once more. Mmm! Mmmpf! Krssschn!

In his elder days Kroko changed for a short time to eat old boys: Incunabula Dealers, Bourseleaf-Redactors, Nothwestgerman Farmers. So he hoped to get healthy, wealthy and wise. But this was not. Kroko remained stupid.

4. What’s about Kroko’s sex? Now, the Kroko-Research is going conform, that Kroko was no good lover. There was no right partner for him. Although in warm spring-days a dream often visited the monster, that love would be a fine thing. But that losed themselves in age more and more.

5. When a group of young Antiquarians from the Internet-Society of Antiquarian Bookdealers (ISAB) went out for a walk, they losed the right direction and came to Black Forest. To this smiling Kroko only had waited. Nothing rested.

6. In the first Roughnight of the year MMIX Shepherd risked once more to attack Kroko’s höhl. Assisted with a rott of colleagues he went to the place and called: “Go away, Kroko, you are a plag, which we cannot need in our liberty-willing land!” Brumming Kroko quite slowly appeared in front of his home, saw that Shepherd would kill him, and because he was tired, he did not want to fight. “To morrow, Sir, every time!” he cried. So Shepherd had to search the wide.

7. But just so it was vice versa. Still in the night swore Kroko, to murder Shepherd next day. But there was no success in Kroko’s idea. When Kroko arrived Shepherd’s castle, full of the desire for blood, he got told, that Shepherd had started to Ludwigsburg, to help the colleagues against Stuttgart. Later on Shepherd died in high age a natural death, top respected by his colleagues and the Upper-Class-Antiquarians and quite quiet in his bed. Kroko had the afterlook.

8. Who were Kroko’s parents? Now, his father was called Old Smokey and worked as a centerguard of King Marke, the mother of Kroko was the daughter of a famous Egyptian sunking and wegsleppt by pirates. The young peoples got notice one from another in Villingen-Schwenningen. So Kroko could be born. But there was no blessing on his life…

9. In the year MMIX Kroko went out to snap a tender young Antiquarian to fress him. But he might go and go, look and look: he found no. So he got angry and angrier and always angrier, angrier than even before. At last he went home again.

10. Another mischief of Kroko was : he could not pack Doctors, who belonged to the new religion Christendom. Once, in the year MMIX Kroko flacked in front of his höhl and reflected his Ebay-account, which has been completely invain. In this moment a Bourseleaf-Redactor came the way to walk a little. “Good heaven”, thaught Kroko, “today is what falling!” Much too late the Redactor saw grim Kroko, he was filled with cold graus, falled to earth and cried to his God, he might save him, he would also never homely use Twitter and Facebook.

In the same minute Kroko noted his anability to kill the Redactor because of the cross over his wams. Kroko rised and crept to the bibbering man: “Oh you Beast”, he said, “don’t be anxious. Christian Doctors I cannot do anything. They are sure because of the Crucifix on their neck. I am a Heide. Sorry. By!” Said it and trolled back to his höhl.

11. So with the rising of the new time it could not miss, that Kroko got more and more curious. The new developements (Blogs, Community-Catalogues, Bookfairs, High-End-Booksellers with individual profiles) he could not longer understand. So laying in front of his höhl he dreamed and gloomed and bruted of the fine and friendly old times and more and more tears ran dirtily over his ugly face.

12. Surely, Kroko all his life had been a bad person. Bad person, very bad person, yes, but what’s up? No one uf us is sine fault. Isn’t it? No one through the first stone!

13. With a last strong effort old Kroko decided passionately to write his confessions as a guide for others. But he could not hold the pen in his mouth. So I have done it.

14. Finally, when Kroko saw Death come, he layed down and called his adepts and followers together, to publish his last will. But there came no, cause there were no. Kroko noticed it, and quite content he spoke to himself: “Never mind, Kroko, old monster! When all my life I was luckless, wouldn’t it be not strange, if in the last moment I should be favorated by faith?”

After this Kroko lived still seven years, joyless, despised and rejected by the whole mankind, especially the International Ligue of Antiquarian Booksellers. But all’s well, that ends well. When Kroko endly endly gave back his granty seel to the Lord, middle Europe was released from his greatest moving cucumber. Peace came over Black Forest and the Antiquarians – until a new Kroko rises from the muddy waters of some lake in the outback.

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Wer als erster korrekte Angaben zur Original-Vorlage dieser Kolportage machen kann,

erhält ein von uns ausgewähltes Buchgeschenk

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NACHTRAG 18.35 UHR:

DAS RÄTSEL IST GELÖST, AND THE WINNER IS M.H. AUS B.-WESTEND:

HERZLICHEN GLÜCKWUNSCH!

Der Text findet sich unter dem Titel News from Grendel mit nur wenigen Abweichungen in Eckhard Henscheids Sammelband Ein scharmanter Bauer (FrankfurtM. 1980, Seite 306ff.): Sehr lesenswert. Wer einmal keltische und germanische Annalen und Heiligenlegenden durchpflügen mußte, so wie ich in meinem ersten Leben, wird die subtile Ironie von Henscheids Text zu schätzen wissen! - Und weil es sich um eine etwas böse Kolportage handelt, möchte ich an dieser Stelle betonen, daß sich diese natürlich nur auf den selbstgewählten Avatar (eben das Krokodil) bezieht, nicht aber die Person, die hinter diesem Avatar sich keusch verbirgt, und die zu schmälern oder schmähen ich nicht beabsichtigte: wirklich nicht.

Danke für die amüsante Nachmittagsunterhaltung und freundliche Grüsse!

Ihr Otto W. Plocher