Night

At night things become ever so smaller, our shoes and teeth, too, and everywhere in buildings screws turn a quarter of a revolution, but even if you press your ear against the wall, the sound is rarely heard. Always there is someone who plays the gelatin piano, someone who packs his pipe with snow, and on a radio channel from somewhere in the world, where the sun is already on its way up through the mist in the horizon: a gospel choir of hoarse, nearly inaudible women.

From House Inspections by Carsten René Nielsen. Copyright © 2012 by Carsten René Nielsen and David Keplinger. Reprinted with permission of BOA Editions. All rights reserved.