History. a Mess. by Sigrún Pálsdottír

Author:Sigrún Pálsdottír
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Letter
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

He lay on his side in his suit the way he would at a picnic, though I’d never seen him lying like that on the living room floor before

I wake myself up by knocking one hand against the bedside table lamp. In my dream, I’d wanted my notebook, which was lying on the nightstand. As soon as I open my eyes I know why. There’s an image in my head, and I must write it down before it disappears. I reach for a pen, which is on the windowsill and which I don’t recognize having seen before. One of Hans’s writing implements, a little peculiar, probably from the laboratory. I open the book to the back because the image in my head is really beyond its contents. But just as I mean to start writing, something quite strange happens. Instead of fading away slowly and surely, as dream visions are meant to, the image in my head becomes ever clearer, and the clearer it becomes the more difficulty I have finding the words to describe it. Without thinking, I start drawing in the book, and then it’s almost like I’m stroking across the page in soft strips with thick ink. Like the model is lying underneath the paper. Hair frames the woman’s face, a forelock falling over one eye beside a round-tipped nose. I cut the picture off at the woman’s chest and outstretched arms; in her raised palm sits a tiny little girl. And now I can see who it is. I see what this is. This is the picture that appeared to me just before I fell to the floor at the gathering yesterday evening. A picture of Mom as she stepped forward like some giant to seize me with both hands while my guests stared at me, petrified. Not displaying any reaction other than expressions that said, “What misfortune is this?” What happened next can, however, be explained only in words. I write immediately. Right below the picture. And then over to the next open page.

I close the notebook and set it on the bedside table. Lie on my pillow and look, lost in thought, at the ceiling rosette above me. Then I roll onto my side and watch the cover lift slowly from the pages. I reach into the book and open it to the front: the text about the Demolitionist. For the meeting with Diana that never came to pass.

“Everything looks better on paper”? What had Diana and my sister-in-law’s guru meant by these words? This writing of mine about the demolitionist does not look at all good on paper, nor did these reflections of mine, laid bare on paper, reveal their “petty, impetuous” nature. In other words, I would have to admit to everything stated there, but like much of what one thinks about, I only wanted to keep the reflections for myself.

I look at the spine and see that the paper has not been cut in a way that the pages could easily tear out.

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