from The sea is a scene

by Ursula Andkjær Olsen

(Excerpt from a text that runs like a subtext/subtitle, an undercurrent at the foot of each page in the book, all the way from cover to cover).

What will they do when the branches coalesce in a fog? What will they do when the sea simply splits into droplets. Droplets. Droplets? They probably think they must choose between identity and difference. Between wave and particle between motion and solid form. It is an inconsistency in the skin and the hairs rise up. An inconsistency in the skin and the sea. The sea the sea the sea rises up. The storm is in the news how are they to think? When there’s always a rushing in their ears. Should they just take their sleeping pill now? They could. Their sleeping pill. Now? (...) For creatures with their defective emotions celebration and exorcism are not so dissimilar. Means and ends. And wave and particle. Ends and means turn into each other while they burn their sight at both ends. Their defective senses. At both ends they should take their happy pill now. Their live-and-cry-with-happiness pill their let-me-live-and-love pill. Now. The sooner the better? (...) Their bones will soon have forgotten all about them. They will wash up on the beach white and smooth. Without a single memory. They will wash up from the sea is a scene and they are its tiny tiny watercourses while they surrender their rhythms to the dust. Carrying eternity’s DNA. It dreams in them. Their bones dream in them of jumping out while they become more and more. Hill of the elves. Wormholes. One could call it a deadly kinship with eternity. Big and shiny. Shiny and white. They might as well take their sleeping pill. Now. They cling to more and more eternities. They could take their sleeping pill. They could. Their sleeping pill now. Their sleeping pill. Sleeping pill now. Sleeping pill.

Translated from Danish by David McDuff