So Much for That Winter

Dorthe Nors So Much for That Winter

Minna Needs Rehearsal Space

Minna introduces herself.

Minna is on Facebook.

Minna isn’t a day over forty.

Minna is a composer.

Minna can play four instruments.

Minna’s lost her rehearsal space.

Minna lives in Amager.

Minna spends her days in the Royal Library.

Minna has to work without noise.

Minna’s working on a paper sonata.

The paper sonata consists of tonal rows.

Minna writes soundless music.

Minna is a tad avant-garde.

Minna has a tough time explaining the idea to people.

Minna wants to have sound with the music — no,

Minna just wants to have sound.

Minna wants to have Lars.

Minna’s in love with Lars.

Lars used to really like Minna.

Minna doesn’t dare launch the relationship app.

Lars has a full beard.

Lars has light-colored curls.

Lars works for the paper.

Lars is a network person.

Lars is Lars, Minna thinks, fumbling with the duvet cover.

It’s morning.

Lars has left again.

Lars is always in a hurry to get out of bed.

The bed is a snug nest.

Minna’s lying in it, but

Lars is on his bike and gone.

Lars bikes as hard as he can in the direction of City Hall Square.

Lars makes the pigeons rise.

Lars has deadlines.

Minna has an itch on her face.

Minna goes out to the bathroom to check.

Lars has kissed her.

Minna doesn’t look like who she looked like when she made the spaghetti last night.

Minna looks like someone who drank all the wine herself.

Minna walks around in bare feet.

The apartment is full of notes.

Bach stands in the window.

Brahms stands on the coffee table.

The apartment’s too small for a piano, but

A woman should have room for a flute.

A woman should have room for a flute, a triangle, and a guitar.

Minna takes out the guitar.

Minna plays something baroque.

Minna plays as quietly as possible.

The neighbor bangs on the wall with his sandals.

Minna needs a rehearsal space.

Minna needs security in her existence.

Minna misses the volume.

Minna misses a healthier alternative.

Minna wants to devote herself to ecology.

Minna wants to involve a kid in it.

Minna wants to try to be just like the rest.

Lars ought to help her but

Lars uses condoms.

Lars is on his bike and gone.

Lars is Lars.

Minna calls Lars.

Minna calls Lars until he picks up the phone.

Minna and Lars have discussed this before.

Lars has a cousin.

The cousin’s name is Tim.

Tim knows of a rehearsal space in Kastrup.

The rehearsal space is close to the airport.

The rehearsal space is cheap.

Minna’s never met Tim.

Minna is in many ways desperate.

Minna says, I can’t go on being quiet.

Minna says, I’ve got to be able to turn myself up and down.

Lars sighs.

Minna says, Let’s bike out to the rehearsal space.

Lars doesn’t want to.

Lars is a culture reporter.

Lars and Minna met at a reception.

Lars introduced himself with his full name.

Minna could see that he knew everyone.

Minna could see that he would like to know everyone, but

Lars doesn’t traffic in favors.

Favors are for politicians, he says.

Minna says, But it’s just a rehearsal space.

Lars says, One day it’s rehearsal space, the next …

The conversation goes on like that.

Minna pesters.

Lars relents, but only a little.

Lars says that he can call up Tim.

Minna waits by the phone.

Minna changes an A string.

Minna drinks her coffee.

The phone doesn’t ring.

Minna goes for a walk.

The phone doesn’t ring.

The phone is dead.

Minna checks the SIM card.

The SIM card is working.

Amager Strandpark is shrouded in sea fog.

Amager Strandpark is full of architect-designed bunkers.

Amager Strandpark wants to look like Husby Dunes.

Husby Dunes used to be part of the Atlantic Wall.

Husby Dunes used to be a war zone.

Amager Strandpark makes itself pretty with a tragic backdrop.

Minna doesn’t like Amager Strandpark.

Minna really likes the Sound.

Minna loves the sea, the gulls, the salt.

Minna is a bit of a water person, and now her pocket beeps.

Minna looks at her cell phone.

Lars has sent a text.

Tim’s on Bornholm, it says.

Minna was prepared for something like that, but

Minna wasn’t prepared for what comes next:

Lars writes, I think we should stop seeing each other.

Minna reads it again, but that’s what it says.

Lars is breaking up via text.

Minna cannot breathe.

Minna has to sit down on an artificial dune.

Minna writes, Now I don’t understand.

Minna calls on the phone.

There’s no signal.

Minna waits for an answer.

The cell is dead, and so she sits there:

Amager Strandpark is Husby Dunes meets Omaha Beach.

Amager Strandpark is full of savage dogs trying to flush something out.

Amager Strandpark is a battlefield of wounded women.

Minna has gotten Lars to elaborate on his text.

Lars wrote, But I’m not really in love with you.

Lars has always understood how to cut to the chase.

Minna can’t wring any more out of him.

Lars is a wall.

Lars is a porcupine.

Minna lies in bed.

The bed is the only place she wants to lie.

Minna hates that he began the sentence with But.

Minna feels that there was a lot missing before But, but

Minna should have apparently known better.

Men are also lucky that they possess the sperm.

Men can go far with the sperm.

Men with full sacks play hard to get.

Men with full sacks turn tail, but

Minna can manage without them.

Minna is a composer.

Minna feels her larynx.

The larynx isn’t willing.

Minna can hear her neighbor come home.

Minna places an ear against the wall.

The neighbor dumps his groceries on the table.

The neighbor takes a leak.

Minna puts Bach on the stereo.

Minna turns up Bach.

The neighbor is there instantly.

Bach’s cello suites are playing.

Minna’s fingers are deep in the wound.

Minna looks at the portrait of Lars.

The portrait is from the paper.

Lars is good at growing a beard.

Lars sits there with his beard.

Lars’s mouth is a soft wet brushstroke.

Chest hair forces his T-shirt upward.

The beard wanders downward away from his chin.

An Adam’s apple lies in the middle of the hair.

Minna has had it in her mouth.

Minna has tasted it.

Minna has submitted, but

Lars looks out at someone who isn’t her.

Lars regards his reader.

It isn’t her.