Saturday 26 June 2021

'Gamekeeper's Nights' by Peter Krumbach

 

Lately I sleepwalk through several doors until I reach a one-acre field with a one-room house. A man named Carl lives there. He turns up the earth with an ox and a plow. I watch him from the bushes, realizing after a while that he is me, Carl is me, and this plot of land, the small house, the ox and the geese flying soundlessly, are all inside my head. This goes on for a while as I sleep. It turns out, I don't sleepwalk, just lie in my bed under a thin blanket in a slightly bigger house, a cabin really, that is not in the middle of a field, but in the middle of a forest. And, of course, I am someone else's dream, as he watches from the bushes, sees me wake up and go about my business of walking from tree to tree, putting nametags on the bark, feeding the magpies that land on the brim of my hat. Then the man in the bushes realizes he is me, and the cycle continues. I suspect this has been going on for quite some time.


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