I
No one saw the avalanche because it all fell apart so slowly. Not day by day, not even hour by hour, or minute by minute, but it fell apart. It was falling apart the whole time, and it was an avalanche. It had to be an avalanche, because what else could it be?
But did it slide like mud?
No, it didn’t slide like mud, it was more like a sudden imperceptible jolt.
But someone must have seen it?
No, no one. Or maybe someone did but they didn’t want to. Or maybe no one saw it. The jolts were too quick, jolt after jolt.
But in that case you can’t really call it an avalanche?
Yes, it was an avalanche, it was an avalanche.
Was there a flaw in the middle somewhere?
Why do you ask that?
I think it happened because there was a flaw somewhere that finally made it come apart.
Maybe, but I think there were lots of smaller cracks, not a big one, lots of almost invisible cracks.
Yes, it could have been like that. But these small almost invisible cracks somehow combined into a big crack, a chasm almost.
There is something almost like joy in your voice.
A chasm.
Yes, yes, like a chasm.
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.
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