Love is a lottery, and the gods are laughing

“Love is a lottery, and the gods are laughing” names the fatalistic view of love that emerges in an exchange between Simon and Sissel Thou. Simon connects love to chance and powerlessness; Sissel accepts the brutality of that condition, while her return to the ordinary work of clearing up underscores the human mess left below any imagined divine laughter.

The Lottery of Love

Sissel first casts the lottery as a matter of luck, telling Simon that he is throwing his money away and that the lottery is for the lucky ones. Simon answers by asking whether she thinks they are among the lucky. Her reply shifts the conversation from personal fortune to the world they have made, linking chance to a wider sense of human disorder.

Simon then asks whether Sissel would give birth to the devil’s son if she knew she was carrying him. When she reminds him that they have had the conversation before, Simon presses her to repeat what she said. The question gives their abstract discussion of love a stark, imagined consequence: attachment may bind someone to a life or responsibility whose nature seems terrible, without making the attachment freely chosen.

Slavery, Chance, and Laughter

Sissel clarifies that Simon is speaking about her, not about Mr Thou abandoning her. Simon closes his eyes, leans back, and draws the exchange into a general proposition: people are slaves to love, and being given someone to love is itself a lottery. The language holds two ideas together—love as a powerful bond and love as an allocation beyond one’s control.

Sissel calls this condition brutal, and Simon responds that the gods laugh. Her answer does not soften his conclusion: probably they do, but someone still has to clear up the mess down here. The contrast between divine amusement and earthly labor gives the expression its bitter edge. Chance may govern whom people love, but its consequences remain with the people who must live through them.

Scene and Significance

The expression takes shape through dialogue rather than as a detached maxim. Simon’s repeated questions ask Sissel to confirm the implications of their earlier conversation, while her replies move from the world they have created to the practical work of dealing with its aftermath. The progression turns the lottery image into a compact account of love as both involuntary attachment and an unequal burden.

After Sissel leaves and her footsteps fade, Simon forwards a sound file from his computer to his mobile, goes to the Gents, enters a cubicle, and plays the recording again. The conversation is followed by a return to private listening, giving the exchange a specific place in Simon’s attention without establishing what the recording contains. The expression’s force lies in that unresolved bleakness: love is not presented as a fair choice, and the laugh attributed to the gods offers no remedy for the people left to clear up.