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. Our communication, initially meaningful and coherent, turns into a series of fitful exchanges containing neither sentences nor information: little words and sounds meant—I suppose—to keep the line between us open, but which, instead, make all too clear how far apart we are. So we have learned to split the work between us, stick to practical matters, and only speak to one another when necessary.

The sudden feeling of sharing something inexplicable, a sense of wonder at the existence of the other—the one person who makes everything simple—a feeling of being calmed down and thrown into turmoil at one and the same time.

The unthinkable is something we carry with us always. It has already happened: we are improbable, we have emerged from a cloud of unbelievable coincidences.

He is a ghost and ghosts haunt. They return, again and again. Monsters rampage through the world and leave it devastated.

The sky has its pattern. It repeats itself. You can feel at home with it. You can sit on a step in the darkness and observe it or you can stand on the grass and be a very tiny monster in an immense space. I can feel the sky lifting the monster cape from my shoulders. I become smaller and the little pieces of the world that I have to work with dwindle to almost nothing. The heavens are vast and untouchable, the universe opens up and you become an insignificant little monster taking tiny bites out of a gigantic world.