ELIAS

Fiction

- Jon Fosse

But there, isn’t that a knock on the door, yes, it definitely is, and there, there’s another knock, and I can’t remember anyone knocking on my door in a long time, the last person to do it was Jatgeir, but that stopped when that woman moved in with him and turned everything upside down, so it’s been years now since he knocked on my door, but I guess it could be Jatgeir, and I'd probably better open the door then, but there are dirty dishes in the sink, and they've been there for several days, not that I use so many dishes, but, still, there might even be a little mold, and when's the last time I aired out the place, no, not since I can remember, so it smells stuffy, yes, that’s the least you could say about it, it probably smells like me, too, and every-thing in here’s just a mess, in the hall, in the kitchen, in the living room, there are books everywhere, books and newspapers piled up on top of each other, and so if there’s a knock at the door and someone wants to come in here, to my mess, to my house’s mess, no, if only I'd known that someone was going to knock on my door, but how could I have thought that would happen, now that Jatgeir doesn’t come by anymore, because it’s been for-ever and a day since the last time he stopped by, and there’s another knock, no, I can't believe it, and was the knock louder this time? maybe the knock was louder, or probably it’s just that I could hear it better this time and that’s why it sounded louder, yes, that must be what it was, but there’s another knock, because that is knocking, right? yes, it is, but weaker this time, yes, almost inaudible, maybe that was another knock or maybe it wasn't, but I probably need to go open the door either way, it may well be Jatgeir, maybe he suddenly thought he should drop by and see me, or it might be someone else, there are probably lots of reasons someone might knock, maybe it’s someone coming with an important message for me, maybe someone's died, but what relatives of mine could have