And one day, when God was in a really bad mood, he did something enormously stupid.
A door that slams. It’s with that image that the memory begins. He replays the scene several times, revisits that slamming of the door, again and again, in the hope of bringing to light the detail that will trigger a new memory process. Who slams that door? Is it him? No. He witnesses the slamming of the door. So it’s someone else.
Right.
The door slams violently. Anger? Yes, the memory is becoming clearer. God is angry. It is he who slams the door. What made God angry? He can’t remember.
Right.
Proceed methodically, one question after the other. Does God slam the door when he arrives or when he leaves? This time, the answer is self-evident: when he leaves. Yes, it’s coming back to him now. The day of the slammed door was a day of separation. Life was never, ever the same after that.
Right.
Where did God go? Did he go outside, or did he enter some other place? Impossible for him to recall that. And yet he senses that it’s essential. He absolutely must know what is to be found on the other side of the door.
Right.
Approach the memory from a different angle. Him, Odin, where is he to be found at that precise moment? There again, the answer that springs up is self-evident: in the house. This thought has barely formed in his mind when he manages to associate images with it. Shards of glass on the floor. Broken mirrors. Windows blown out. The spoons were all thrown around. Even the water was cut off. Why? What had happened?
He must open the door.
He will open the door.
He opens the door.
The void.
On the other side of the door, where God went, there’s nothing but sky, as far as the eye can see. A sky with no earth. A world torn apart.
The memory ends here.
Nota bene: “Try your dears.” Who said these words and what do they mean?