Another quote from Andersson’s arbitrary conduct. The painter stopped answering calls and for months the poet lives in despair. Then they run into each other, and the painter says, as if it just occurred to him, that he has to contemplate this thing about him and her. Hope blossoms in the poet, and just a couple of days later she calls him and asks: Do you know now? The painter answers:
– Contemplating isn’t that fast. These things take time, you know.
Of all the things he could have said, this was the worst, because everything that exists wants to live and hope is not an exception. It is a pest. It eats and thrives on the most innocent of body tissues. Its survival lies in a well-developed ability to overlook everything that does not favor its growth but throw itself at anything that feeds its vitality. Then it ruminates these crumbles until every trace of nutrition has been extracted. Now hope gnawed with heavenly frenzy. For a couple of seconds she was completely weightless.
– I give you all the time you need, she said
It’s said that the last thing that leaves the human body is hope. Oh, what torture that can be. Hope is a double-edged sword, giving the ability to go on when everything seems lost – but also making us hold on with all our might to things that should be left alone. Moved on from.
I have a very well-developed and strong sense of hope. I do not give up. Like the tell tale badger that bites and doesn’t let go of your leg until it hears bones brake. I need to be told to stop – and even then.
Katja Malmborg 