II

 

I can’t stop thinking about how it fell apart so slowly, so imperceptibly slowly.

Yes, you’ve already said that.

Yes.

But the avalanche itself, it really came so suddenly.

Yes.

Yes. And you’re saying there were several avalanches and then it just lay there.

I just lay there.

You just lay there.

Yes I just lay there, on the front steps of my house.

And then?

And then someone said something and I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, and someone helped me get up. I stood there. Then I opened a door. I went in and shut the door behind me.

And then?

I don’t remember anything. I remember that I woke up and I was lying on the floor inside. I got up. I was standing. I walked.

And then?

I thought I had to go and lie down.

Yes.

Yes. And then I woke up again. I was lying next to the kitchen table. And then I thought I had to go and lie down. I got up. I was standing. I found the sofa and lay down.

 

III

 

Three times it fell apart. Everything became black; a kind of fog in my sleep, but with a kind of quivering somewhere inside, like particles of stone in motion, or small stones in a slow avalanche, so slow that it can’t be called an avalanche.

Yes, you said that.

Yes.

And then?

No one saw the avalanche.

You were alone.

Yes, I was, yes.

And that’s probably why it wasn’t an avalanche.

No, maybe not.

But something like that.

Yes.

And then we are quiet for a while.

And now.

Now.

What do you think? About the avalanche. Where did the stones go?

They just lay there, but then they fell apart again.

Yes.

 

IV

 

Shards of stone, these stones too, small stones, shining in the grey fog. They shone weakly but they shone, and then the light gathered and I saw that I was lying on a sofa. I stood up. I went out a door.
I shut a door behind me. I walked. I stood waiting for a bus. It was hard to stand. And then it fell apart again. I was lying on a sidewalk. I suddenly knew I was lying on a sidewalk. Somebody came running. He helped me up. I was standing. I tried to get on a bus but another man came running and said that I couldn’t go by bus, this was not a bus for someone like me, the man said. I asked if I couldn’t just sit down on the bus, but no, no, this wasn’t a bus for someone like me, he said. I asked the driver, it was a woman, and she smiled and shook her head. She said nothing, or maybe she said no. And then, I think it happened like this if I’m not misremembering, the man who had helped me to my feet came and took me to a car, a taxi. He put me in the taxi and I sat down and the driver and I drove off. The man driving said that he often thought about nothing, how nothingness is in everything. Nothingness is in everything, the taxi driver said.

Yes.

I didn’t say anything to him about the stones.

No, of course not.

Nothing about the avalanche.

No, of course you didn’t.

And then we were sitting there and neither of us said anything. We sat like that for a long time.

I don’t like you talking about the stones and the avalanche. It’s fake, in a way, like you’re lying.

Yes. It almost feels like that.

But why are you doing it then?

I don’t entirely know.

No, it’s probably not so easy to know.

 

V

 

The stones sing and they don’t sing. Even when the fog is gone the stones lie there, leaning against each other, they lie there so nicely, as though they have been put together by a wonderfully dexterous stonemason, they lay there like that after the avalanche too. Falling apart.

Yes, yes.

And then we laugh, yes, we laugh. After the avalanche too.

So then you were sitting in a car. And the man driving said that there was some nothingness in everything, and then what?

It was in a taxi, and we were talking about nothing and about what is behind and in everything that is, it was where it came from, it’s there, the man driving said.

The taxi driver.

Yes, him, yes, he said that there is nothing that is God before the beginning, it begins with the Word, he said. Yes, him, the man driving the car, he said that.

That was well said.

It was as if nothing was falling apart. But everything was so grey, like in a fog.

Like grey stone, you said.

Yes. But it was a little lighter in the car.

In the taxi.

Yes.

And then?

Well, then I got out of the taxi and went into the airport. And then it fell apart again. I was lying on the floor and when I looked up there were lots of people around me and someone was taking my pulse and said, he’s weak, and then a man with a wheelchair came and put me in the chair and pushed me to a room and I sat there and he said that I might be able to board the plane, they would evaluate me, he said, and he gave me water and then he pushed me in the wheelchair to the plane, ahead of all the other passengers, and when we reached the aeroplane door someone came to meet me . . .

Who?

. . . a flight attendant met me and said, he’s allowed on, and then they pushed me into the plane and put me in the front row and someone else . . .

Another flight attendant?

. . . asked if I wanted anything and I said maybe I’d like a little water. And then I was given a little water. Stone and water. Stone, stone and water. And I was an avalanche, shards of stone, and all the stones were in a grey fog that seemed to shine a little from the crushed stones, and they were in perfect order, lying against each other as though they had arranged themselves in a kind of wall. A fine wall.

Yes, you said that already. I am thinking that this talk about the stone and the avalanche is nothing but a lie and concealment, but there might be something in it nonetheless, I think.

A fine new wall.

And then?

And then I was pushed out of the plane in a wheelchair. I said I could walk but I wasn’t allowed to because I might fall again, that was why it was best if I was in a wheelchair and then I was taken, yes, you remember that, don’t you?

No, it wasn’t me who took you.

No, no it wasn’t you, it was someone else who took me, and he put me in his car and drove me to my flat. He took me inside, and I lay down, and I lay there and I was an avalanche, I was stone that had become many stones, an avalanche, an avalanche that kept going and I just lay there, and then the avalanche started to move and turn in on itself, I shook, I shook and shook and then shook a little less. I shook and everything was grey stones in the fog and everything was a slow avalanche, slow, and the grey had some white in it, it’s not visible as white but is it white is it?

Is it white as snow?

No, it isn’t like snow, and it isn’t white, but it’s like white, it is snow, it’s not snow . . . no, it’s not white, it’s not snow, it is grey, just grey, it is greyer . . . just a simple grey if it weren’t for the stones that were still there, the avalanche that had arranged itself so nicely, the stones that lay there so beautifully and quietly even though I shook and shook . . . and my son made dinner for me but I couldn’t eat, and he bought me a bottle of vodka and I shook less and was calm and then I slept well there on, or in, those grey shining stones. I slept, I don’t remember much more, I remember less and less and then they came with a stretcher and said that I have to get dressed and then you said, he can’t manage it, can’t you see, and I shook and shook and they agreed that I could put on a bathrobe, that was easy, and then I was lying on the stretcher. And I shook and shook. And I saw that the avalanche was gone. I was the avalanche.

But the stones lay there, in a wall, even if they were falling apart.

I think so. Because it felt like the stones in the avalanche were me.

 

VI

 

You were a chasm that cracked and turned into stones, and then the stones lay there, beautifully laid, in a wall.

Yes. Yes that’s how it seems to be, it seems like that now.

Yes. And the chasm is gone?

The chasm does not exist any more.

And the stones shine in their own new pattern.

Yes. What used to be a chasm is now between the stones.

The stones laid together make an open room?

Yes.

Is there something in the room?

I think so. I can see something there.

And then we sit in silence.

The man who was saying that nothingness is in everything.

Yes. What about him?

No, nothing.

 

VII

 

These slow movements, falling apart, and then the sudden ones, incredibly quick, like sudden gusts of wind. Then the quiet. The big crack with its light, then the slow imperceptible avalanche, and then this sudden movement, this sudden falling apart. And then the stones, grey like fog, but still shining with a faint light instead of nothing, a little light, so weak, almost like ashes, almost like glowing ashes on stone. And then stone on stone. I am in the room behind the wall of stones, my stones, other people’s stones, and there is light in there, the strong invisible light from the sky, from the stones. The light of nothingness. The light of nothingness is in the stone. The light of love is in the stone.

 

VIII

 

I go in, in behind the stones, and I sit down. I sit and look at the stones. I see that it’s me. I am the stones: it’s not like me, but like what is I in me. I go out between the stones and take my place, I stand there with outstretched hands, like a cross. I see a cross. I look down. I look up. I sit down. I look at the stones, so beautifully laid, stone on stone, in a wall. I get up. I stand.

 

IX

 

And then you hold my hand. And the stones say that love exists, love is.

Weren’t you scared?

No, never.

But you almost died.

I wasn’t afraid to die.

I am not afraid to die either.

No.