Antje: Look at this diamond. I just got
it; it waited for me for 16 years in a secret drawer in my grandmother's
writing table. I had totally forgotten how big it is. And I like this tiny
silver princess crown that's holding it - with a touch of sixties streamline
chic in the ring.
It's glowing in the twilight. Lying on my bed, I look at
it from a small distance. It doesn't sparkle at all, it's just glowing, one
extraterrestrial white blob on my small finger.
ingo: It's so small. I hardly see any reflexions. I'm too far away. That diamond sparkles only to the one who possesses it. That diamond would have to be much bigger to catch my attention.
Antje: How big should it be?
ingo: It should be as big as a house.
Antje: Bigger than the Ritz.
ingo: No. In fact I thought of quite a small house, like a hut.
Antje: No way. A mountain.
ingo: Maybe we could just put a Ritz-size diamond on top of a mountain. A mountain covered with white snow. I prefer a mountain as a socket, not the dirty earth.
Antje: Mount Everest of course. Augment the highest mountain on earth by the length of one diamond.
ingo: How do we install the diamond? We can't build a construction. We have to cut a hole into the bottom side of the diamond. The hole has the exact shape of the mountaintop so that it sticks. Mountain climbers see the original top but they can't reach it any more.
Antje: Oh no. Of course we'll flatten down Mount Everest. A cut diamond has to be perfect, otherwise it's just rubbish.
ingo: Anyway, we have to cut the diamond. What will we do with the waste?
Antje: We'll get the best jewellers in the world. They'll cut the diamond into incredibly complicated facettes. One will be able to see its sparkle from the moon.
The waste will be cut into a million small diamonds. Washington's slaves were told it's mere rhinestones and kept working for nothing. I would change that. Problem is: there won't be enough for every human being on earth.
ingo: Why do you want to donate a piece to everyone? Why not to birds? Why not to spiders? None of those who helped to create it by pressing their paws on the ground are alive.
Antje: May I suggest something? Go to every country in the world, big or small, get out of the plane and give a diamond to the five persons you're most attracted to.
ingo: Be the ambassador of chance.
Antje: It will take a long time.
In / Polly Staple and Mark Lekey (Ed.), Saturday, London 2001