On the Calculation of Volume, Book I

by Solvej Balle

The minute we deviate from simple, practical matters, the conversation lapses imperceptibly into a kind of audio link, a muted love mumble.

It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences.

Maybe we are a weather system—condensation and evaporation: we are together, we look at one another, we touch one another, we condense, we come together, we make love, we fall asleep, we wake and revert to our strange bond, a quiet weather system with no natural disasters.

Music is necessary. For rhythm and rain-wet syllables. It is something that can be heard: we are a quiet orchestra and we are playing now. Listen.

But I hear the door closing behind him. The door closing after a packageless Thomas. Thomas leaving the post office. Thomas letting go of a yellow steel door. To be a door. To be touched. And slowly swing back into place and close on easy hinges.

It is the loss that staggers me. It is the longing for what is lost and there is nothing I can do about it.