I is Another: Septology III-V

by Jon Fosse

it’s her angel and my angel that are talking to each other now, and for an angel to exist you have to believe it does, and you have to have a word for it, the word angel, and if you don’t believe that God exists, well then God doesn’t exist, neither in life nor when you’re dead, so we need the word God, but deep down inside all people believe in God, they just don’t know it, because God is so close that they don’t notice him, and he’s so far away that they don’t

Was Gott für sich selbst ist, das kann niemand begreifen, she said, yes, Gott ist keinem Dinge völlig nichts, Gott ist für sich selbst nicht völlig nichts, Gott ist nichts, was man in Worte fassen kann, Eckhart wrote, Ales said and she said that when she heard how many Christians misused God’s name she thought that

and I put another log in and I look at the logs and I think that I never would have become Catholic if Ales hadn’t been Catholic, but I

so it was either alcohol or paintings, I think and when the alcohol was gone then the

isn’t the round table clearly saying with its silence that God is nearby? and the two chairs? and the one Ales always sat in, especially clearly, God is so clearly looking at me from that chair, I think, and I think that it’s when I’m most alone, in my darkness, my loneliness, because it really is lonely, to tell the truth, and when I’m as quiet as I can be, that God is closest, in his distance, and I really have, almost like a monk, I think, and then I start laughing because you can