Elvis Bego
1. THE DISPATCHLast Things
Tilney’s village is a cone of houses, a single spiraling street numbered up to 137, his own being number 39 close to the base of the hill.
This year Tilney begins to forget much of what he once knew. This year his parents died within a week of one another, his wife three weeks after that. Their girl lasted longer, suffered less, but withered all the same. The funeral was brief, mourners few. Now there was no one left to bury.
Out in the yard Tilney pries two warm eggs from the coop, frightens the hen with his cough, pets the bird, Forgive me, he says. Yes, forgive me. He tries to meet her eyes, but fails. He leaves the eggs in the basket at the stall in front of the house, goes in to change his clothes, walks out, takes the eggs and drops some coins in the pewter dish. He comes to number 16 with its old stove, because power has long been out, and here he makes a fire, glugs oil from the container into the battered pan, fries the eggs, and sits down to write a brief note to Ana Majska and seals it in an envelope which he drops into the mailbox three doors down.
He goes back up the street past the silent little school at number 81, and goes into Axel the mason’s shop at 83 and cuts a rough headstone. He tries to make it thin enough to carry.
At number 95 he leaves the stone, puts on the mailman’s uniform and clutches the jangle of keys, walks back to the mailbox where he finds the letter he’d written and addressed to Ana who used to live at number 137 with her blind grandparents, just below the church that sits atop the hill. He delivers the letter at 137 where of course he knows it won’t be read, but at least it will be delivered.
He turns up the avenue of scentless lindens, lindens that did not flower this year, and enters the church where he tolls the bell for 5 p.m. though he never even attended church before all this happened. In the sacristy he finds the shovel, shuffles into the churchyard and finishes the latest, somewhat shallow trench.
Back at his house, he washes himself with a rag he dips in the bucket of water he’d dragged from his well, his pride. He changes into clean clothes, finds a felt-tip pen, sweeps the dead leaves into a pile, strews the dregs of the last bag of feed, leaves the coop gate open, clambers back up the now darkened street to the churchyard, having first faintly inscribed and picked up the stone at number 95, gropes in the dark till he finds where he needs to be, alights in the hole, lies down with the stone by his side, and waits for his turn.
There is no sound, not a bat in the eaves, not a dog in the night, not a child’s scream at play. There will be no one to even know what is no longer here.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYLaptop.
Coffee. Milk content decreases as the morning progresses.
Notebook and pen. I have no system. Always two or three notebooks going at any time, and each a mix of journal entries, images, phrases, story ideas, drawings, floor plans, all in a hand that even I can barely read.
Screen glasses. I fell off my bike and landed on my face in March 2019 and for about two years had concussion symptoms, which made screen-time a pain. Glasses have helped a lot.
There is always a book near at hand, usually an art book. I procrastinate. Today, as I happen to be at home––posing with hand on cheek like some countess painted by Ingres––there are three on the desk, all on Dutch artists: Jan van Goyen, Willem Drost, and one on Vermeer and the Delft School. But since getting a kid a year ago, I tend to go out to write when I can, to a quiet old reading room in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
Headphones. I like to listen to music when I write. Usually keyboard stuff by Bach, Scarlatti, Schubert, and the like. So that’s the nice answer. Too often I end up in some dumb YouTube wormhole and writing doesn’t happen.
3. BIOGRAPHYBorn in Bosnia, Elvis Bego fled the war there at age twelve, and now lives in Copenhagen. His work has appeared in Agni, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Tin House, trampset, and elsewhere. You can find him ranting on Twitter @CitizenBego and framing on Instagram @elvisbego.