Damon Falke is an American writer living in northern Norway. His work includes, among others, By Way of Passing, Now at the Uncertain Hour, and the films, Climbing Eros, Koppmoll and There Is No Separation. He is a frequent contributor to arts journal JUKE.
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time
—T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”
I enter the room and click on the overhead light. I drop my shower towel and sigh. Pants are somewhere. A shirt. My office is in shambles. Books are stacked on top of books. Books are doubled-shelved. Books behind books. There are scraps of paper on my desk, on the floor, on the bookshelves. Overdue bills. Letters from my father. Pads of drawing paper because I prefer to write on drawing paper. Wrappers from my daily dosage of anti-rejection medication. Two coffee cups, with the milky rings of what might have been coffee bonded to its circumference. Two trash bags stuffed into cardboard boxes from my previous effort to clean. An enormous reindeer antler that Charlie Pepiton and I discovered hanging from a tree this past summer remains crammed between a bookcase and the gun cabinet where Ed, the skeleton, resides. There are the usual bones, skulls, rocks, and tortoise shells lining the bookshelves, alongside knives, pipes, and duck calls. There are postcards purchased from corner shops in other countries.
