No Short Cut to Paradise

By Hanne Marie Svendsen

The Retreat , November 19

The wind is rising. The wind lifts the shutters and throws them back again. Everything rattles in the wind. The storm howls in big gusts, and it feels as if my room hangs on the edge of the planet and soon will be hurled into space.

Black beetles move in single file under the gas radiator. They wander and wander, ominously and without purpose; like black olives they roll on while the wind howls. A whimper far away, then once again a crash. The storm is gathering force now; now it brakes loose.

Out in the court yard the lamps are swaying. I can hear the sound of something that falls and is shattered in the fall.

In the dream it is in the depth of the night, and I stand outside my room in the court yard between the ochre-coloured walls. It is very quiet here; distant stars twinkle above my head. I go further out in the court yard while looking at the deep, black sky, dotted with golden stars. Suddenly the sky begins to shake. Cracks appear. The stars come closer, bend towards me in bands that form patterns and ciphers. These are the constellations I know, but they are much closer, right above my head. They turn toward each other and fight, Leo against Sagittarius, Virgo against Scorpio, Aquarius against Pisces. Now the Lion splits in two. Two lions in a furious fight while a pattern of fine cracks spread over the sky’s surface. I know it is the end of the world, and I am alone, far from the people I love. I shout their names to the sky, every name, hers too, the one who is dead.

Translated by Marina Allemano, University of Alberta