TE23 Double Feature

Tomas Espedal

The Year

just like the sentence: The meaning of a word lies in the use that’s made of it. Petrarch’s line is as precise and true as a scientific law or a mathematical formula: You can’t hang on to the one you love. All worldly pleasure is a fleeting dream it’s a poetic truth and we can test it against the sum of our experience. Love will not last it can’t last unfortunately it won’t last luckily at the bottom of every sorrow there is a joy at the bottom of every joy there is a sorrow. It is life itself that finds its expression in Petrarch’s line it is objective and hard unyielding to the vagaries of time a shard of nature buried in mankind like a sentence. It’s Monday morning I’ve slept 134

for eleven hours. There’s nothing better for someone on their own than sleeping. You’re never alone when you’re asleep. Sleep is a gift like love like oblivion the sleeper loves and sometimes deep in sleep he’s lost love and himself: Gone is his name gone is his address gone are his money and possessions gone are his boots and clothes gone are the city and its din gone are the hotel and the park gone are pain and worry gone are sickness and fever. I wake up and order breakfast in my room a croissant black coffee a glass of orange juice. A thin strip of light through the chink in the curtains smothered sun the wan yellow spreads through the room like 135