Vampire ScandiNoir/Smorgas: en bättre mors dag imorgon

 

“So my question to you is—why all of this? Why now? Is it the biological timeline narrowing in or—I don’t know…. Out of nowhere you pop back in when things were—“

“—when things were—what? Going so well for you?” Jörn asks me with a kind of repressed scorn I don’t quite understand 

I shake my head and squeeze shut my eyes to turn my thoughts inwards and away from his xrayeyes. 

I think about what was my life like lately before …. before —yeah, before he waltzed back in again 

“Think about that,” Jörn says 

as I realize he assumes the conversation continues — with or without and vocals unnecessary 

“To be honest, it was painful watching your life continually spin out —and don’t look at me thst way, duva—it wasn’t just me who couldn’t stand to watch, I told you about our meddling offspring who have usually been the impetus to force the hand—usually mine—and right under your nose and you never realized it,” he says all this in one breath 

And I am the one left breathless 

“Okayyyy…..” I say trying to pull out of that what I can 

“Let’s see—there was the evangelist theologist when you were twenty, then the renegade boyfriend throughout your twenties, then there was ex husband one, ex husband two who was really the rebound of the artist best friend —sorry am I forgetting someone? Oh yes, Bran—you know I am not sure who has walked more all over you….why now? Because it’s too much ….we can’t watch you do this any longer—call it intervention —a rescue mission —but the dreams we’re catching up with you again —“

“Not true! I’ve not dreamed in months!”

“You don’t remember them—and do you know why—?”

But the neurons in my head seem to —at first scramble me—until they halt me and ….pause my train of thought. 

I stop all thought. Just think. And some of what he said sinks in. 

After a long moment I look at him. I raise my eyes to his. I don’t say anything. I just look at him. 

Finally he says,

“you have no allies in that life, duva—this one, and …. No one but you holding down your own fort. Nobody defends you, no one is looking out for you, everyone just stabs you in the back including this life’s daughter—she’s your biggest traitor, they all were! And I can’t watch this as they all take advantage of your generosity and kindness as they use you—I mean, duva— if I really believed you were better off with all of us leaving you to your present life I would but none of us feel—even Andreas, and you know he is the diplomat of us—usually it’s Hanna ready to go in with twin guns firing but, do you know what this is? Even you have stopped defending yourself and you don’t even see it but—this I believe —no, I know, it’s because somewhere deep within you you cannot forgive yourself for —“

“—the curse,” I say because it does make sense 

why I never felt I deserved …. happiness 

I look at Jörn and search within the ice of kryptonite 

“It’s always been that,” Jörn whispers this as I watch the shards of ice dissolve in streams down his face and like a projection his mental images filled my mind 

If a picture can say a thousand words then whatever I saw within those shards’ depths seemed to clarify some of the elusive doubts behind Jörn’s motives. All doubts evaporated instantly 

“Where are Andreas and Hanna? I’d really like to see them,” I whisper this getting up and walking towards the window 

“They have been waiting  ….for you to remember and —to hear you say this….”

Bedankt dat je me door weer een Moederdag hebt geholpen en dat je er altijd voor me bent; ik ben werkelijk gezegend 🕊️

Past Present Perfect/More smörgås family drama history/Electra’s scandi-noir; the man with the vampire eyes

 

Jörn asks, sitting next to me,

“tell me again what you remember of that night in the hut—with Ulf—how far does it end in your memories of Elan and the dreams?”

He puts his hand upon my arm and searches my face

I realize it has great importance and because my mind has been swimming back and forth over thoughts and details I keep spinning out when we get here 

I shut my eyes and think. I think about the new details I have learned from Jörn and —I cannot deny how things he’s said seem to trigger …. a complete picture perfect memory. The sharp details of these that go with the sudden flash of a memory picture are made only more vital because of the emotions the image triggers. The sudden urge to burst into tears. So, I’ve been in no hurry to think long upon all these crashing revelations 

Truth be told, I seem to be embracing complete denial that this is real. Or not. Which ever ejects me through the safety hatch door out 

So —using that sense of detachment which, shock of events have altered me into, I go into the mental place where the memory is sharp ….

“It was cold—there was blood….I remember being chased—hiding from—that guy ….who was that guy?”

“Mama’s other brother….”

So…. I think, trying to put it all together; the blood feud—and he said Elsa is Lisa’s aunt. Was she Ulf’s or Ivar’s? Or maybe there was a sister ….? 

It is hard to keep hold of the plot when it is happening right in front of you. Being played. And a pawn. 

But I continue,

“there were heavy weapons around because ….” I look at Jörn suddenly.  Because I remember something suddenly. I remember the ones he was working on still when —this happened. They were still lying across the table by the welding pit. This memory sends a chill. As a flashing memory goes across my thoughts recalling the decision to choose one of the ones he’d not finished yet so I would not wreck something he was ready to sell 

“Thank you,” Jörn says to me

I look up at him,

“I thought you said it doesn’t work that way.”

“I lied,” he smiles that lascivious, sly grin 

I shrug. So…. at least it saves time when I’m not in the mood to talk ….

“I….used it….didnt I?” I look at him now as I put more images together as they flood my thoughts …. “Oh my god ….”

Only it is too horrific to say aloud 

Because there was more to the story of that day —maybe I never wanted to remember; and horrors that are too disturbing 

But I remember ….as her—I stare at the sky from the window now, thinking of another sky and I say,

“it changed me….I believed it cursed me—it went against the faith I’d believed in ….”  but I remember more than that. I understand more about what he said before. The blood feud that wasn’t mine to end. It must have been guilt over killing Ulf that caused the self sacrifice only there was more to it; I look up at Jörn now understanding why my memories of Elan never go past this but I say to Jörn,

“I remember coming back ….” I feel my face drain of blood as that light headed feeling hits me 

I take a moment to think. The parallel lives. The lessons. The timelines. The repeated lessons that never got learned and return to haunt through incarnations 

but Jörn never gets to die. To reincarnate 

“That isn’t precisely right,” Jörn says —correcting my thinking ….

So?

“The shifters shift between life and death,” he says simply but just as sudden as that remark is offered, he quickly drops it, “what else do you remember ….?”

“You want me to say it aloud what I already know you know I remember ….?”

He raises his pale brows patiently and looks me in the eye.

“I believed I was cursed—“

“—because?”

“When I recovered back from the dead ….we lost our first born— it was miscarried ….”

“Do you understand why you choose not to remember?”

“Because I believed all our misfortune was ….” because now I start to remember other things of after ….and after ….and more still ….

I sigh and cover my face. I take deep breaths 

Jörn whispers, reading my thoughts 

“You remember Andreas as he was then, don’t you ….his first steps and Hanna’s—arguing over what to name her that time by the surprise of that herd of deer—“

“I fell in the river—“

“It was a pond,” Jörn laughs 

It takes more moments for shocks to wash over as details seem to drown my thoughts but finally, after a deep breath, I ask,

“do they know?”

Jörn stares at me oddly before he replies,

“can you imagine anything ever getting by those two?”

I shake my head but I say,

“I mean—they don’t actually think—believe —I’m ….”

Jörn sighs,

“I was harder to convince than they were. They picked you out of a crowd before you even met them. They’ve known all along. And—I might add, have been constantly going behind my back snooping around —well, doing what kids do ….”

I laugh,

“Kids…. what are they, like 1,100 years old? And—how is that —like how do they….?” 

Is this something to do with what he was referring to in “slowing my biological timeline”—because Elsa and Josef ….

the Man With the Vampire Eyes Scandi-Noir “Bloodsucking Inteligence” /Electra’s dictionary

 

“So how exactly does this whole thing work?” I ask Jörn as I am well at the point of having exhausted the subject to be nearly desensitized of it. 

Or I am actually just over tired so the sense of horror has dulled, as it occurs to me now that vampires suddenly have become a normal pattern of my thinking process, as if it was always already there. No, not exactly. I’d almost say ‘woken up to,’ but that’s not exactly how it feels either

It is more of a sense of remoteness. Like being outside of events watching. Like a stunned bystander scratching her head and I am just an observer examining all the characters and trying to connect with …. a time line? 

“How does what work?” Jörn asks me

Even as …. I know …. we both know ….he can read my thoughts 

I’m looking up at his eyes thinking this —as I see a spark alight within the shadows of kryptonite and without moving a muscle on his face, I can see he is almost laughing at me but concealing it well even as —I see the humor in his eyes

He sighs and shrugs and then paces twice back and forth across the room with —it feels almost— like lightning speed ….he leaves trails; like traces ….when he moves —little flares of blue lights evaporate as he —as if, hydroplanes in motion 

I realize he does not mean for me to notice this. He is more distracted with the new level of himself as the-whole of himself is now exposed to me. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would think he is unsure of  ….me? Now that I know. 

Jörn suddenly looks at me sharply from where he stands by the window 

“It isn’t that I am letting my guard down,” Jörn says, proving he is still reading my thoughts and then after a pause he continues on to say, “to us it is not reading thoughts. It amazes us how loudly mortal humans scream their thoughts. ‘Shifters’ communicate with their thoughts—do you see?”

I find there’s a lot to unwrap in that last part —and the first part —and maybe all of it together as a whole as much as in pieces 

“‘Shifters’? You call yourself ‘shifters’?” as it is the only easy part I can think of where to start 

“There are so many names. But there are many variations of —it’s complicated ….just like how there are many species of animals and —many races of humans ….that may be a vague way to help you understand.”

“Like—vampires, werewolves—“

He is beside me in a flash,

“—don’t do that,” he says in such a way that it seems some repulsive aversion causes him to almost physically stop my words. 

I realize as I rewind in my head what I just said how maybe I might have caused insult

He says,

“While I can understand how the blood sucking thing came about as some characteristic, it is not exactly the defining feature or even the norm. That is more the extreme when —it’s gone rabid; but that rarely happens and only did during the black plague, so….”

But then, he stops and paces some more. He stands by the windows in a spot in between the two so that they flank him, giving him almost the look of having great wings as the sun descends orange behind him 

“Most are not able to see the ‘traces’,” he tells me with air-quotations and then after another disjointed pause he peers sidelong at me as if with a guilty expression. He looks back out the window but walks towards me as he walks like a habit from years —centuries?—of watching out for spies. He sits beside me but still is looking outside. 

He says,

“you are starting to notice details most people will never notice about us.”

His remark stuns me. I stare at his profile,

“How? From being around you? am I catching it—picking it up—is it like contagious or ?!—what?”

“No…. years ago we ….slowed your biological time line,” but he says this in such a low voice. I almost don’t hear him 

“What did you just say?” I almost choke on the words 

“There comes a point where it’s harder for the transition if ….” but here he stops and seems to leave the thought. “Did you never notice how often people have made Dorian Grey jokes to you? Remarks about —had you had any cosmetic procedures? Things like that?”

I jump to my feet and stand up and for a startled frozen moment I am like in a cartoon when the character stands frozen and its eye balls drop out in shock with its jaw dropped gaping wide. 

“‘We’?” I ask from the window with my hands on my hips, like one ready to charge into battle shooting from the holster …. but then ….I think more about what he just said about seeing more details of things about them. While mostly Jörn as it has only been —or mostly only been Jörn whom I’ve been around since all this materialized for me. 

The shock takes awhile to adjust to. So—he’s a vampire. Or not a vampire—a ‘shifter’ whatever that means 

“The bats?” I ask

Again, of all things, I grasp onto these superfluous details because the bigger thing is too insurmountable 

“I….” again a guilty smile at me, “there’s —they have a unique cellular make up in their dna that when (we extract a drop of their plasma) injected into a ‘shifted’ is able to rebuild—it stimulates the metamorphose and works as a healing agent. The ancients discovered this by accident. Hence the legendary myths came about,” Jörn shrugs simply 

“So—you mean it’s the bat’s blood you drink, not the human’s?”

Jörn shakes his head,

“neither. And we don’t kill bats. Never—“ he laughs with a sinister tone,”they are like the sacred cow to shifters. And you need to forget all the movie versions. The only thing they do have close to being credible is where it is believed to have come from—at least on this side of the planet; because that is the way knowledge of this reached our seidr —the one I said my mother went to when she told me it was to bring Elan back….it all goes back to this—I cannot tell you without going back to then— duva…. the last time it happened when you died it was on a battlefield— I was away fighting another battle and to save face and represent for me, you decided to stand in my place— it was against Lisa’s army—it was the end of the blood feud but you paid it and it wasn’t for you to pay, do you see?”

“No—Lisa? But why would your mother ….whose blood feud?”

“My mother is Lisa’s aunt—it was a blood feud with her brother Ivar and she had never revealed the nature of what that was—I never cared to know after what happened there ….”

“Ok—then, tell about how …. Redbad…. really? —and you have been slowing down my —what? Bio—logical— ? —timeline? —And when did this happen?”

“It was when —that day—Willem was sure it was you—he didn’t tell us but the day at the Wassenaar bar—“

“My rum and coke?” I blurt out as it hits me—as the memory of him that day has always been so sharp 

Jörn smiles,

“did it make you batty?”

I don’t laugh at his joke. I’m back at the Dugout that day in Wassenaar remembering my drink with a Dutchman named Redbad not Willem 

“Holy shit, wait, that makes sense—because —wasn’t he fighting against the take over of the Christians….? like fighting in battle against—like, as in —the actual Charlemagne?” I start to laugh because I’m expecting Jörn to correct me but when the odd silence hangs there, that note of truth belches loudly, “Redbad was a pagan ….” I stare at Jörn and into the bright of kryptonite and his eyes do not look away. Willem fought ….Charlemagne?

After a moment Jörn says,

“you think you got all that so far?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Would you like to hazard a guess who the pagan Viking seidr is that my mother went to to resurrect you?”

My mind goes back to something Jörn said recently. And along with it, I think suddenly again of that day at the penthouse when everyone filed out of Ethan Rhys Jones office years ago….the first time I ever laid eyes on ….

“Stina….?”

Electra’s dictionary Noir/“why can’t boys stay that sweet?”

I say to Jörn now,

“I guess it is because there is such a need to feel grounded in something remotely normal, it seems my mind wanders off to a moment I’d had the other day walking 

I was going down a side street by a school and then some houses and I was thinking of the time I’d been staying in Hyde Park before the suicide and I was walking that day past some houses. Across the street there was someone standing in front of a house watching me. He started singing. Loudly. Obviously for my benefit a line from that Crosby Stills and Nash Song ‘Guinniver’ and he was staring right at me as he sang and as I kept walking 

I was thinking this but what mostly bothered me was the line he sang because from where he stood he had to have assumed the wrong color of my eyes,” I laugh now, “why did I think this? Right—it’s years later, but it comes to me out of nowhere—but, maybe it’s God’s little joke because two seconds later I hear a group of school boys behind me talking as they’re riding their bikes and as they pass me one boy calls out to me, ‘I like your jacket!’ And you know it was so sweet, I replied ‘thank you!’ And he said, ‘of course! Have a good night!’….” I pause there just stuck on the two experiences as that had been on my mind when the boy on the bike called out to me 

I laugh and get up from the bed and brush off some stable diet I’d not noticed was on me from before but I walk to the other window to look out and I say,

“why can’t boys stay that sweet?” 

Jörn laughs and shakes his head,

“some things don’t change….” he walks to the club chair and sits down, long legs stretched out before him 

“What do you mean?” I ask sensing there is more to this but then I sigh, “it’s a lot to take in ….I mean ….Willem ….? ….not that I couldn’t imagine him —I mean, I almost feel —like I knew this already but I don’t know why because ….like you said, or as you say —it would have been before …. before ….look….” 

I walk back to the bed and sigh heavily, and throw myself to sit at the foot of the bed slightly propped by my feet as though ready to spring ….

“I guess —I’m ready —it’s time I just take the bitter pill and hear all of it—I mean, I assume you want to tell me?” I say this and only by the very end of the sentence do I dare look at him 

He slowly smiles at me. That cool vampire smile, like one hungry for the kill as his eye alight with their luminous glow 

“So—?” I shrug at him 

“You think that you are ready? Ready to know why I laughed at what you just said because I’d heard you once say the exact same thing about ….someone ….”but he stops himself and quickly turns away 

I get up fast and go over to him,

“what were you about to say?”

He shakes his head 

I watch as he looks into the far horizon 

For a moment a silence falls between us. But I am thinking about so many other things. I’m thinking about the spy games. The changing of leadership. The spy meetings. All the undercover work missions that always felt especially surreal; like out of a Marvel comic book and I never could put my finger on what that feeling had to do with. That weird underground Batman quality, like a Bruce Wayne and yet there’s that whole ….

“Count Dracula quality ….” I say this aloud not intending to as I’d meant it more for myself 

“Where do you think they got it from?” Jörn asks me provocatively, raising one blonde brow. He slowly smiles at me and then he walks towards me; I feel him reading my thoughts, “you sensed it that day when you first saw Stina, didn’t you?”

“Stina?” I say her name slowly as I watch his eyes. He stares hard into me 

“The first day you saw her—remember….? The day at the penthouse by Ethan Rhys Jones’s office door ….”

I almost feel myself black out from forgetting to breathe ….my mouth has gone dry from the shock 

But I say,

“If I am so clairvoyant then why did I never see what was going on?”

Jörn is near enough now to touch me and he reaches to caress my cheek,

“it was a blocking shield —we intentionally kept you in the dark, you did start to suspect so don’t be hard on yourself—you’re not that obtuse….”

As his words slowly dawn their meanings into me I go back to the foot of the bed to sit down 

“Are you still sure you are ready to know all of it?”

For awhile I stare at the floor not really knowing what his question means anymore but I nod absently. I say things like,

“Stina ….?” And just stare from the floor to him and then, “Marcus?” and yet I am missing something else aren’t I?

“Wait wait wait wait ….” I stand up and pace the width of the room several time in almost a kind of winding up rage ….

I stop dead in my tracks and look at Jörn sitting there now as he is sat at the foot of the bed looking at me 

I point a finger at him 

“Lisa!”

I am actually angry! 

“And —aaahhhhh—you got there!” 

As if he expected this. Do I have to stop and rewind my thoughts ….he knew Willem from —before—we now have established; the family all in on the facade ….but—the time at Adelsö where I recall Josef and Elsa at the Folkmoot but I had recently recalled there was also Andreas and Hanna there ….

“Yes,” Jörn replies to my thoughts “you are remembering more, aren’t you?”

I just stare and for a moment go blank but then I say, 

“if you were with Elan all those years—the day in Adelsö ….that was later —then you had to have been with Lisa and Elan so you cheated!”

Jörn laughs at me— it is a good and long laugh; that kind of satisfying and long witheld glee that is finally let out 

When he us finally done he asks,

“have you ever seen Lisa ever seem even slightly interested in me? And vice versa? In fact, can you ever imagine such a scenario ever taking place?”

“Your mother seemed quite sold on the Union if I recall,” I remind him 

But this just makes Jörn laugh harder. It is a long while before he seems able to collect himself well enough to ask,

“do you’ve worked out Lisa is from our time?”

“Clearly,” I say with both sarcasm and indignation 

“To be clear; we grew up together but I’m sure you’ve heard of the existence of female Vikings?” 

I look at him in the eye waiting to see the absolute truth once and for all 

“We only did the nasty once when we were about fifteen centuries ago and mana has never let go the fantasy of us as a couple but, that ship sailed a millennia ago,” he says this in such a final manner that I find it hard to argue especially as I have seen them together. And truth be told— yeah, I can see her as a Viking and it’s no stretch 

I rub my hands over my face as I put the facts together in my head knowing I’m missing something and when it does hit I finally sigh and shrug looking up into the dazzle of kryotonite as I ask with blank curiousity

“then whose ….?”

“Couldn’t you guess?”

It is like the hand on the clock slows and rewinds again ….

“why can’t boys stay that sweet?” I say again and know now why …. Jörn laughed 

I feel that weird lightheaded feel as the blood drains from my face and head and say in a whisper,

“they’re mine.”

Electra’s dictionary noir/when is red bad?

“Also, is the present concern about your sister ….” Jörn paces the width of the room wearing a posture of tension that —outside of myself, alerts me

He looks at me,

“you do realize this too, do you not?”

I quiet the rage 

I turn my gaze to the first window nearest my scope to …. 

nothing comes in …. do you …. ? Celf…. 

     and watch the walls with inner vision as the bullet proof walls come down over the standing walls. Armored. Bolted. Nothing comes in 

armored …..I feel nothing 

I look at Jörn knowing he is about to let loose the arrows and wait for them to hit 

because I can’t feel —I don’t feel ….not here—nothing goes out ….

I look at Jörn dead on,

“so have your genius master mind shark tank come up with why she is targeting me yet again? I’d love the intel ….”

I pretend I don’t care. 

And maybe I don’t anymore —I mean….about anything ….how can I get hurt if I truly don’t care? It occurs to me that it’s possible that without knowing this, ha, I’m numb with the scar skin of war and endless battle. Tough. Tough skin. I don’t mean it—it just happened by itself ….

He shrugs,

“It’s not deep—she’s not exactly complex,” he chuckles and shoots me a casual glance with kryptonite but says, “as Willem puts it, ‘it’s the narcissist same old tune, how boring’ ….”

Jörn sighs and walks back to the window after pausing to study me (I’m laying across the bed and looking at him upside down)

I actually feel bored. Suffocated. And sick of it all 

I sit up,

“is there some note I should pin to my calendar over this? Because I’d rather go back to ….Willem—“

“You don’t care that she is after something?”

“It won’t work, and no I am too wiped out on this incarnation’s life to care anymore about anything —so….how exactly is Willem involved in —you know…..”

Jörn crosses his arms over his chest,

he paces in deep contemplation as if weighing out conflicting thoughts,

“You met him—Elan….he was then involved in ….well; we knew him from Le Havre; he’d port there …. but he had a past neither of us then knew about….” Jörn comes to sit beside me and looks down into my eyes studying me. I am as if frozen now; stunned …. I wait holding my breath ….He brushes a long strand of hair aside that has fallen across my face and cups my face within his hand and stares …. “you have the same eyes—the same face and expressions ….he saw it first, actually….” Jörn stands up and walks back to the other side of the room, he goes to the other window and sighs, then as though now decisive, he suddenly says, 

“ever hear of Redbad?”

Electra’s dictionary noir/acceptance

“So my meeting Willem in The Hague ….” 

it has been a few days since I have let the matter come up again ….it has been days lost in thought….days like wandering in a mental fugue ….days where time seems to have gone through warp lapses and then I do not even know how long I have been wherever I am at that moment lost in so many layers of thinking and thoughts spiraling within and upon myself that this becomes heavily physically exhausting to manage ….

but there is no escape so ….

I find Jörn in the stable. I’d forgotten about Choklad with so many things that have happened —and continue to happen 

So approaching Jörn here with my attempt at some question I struggle with 

I look at Jörn with the horse and —there it is….! Another memory ….triggered by how Jörn lets Choklad nuzzle his wrist —I know this! I’ve seen him do this ….but now these thoughts are always happening ….memories of Elan’s imposed into mine like a fresh morning wake up to day, to lay like indelible ink into my mind….becoming like canon to my residual Celf image because it links to so many lost neurons of memory that explain ….my gaps, like pressing your fingers back into gloves that have long formed to you 

He still looks like a Viking. Even in his twenty-first century clothes. He stands the same way as he did on a battlefield, the same set of those broad shoulders that could sweep a six foot gash through his enemy and yet, he seems just as at ease with modern technology and that is impressive considering how it is hard to get some older people tech savvy 

Why do I think this now as he stares at me with those vampire eyes; their weird iridescent ice blue that reflects oddly off of light around him, always giving the impression that they twinkle with some magic sparkle 

I do not think of last night. I do not think of his hands on me ….as only now do I remember it…. it seemed like a dream but then, doesn’t it always….without warning I shudder recalling his touch ….

I let my eyes reach his again now. 

But he is grinning at me. 

That grin ….I feel my face burn into flames realizing where my thoughts had just wandered as I remind myself he can read them 

I cannot look at his eyes now

He says,

“when you met Willem in the bar—wasn’t it Wassenaar? Yes, we already suspected we’d found Elan—he was already sure.”

“So you mean he’s ….?”