The Bagatelles

The Voice

So, how did these symptoms begin? You mean from the beginning, as in the beginning beginning? Answer however you like. There is no right or wrong here. Maybe we can start there.…

The Complete Recording

Here, in the future, we do not use that term. Being filmed, as you call it, is no more than one of life’s givens. Like breathing, the heartbeat, blinking and telepathy. From our…

No Stops

On a train. The conductor asks for my ticket. I realise I haven’t bought one. I ask: “All right, where is this train heading?” “How should I know? Do I look like I work here?” The…

Elementary Things

One of those damn undocumented people further down in the building had thrown an entire Christmas tree down the rubbish chute. Then people had kept chucking their Christmas and New…

Relate to This

There was just so much going on at the time. Arranging the funeral and all the Christmas fuss, marking exams and answering emails, planning the next term and being an inspiring…

Mother of the Flies

She was just about to take one last sip of rosé when her lips unexpectedly met something slightly furry and wriggling. She closed her mouth and held the glass at a distance. There…

Gangster Signal

During the annual visit to the school nurse, when the children were measured and weighed, the growth angles of their spines examined, questions about diet answered, and forecasts…

The Postman

On the way out, you share the elevator with the postman, who somewhere between the third and second floors asks: “Are you the one who wrote about Kant?” He knows other things too…

The Conquerors of Lanzarote

Something of a madeleine moment occurs when I take my first sip of Perlenbacher Pils, bought at Lidl, and let the pale, meaningless, almost tasteless drink trickle through me…

Car Showroom

I am brushing my teeth when a combination of toothpaste and a stale odour from the drain fuses into the smell of a car showroom. A highly distinctive smell, rarely conjured…

A parallel dimension

The vacuum cleaner rolls onto the yellow Ikea rug in his son’s room, and the father calls out encouragingly, “You’ve made it look so nice,” when, for no apparent reason, the brain…

Four Seven One One

In the good old days it was easy to get in everywhere. All you had to do was read the marks on the keypad and guess the movement. Like at my grandmother and grandfather’s, where…

Someone From Before

Time has passed. It always has, of course. We have to formulate ourselves anew. The time that has passed is mine. Like everyone, I have a certain amount of time. How much, I do not…

The Pen Shop Reunion

Only those of us with especially unusual names know how it feels when the name appears without warning, as when a mother calls out to her child at a bus stop (once), when an…

Counter 27

At the railway station in Chișinău, I joined a queue and waited my way to the front to ask for a ticket to Odessa, only to be brusquely referred, with an eye-roll, to counter 27…

What Doesn’t Hurt You

The executor of the will observed that, broadly speaking, the father had left behind only two assets of any significance: first, a unique Märklin Spur 0 collection from the 1920s…

SkateCal

Let us say you have become someone’s parent, perhaps imagining that it would be cosy to become one of those blissfully meandering couples with a sleeping little creature in a…

Darkness falls over Alfalfa

“It looks like a pegboard,” the child says about the sea of sunflowers in the newspaper, and the father looks up and looks down, examining the print’s screen of differently…

Indoor moss garden

Inspired by the garden of Saihoji Temple, I chose to tear up the wall-to-wall carpet and replace it with moss. The process was simple: equal parts clay, sand and soil spread across…

Tempo

In Italian, the word tempo is used for both weather and time. A compromise for everything that lies beyond our control, yet remains within reach in the long run. She said, and…

Nemimi

Nemimi in Japanese is a word for what is heard by the one who is asleep, to be distinguished from what is heard by the one who is awake. She had found it in a list of unique…

A Change of Air

I dreamt that I stepped off an airport coach and was met by a wall of high summer heat. The air was hard to breathe, as if it lodged in my lungs and did not come back out. My hair…

Pavlovian Chirping

After I changed the alarm clock chime on my phone, birdsong took on a Pavlovian effect on me. Especially the first few times it felt as though I had discovered a portal between…

Time Travel

Someone says that I am 35 years old. I panic, before I realise that I am only 25. Then I wake up and realise that I am 85. Something of a madeleine moment occurs when I take my…

The Solution

When the dream was sketched out on the screen, it turned out to be in black and white. I was a little surprised, as I thought I dreamed in colour, but the lecturer explained that…

Pluto and Mercury

It is a day in May when half of the flâneurs are wearing scarves and the other half have rolled up their shirt sleeves. Some of those hungry for summer have gathered on the long…

Encapsulated Memory

After reading a newspaper article about how Neanderthal DNA had been extracted by processing a fossilised finger, I once again began to occupy myself with the idea of travelling…

The Accounts

We are old friends now, I realise as I sit down across from him at the café. We’ve met regularly for seven years, yet only seen each other seven times, every spring in connection…

The Calculated Suppers

Picasso claimed that true creativity is caused by mistakes, in order to mislead the conscious mind. Cocteau, for his part, claimed that a poet does not innovate, but listens. And…

Merkel

As far as I could tell, there was no evidence that Merkel had ever existed. There were plenty of observations and anecdotes about his generous way of life and his appetite for…

How To Make a Friend

The English Google search that is most characteristic of Sweden is: “how to make a friend”. This may come as a surprise to most people, but not to you, who are new to the country…

The Inland Journey

I had found a way to travel in time, with certain restrictions. For some reason the method worked only within my own life and within my own body, and since I had never been a…

Auster Loop

In the summer of 2002 he discovered Paul Auster at the same time as others discovered alcohol or girls, and with the same thirst and eagerness as his contemporaries. As for most…

A Visit from the Great Poet

The great poet visited me this morning, eighteen years old, with a temperament that frightened me despite the considerable difference in age between us. He was not alive any…

The Bell Ringers

That summer I spent time with the bell ringers in Björkhagen. The task of managing the church bells required volunteers and I was happy to help, though not with any regularity, so…

Venting

In the church on a Saturday morning I am a worn man in his fifties, or older or younger, it is hard to tell with me, because I dress so shabbily, drink so heavily, the alcohol…

Monotony’s Pattern

There by the bells of Markuskyrkan we talk about dreary things. Nothing particular, really, but in general. This is prompted by the anecdote about the man who interpreted addresses…

The Bill Murray of the National Library

There was a date. There was an eleventh of July 1983. Just a day, one of those we have all the time, the sort that begins with waking up, continues with a throng of well lubricated…

Stool Psychosis

The boat-building course had only been running for a few weeks and they had not got any further than making stools, a craft that had caused her to fall into a kind of stool…

The Dream Archive

How does it feel if I press here, the masseuse asked, bringing her little fingers together against the back of my head in a needle-like grip. It does not feel like anything in…

The Doppelgängers

Well? A tiny slit appears between her eyelids, through which she regards you without really seeing you, or at least without acknowledging you. She flicks through the envelopes with…

The Venice of the North

The meteor shower had turned all asphalt into water, a metamorphosis the chemists found entirely reasonable, though it carried serious implications for life in the city. The…

Through the Eyes of a Pickpocket

“I’m getting too old for this,” he said after work. “I used to think of it as a game, an art form even, but now it’s beginning to feel like theft.” He drained the last mouthfuls of…

Gurli

The traces of us are not only in our genes but scribbled on slips of paper tucked into every other vase, and on the backs of paintings. A drawing shows a girl with a posy in her…

When Passion Fades

What happened just now? he asked sharply, after she had slithered past him in the doorway, as if in disgust straining not to touch him, as though their battery poles did not match…

The Endless Construction

Fourteen years after he had passed away the house was to be set alight. I had cycled there with a heaviness in my chest, to see how the fire brigade would bring it all to an end.…

95 Years of Jealousy

The work never ends, says the psychologist, giving an example: I have ninety-five-year-olds who come here with jealousy issues. And then I start thinking about that instead. For a…

The Prodigies

When I finally arrived in Montpellier it took no more than four bars before the audition leaders declared that they were looking for something more subdued. In vain I tried to…

A Crow Named Rich

That crows are gifted creatures she learnt early on, after a fledgling had fallen onto the lawn with broken wings, been fed crushed fruit and become part of the family. They called…

Obituary

I was assigned to write the text because I was considered the one among us who could handle the craft, a matter of linguistic talent, an ability to round off sentences, begin them…

Change

So, the cloister. At last she was able to shrug off her body. The monk placed the flesh-suit on a hanger and slipped it into a pocket among some others, before the trolley was…

The Last Impression

She was a girl at a party, sitting on the sofa when a gap appeared on another cushion, so you sat down next to her to rest your legs, and then of course you had to talk about…

The Future Tenant

And so you sit in the armchair in your study and realise that in sixty years’ time the embryo will be walking along the pavement below, pointing towards the window and saying…

The Icing Sugar Inventor

Last year at the Nobel banquet I sat next to the woman who would later become my wife. She told me she had invented a new type of icing sugar. With great animation she described…

The Voice of a Generation

It was a summer when you wondered who you were. You used to know, but in recent years you had had to tear everything up and start again. Were you the sort of person who spent hours…

The Text Beneath the Dust

It might be a Thursday. Four men from The Literary Magazine break into the flat to remark on your cleaning. At first you are taken aback, but then you understand. You reply: You…

The Quiet Bus

Friday morning. The bus is quiet. One might ask why. If everyone lives this wrapped in their routines. But one doesn’t ask anyone on the bus. The boat-building course had only been…

Was I Good?

As if someone had flipped a switch you had now become pleasant. Afterwards my friends spoke of how charming you had been, a first-class listener, with follow-up questions that dug…

The Desperado Calls

I was told to forget the desperado in the balaclava, but it had the opposite effect. I contacted four or five motels, had sketched out a possible escape route. Suddenly he rang, I…

The House Listens

I could spend whole evenings simply absorbing the sounds of the house. Drawing them in to myself, for I had no television in those days. At times I felt like a secret agent. Then I…

A Capricious Guitar Solo

The other girl appeared only in the way you treated me, as if you had rehearsed everything but not followed through with the action. To make you feel better I described your laugh…

Christmas Magazine Season

I was brushing my teeth in the shower when the doorbell rang. Normally I didn’t buy those Christmas magazines, but now I filled in almost every box. As planned the boy’s mother…

A History of Pens

My box of assorted promotional pens. They puzzled me and I could not still my mind until I had reconstructed all the chains of events. I worked through the pens one by one and…

The Perfect Handshake

The cables may have been misconnected. Could blow the power amplifier. He says. Then a handshake, firm. It is memorable. A perfect handshake, caressing and embracing. He gets me.…

Consensus at the Font

Robbing the church may not have been one of my better ideas, but in couples therapy we had agreed that my ideas were as good as yours, and yes, anything to reach consensus for…

A Rich Social Life

Apart from coffee and its origins I have a multitude of interests. Such as travel, interior design, food and wine. I have a rich social life, I say. The sharp morning light makes…

Pigeons, Says the Waitress

Someone is shooting live rounds from a tower. Pigeons, says the waitress. But then — like an empty sack she collapses. Last year at the Nobel banquet I sat next to the woman who…

The Innocent Caller

I called, apologised for the delay, said that violent crime had increased, it was the season. The person called insisted on their innocence. The voice slightly hoarse, almost…

No Babies Smoke

Could I retell myself in the same way as in a novel, toss out a few red threads through the generations and weave my movements into a story? An attempt was made: and you called me…

Better When Silent

Y stands in front of her house. Warm night air gathers here, blood pumping to her cheeks. I brought something, I say. She dips her fingers into the bag. Do you ever miss it all…

Snow in July

It was July and the snow was falling softly. My eyes had stuck shut again. She had to lead me to the ferry, fixed the ticket into my hand and murmured her you’ll be all right…

Draw Something Funny

It was blowing a gale and we stayed indoors. For lack of anything better to do she handed me a sheet of paper and a pen. Draw something funny, she said, and I began to scribble.…

A Grand Entrance

I was newly divorced, knocked down the walls and had the grand piano lifted in. That’s how I got to know my neighbours, and I was no longer alone. Last year at the Nobel banquet I…

Olov on the Line

They had stopped calling, those bloody telesales people. So I rang a missed number, ended up speaking to an Olov. He was tired of the job, didn’t even subscribe to any newspaper…

Having Me to Yourself

I hadn’t heard from you in many years when you made yourself known with a letter. It lay on the desk one Tuesday. You cleaned my office, you wrote. You really ought to have said…

The Winter Road

It must have been January because I was smoking. Read about the long slog of winter, and yes, we had our own version. At this time of year we were alone out here, could cordon off…

The Floor

I was lying on the floor. Now I had the chance to do that thing I had dreamed of. I was lying on the floor. I was newly divorced, knocked down the walls and had the grand piano…

Welcome Home

Awake. Here I am, on a sofa, seeing nothing, eyes adjusting, clear. Someone is pointing a revolver at me. “Well, welcome home,” she says. I am not afraid, but where am I? The last…

Before It Happens

You walk towards the library and still none of what has happened has happened. While she turns towards the crossing you watch her whites of the eyes expand, and you think: She…

Breadcrumbs in Sleep

You begin to drop crumbs in your sleep. Each night you are led further in. Waiting for someone and turning around. Sensing familiar colours scents textures fabrics. You do this…

Stellan Skarsgård’s Netflix

For quite some time, the most interesting thing about me was that I had access to Stellan Skarsgård’s Netflix account. This obscurity had a decisive impact on my social life. When…

Eva4ever

Do you think this is real? he asks his wife, flipping open the laptop and showing her the email. It speaks of a security breach on the auction site, of personal data spreading on…

The Sabrage Course

The sabrage course was held in a community hall over seven Thursday evenings that autumn. I had signed up with no prior knowledge, mainly to prove something to myself: that I was…

Hermelin’s Insight

At St Lars Psychiatric Hospital in Lund, between 1909 and 1944, a baron named Eric Hermelin sat and translated Persian poetry. He had lived a drifting life, in service of everyone…

The Beringians

The father of Moderna Museet’s director Pontus Hultén, Eric Hultén, was the geographer who coined the term Beringia to describe the landmass that once stretched between Asia and…

The Flight Attendant’s Diary

Flight attendants weren’t allowed to read books on board. It might make them seem absent. Escapism wasn’t permitted on the job, not when there were passengers afraid of turbulence…

The Childhood Friend I Don’t Remember

He is the childhood friend I don’t remember. That he’s my childhood friend has been explained to me, that we were children at the same time and that we met. He visited us at the…

Night Bus to Bombay

Night in India, somewhere between Goa and Bombay. An overnight bus, people packed into sleeping berths like logs. The journey itself takes place in darkness. It isn’t meant to be…

All That Slipped Away

Everyone else has written something. I need to as well. They read their texts aloud. About different rooms from childhood. How they remember double curtains, the creak of a lift…

Russian Roulette

I hadn’t been in touch with my feelings for a long time. A film had settled over everything I experienced, as uniformly grey as depressed patients describe their pill-dulled days…

Where The Story Ends

The story doesn’t really begin. It continues, like everything else, hooking onto something already there and pulling away in a direction. But whatever came before doesn’t concern…

Free Fall

Pretty often, entirely meaningless events get stuck in the memory, like irritating refrains. But sometimes it’s the meaningful ones that fail to grasp their own significance, he…

Paradise City

The cassette had gotten stuck in the Saab's stereo, so every time I drove to work I had to choose between silence and Guns N’ Roses, and I chose the latter, even though I’d started…

A Bit Like George Saunders

O says that what I write reminds him of George Saunders and hands me a book that I lug with me across the country on my backpack tour. I don’t dare read more than a little, because…

Ingemar

I’m standing in the shower thinking about Ingemar. It’s been a while since I thought about him. I used to think about him all the time. He was an echo of reality in the unreal. He…

The Whistlers

It’s halftime and your team’s down by two. Lightly buzzed and properly annoyed, you’ve found your way to the toilets beneath the stands. One stall is free and you slide in, feeling…

The Elevator Collector

Other diplomats collected exotic artifacts like fans and kimonos. He collected elevators. He stored his finds in the basement, gathered over a lifetime of travel—days spent in…

The Pencil World

He had set out to transfer everything from the perceived world into the pencil world, and with the help of millions of tiny slips of paper, to document quite literally…

Ingarö’s Magellan

A note by the mailboxes. It hung alongside others about water bans, cheap women’s bikes, and annual meetings. You started reading. "Have You ever thought about how the lovely…

Everyone’s Talking to Me

The first second of a day that doesn’t need its week: awakening. There’s clatter in the kitchen. Oh right, I’m me. Oh right, I’m at my second cousin’s in Lund. We drink instant…

The Stalker’s Lair

Nothing much really happened that summer, and that’s precisely why the following could occur. First, a circumstance: money. The reduced student grant offered in exchange for taking…

The Other Dad

“It tightens here,” says the other dad, running his palm across his chest. Over in the walkway toward the plane, two sibling pairs trudge side by side toward their seats. First…

Safari in the realm of wordlessness

At the syndicalist party, I was one of only two English speakers, and he soon got bored of me. Since my only viable conversation partner also spoke the local language, he quickly…

At New Year

Of all the places I’ve woken up, this one feels like a dream. Still Seville. Alamillo Park. A black-and-white-spotted cat seeks contact but avoids people. The grass. I lie down…

Zenonaut’s Diary

At launch, they called me the Union’s hero. The Emperor addressed the people, speaking of my vital mission as the intergalactic high guard. I was tasked with watching over the…

Portrait of a Recovery

I.N. fell ill in August 2020, though in an alternative chronology, that was also when he began to recover. In his conversations with me, he described in detail the internal process…

Phone Call in the Garden

I had come into possession of a batch of telephone booths, auctioned off in a lot of twenty, which I placed in the garden as an installation. Sometimes, they gave me quite a scare…

The Drifters

There was a period, both short and long, when I frequented the library as a kind of second home. I had moved out and was living in cramped conditions. It just turned out that way…

The Maybe Man, Charles Swann

He had set himself the task of writing a text each morning, with no demands as to quality or word count, simply a text. He would start at 8:15, and twenty minutes later it would be…

The Secret Pianist

Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A minor forced its way into my flat one evening. The sound waves came from a neighbour, who played with a light, almost nonchalant touch. At first I was…

The Atheist

The apartment actually burned down. After all her warnings about the gas, it caught fire. Just a small lapse, just a tiny spark. The bookshelf erupted in a veritable fireworks…