The story below is from a small collection by the Danish author Peter Adolphsen called ‘Små historier 2′ – Little stories 2. The translation is very unofficial and quickly made.

Here it goes:

Equestrian Statue
- Recipe of a sculpture

For this work of art is needed an equestrian statue made of bronze, appx. 20 electro-motors with cords and operating system, one sturdy steel pipe, nuts and so on.

All joints of man and horse are cut off, the neck of the rider, his shoulders, wrists, the horse’s ears, legs, tail etc., all places where it is possible and aesthetically appropriate. An electro-motor is installed in each of the cut-off joints so that it holds together the two parts and drives the one of them round. They revolve first the one way and then the other so that the cords – that are drawn on the inside of the statue and down through a steel pipe – will not become twisted. All motors drive slowly, but each at its own pace, to the effect that the finished statue once set in motion will never repeat exactly the same posture.

As regards the technical exhibition accessories, title of the sculpture, reflections reproduced on plates and in interviews, it is up to individual taste and temperament whether one will stress the status of the equestrian statue as a symbol of power in the history of art and claim that its unnatural movement is an illustration of art’s traditional surrender to the biddings of power, whether one will claim that the partially portrayed hollowness of the statue contributes to the old debate of shell and matter, or if one will let the visual impression stand alone to form a more naked presentation.

It is also up to the individual whether the sculpture should be in constant motion or be set in motion by the audience’s turning of a switch. Note that the latter solution appeals to children.

Peter Adolphsen
(I translated this from his “Små historier 2” (Little Stories, 2), Samleren, Copenhagen, 2000

I was talking to Christina, my partner, the other night about donation of organs and other remains for the common good. Should I donate my organs? This would mean that in case of brain death, doctors would ‘terminate’ me slowly, while transferring organs to needy people. It might mean that my death would be somewhat less solemn and devoted for my loved ones. But my answer is Yes.

Should doctors also be allowed to take not only organs, but also other parts; say the cornea. Hm. Well. Yes, again. But then, should I donate all the rest of bodily remains to science. I don’t know. I really don’t know. But the question reminded me of a beautiful little story by the Danish author Peter Seeberg, The Anatomical Drawing. I tried to translate it, so here goes:

The Anatomical Drawing

When you cut me up, dear colleagues, he wrote in the accompanying letter to the declaration of donation that he had prepared for the Faculty of Medicine and the municipal hospital in Århus, then do me that posthumous favour to look after some things that I have wondered about while I was alive.

See if there above and over my heart is a darkness after a welding flame. I have often felt as though there was. It is the shame that has burnt its way into the heart, not over great crimes, but over all the minor offences that are the most humiliating of all. And it begins already in childhood. And never stops.

Yes, I may have died of shame, even though I have lived long.

See if there through my brain, from the forehead to the back, might be an indication of a ballistic trajectory of a bullet, shot at close range. I have never been hit by such, but I have feared to be hit – like my father was – and I ask you to examine if such enduring obsessions leave any trace. Why else do we live? See also if there is a constriction on my neck caused by the influence that my fear of being executed by hanging must have produced. Yes, I have always believed that there must exist offices that would not hesitate to execute me, and have good reason to do so.

See if there in the wall of my stomach or in my small intestine might be a so-called rubber band pen that I swallowed at the age of about eight in rage that I could not spell my own name. It has never come out; perhaps it was wandered off to other locations in my body, as there have been cases of.

See if my hands at the utmost moment have assembled in a friendly round shape as though they would embrace my loved one. Then it would be a sign that my body has not been ungrateful.

See in my eyes, do not search for me, but examine me with the instruments at your disposal, if there is not a small flock of people pictured in there, the ones I have not been able to forget.

When you can see no more, then I contend that I really am dead.

Take your notes, whether you can confirm or refute my suppositions, and attach them to the case.

Draw what you can, measure what you can.

But first and foremost: Whet your knives, lads, that you do not mess things up.

Translated from: Peter Seeberg, Udvalgte noveller, Gyldendal: København.

Rostrum of Fate

Speak not of
great nations and small nations
peripheries, corners of the world and fringes.

This is a ball; the middle
is under the soles of your feet
and moves itself and follows
you, no matter where you go.

Here is the land
where the continents correspond
in their search for silence and stone.

Behold the glacier
how it waddles through the skyblue
like a polar bear on its way through the world.

In the dream a gate opens
and darkness comes streaming
like tears through sleep.

Here is the land
where time comes tumbling
like a newspaper through a letter slot,
but there is no subscriber,
no room behind it
only a yawning abyss
in which the stars shine.

When we sink to the bottom
in the dark swamp of night
we pull ourselves up again by the hair.

The Milky Way
is a street in a little fishing village,

fate is a net
laying itself over the houses,
we make our toasts
with the abyss of the sea between us.

The northern lights
flame where we walk.

(Einar Már Gudmundsson)

This is a translation from the Danish of Gudmundsson’s poem as published in “Ræk mig nordlysene. Digte i udvalg”, Vindrose publishers. The original is written in Icelandic, and the Danish translation is by Erik Skyum-Nielsen. The English translation here is mine.