By Alexander Kluge, from a manuscript in progress. Kluge is a filmmaker and a writer. A collection of short stories, Drilling Through Hard Boards, will be published next month by Seagull Books. The cycle below was inspired in part by lines from the work of Ben Lerner, the poetry editor of Harper’s Magazine. Translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole.

i

A little-known fact: the bow of the Titanic sank into the icy water so quickly that for a long while a pocket of air survived in the salon. In it (that is,…