By László Krasznahorkai, from a story included in The World Goes On, which will be published this month by New Directions. Krasznahorkai is the author of numerous novels and books of non-fiction. Translated from the Hungarian by John Batki.

He had always planned that someday he would travel to see Angel Falls, then he had planned to visit Victoria Falls, and in the end he had settled for at least Schaffhausen Falls, one day he’d go and see them, he loved waterfalls, it’s not easy to explain, he would begin, whenever he was asked what his thing was about…