a little noir

“We are so serious,” he says to me suddenly

and then I feel myself blush when he says something into my ear and I think that he is just kidding ....

“give me five minutes,” he says

“No—wait....” but I shake my head and look away as I try not to laugh —but laugh anyway and have to cover my face as I mumble, “no way.... you are crazy, I don’t know if I am emotionally stable enough to handle that right now—“

“Five minutes,” he says but now he thinks it is funny because he sees me blush, “it’s not like it’s anything new,” he laughs wickedly

“No—gosh, is this your idea of a welcome home?”

Noir/Of guides as light (Electra’s dictionary, JM muse chronicles) 9 Jun 2020

I watch the moon. it is where I find my peace….

—Electra

*****

“How old were you when you first realized that you were psychic?” Jörn asks me when he finds me staring at the moon

“I don’t think I’m psychic,” I say caught by surprise by his sudden appearance as he got another phone call and my thoughts became so still and so dark

“Well, since I have known you I have heard you say things ....and write about them too —before they happened....” he looks at me with a strange expression; as if — no, I don’t understand his look....”It seems sometimes like madness or jibberish —like you are still dreaming or lost in thought,” he says, “but then a day later it happens....” he watches my eyes as he says this as if looking for the answer  and he shudders suddenly

“Am I so creepy, Jörn?” I suddenly chuckle at him ....but, he is right. It is just not something I mention to anyone.

He still looks intently into me with his brows creased and that stare he does

“You surprise me, Jörn. You who are so logical and rational asking about this,” I say

“I went to your psychic friend didn’t I?” he asks me “why do you say it’s such a surprise? Because I’m Swedish?”

I laugh at him,
“yes.”

“We invented paganism—“ he says

“No, you didn’t,” I laugh some more, “tell that to the Druids!”

“So....?” he shrugs at me and sits beside me on the deck where I watch the moon

“It is more like .... I get visions, it isn’t like ‘all knowing of things’ although .... I feel a lot of it in here,” I take his hand and place it on my abdomen, “I can feel it— people too; I feel beneath their surface when they are in front of me physically .... how old? Always. It’s always been a part of me and I thought everyone was like this. I used to answer people’s thoughts until I realized people resent it so I learned not to keep doing that ....”

“So, your dreams about ....”

“Oh. You mean—“ but I stop to look into him and have to pull back and take his hand where it lays still against me. I take his hand but watch his eyes as I do and touch along the length of his fingers to press his fingertips against my lips and close my eyes as I recall the dream and put my forehead then into his hand and against my cheek then open my eyes. “Yes.... it was like that when I saw you the first time. The feeling connected instantly to the dream. But why do you ask me now after all this time? You never ask me things like this.”

He puts his fingers through mine as he leans against the outside wall of the house where we sit and looks up at the moon and finally says,

“just because I don’t talk about things does not mean I don’t think them. Or feel them. And these are such strange times .... duva.... those things you think about .... and write about .... maybe I should tell you that —I’m glad you do. And maybe I need that about you.”

in search of dawn

it is the silence within the darkness.

it has no name.

it is a lost memory

  when hopelessness washes across the sand and pulls the wreckage’s skeletal frame, she calls to father to an empty horizon like a reflex that grasps to a sinking ship

we bid her safe passage to that underworld —sometimes his voice says her name and recalls her to herself again and illuminates his constant presence at her side he says, “it was true and real, so hold what you remember me and know I just ran out of time but I watch over you” he shows her his own faults and asks for her forgiveness .... this is how her story is not like Persephone who took the poison seeds

she says to him:

I cannot see beyond this darkness

but sadly he only says, “that is why you’re dawn, it is up to you to find the light”

the father of thought

“mass action is the most powerful force on earth. As long as it’s within the law, it’s not wrong; if the law is wrong, change the law” — Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Anomie; (jm muse chronicles Noir) Electra’s dictionary vol.2

the atmosphere of —the world and even more especially ....amongst communities has begun to make me feel like I am suffocating.... the oppression ....I feel like I need to run and never stop, just never ever stop; such a desperate need, this feeling, to get out of here.... but I know there is nowhere to go; yet still — there is such a desperate need to run

********


it is soon after he starts the shower


“Where did you go?” I ask Jörn

“Where?”

“Where have you been?” I rephrase

but he gets a call just then

“I have to take this,” he tells me; he shuts off the shower and gives me ‘that look’ which by now I recognize to mean it is about business; his spy work.

he answers the call with a quick,

“—hold on a minute,” and a glance at me

I can hear the male voice with a hard to place accent say from his phone in English,

“I am sorry to have to call you but something has come up—“

Jörn goes downstairs and I watch him from the gallery as he walks through the house. I watch him as he goes outside, through the two story window and walk from the back patio of the house go down the path towards the farmhouse

and after he goes I decide to return to the shower

When he returns from his call, I have already by then dried off and found a simple white t-shirt to wear over a pair of drawstring yoga pants and, as I see his face now in the fading light, I can see the tension in his expression and, as well, his closed demeanor that implies he is not able to say what the call was about

so instead I decide to ask,

“how serious were you about going somewhere else?”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like I need to get out of here.”

“But you always say that after you have only been somewhere for just more than a few months.”

“I have been in New York for almost two years now ....what about Maine? I know Portland is not exactly a big city but it is like the furthest edge out of this country before the Atlantic Ocean and —still close to Canada for— whatever it is you do there ....in case Amsterdam isn’t in the cards, I mean.”

“Does this have anything to do with this?”

Jörn holds up the letter.... I realize he found in the farmhouse where I must have left it

“—this sudden need to run away .... is this why you have been acting so strange?”

And when I don’t answer he says, almost apologetically

“I didn’t know what it was— as it was not addressed to anyone and wasn’t signed. I found it in the farmhouse and ....well,  thought it was something I left, otherwise I would not have ....it is from your daughter, I assume?”

“No it —was not even addressed nor signed....” I whisper and sink down to the nearest level place to sit which.... is the foot of the staircase

I feel myself go sick inside and along with it, the weird sensation in my head

“You read it?”

“.... I just.... skimmed through it—until I realized what it was....”

“Shit....” I whisper to myself

“At least she contacted you,” Jörn says

“It was a ‘fuck-you’ letter, Jörn....” I say with resignation and defeat; “a ‘fuck-you-mom letter’....” I say plainly, “meant to coincide with Mother’s Day —poetic, right? —for added punch.... I didn’t get the mail for a week so.... I guess I dodged that poison arrow ....”

“Did you answer it?” he asks me

I cannot look at him. And look away and say more to myself,

“.... ja ....”

and slowly exhale.

As I feel his eyes on me I realize he wants to know. And I guess that surprises me, somehow,

as it is a strange thought to me

that he ....


would want to know


I look at his eyes. I try to read them for judgement

and as I do I force myself to raise up my chin as if I don’t care what he thinks.... only I do.... I care more than he could know

....if his judgement is as harsh as hers; only —I pretend not to care and that it does not matter what he thinks

I see he still waits to know

“It was not —like hers.... what I wrote.... I .... did not let myself reply ....with raw emotion ....I ....thanked her for her honesty and told her that I respected whatever her wishes were to have me or not in her life, I ....was diplomatic—“ the words rush out to sound brave but i hear my voice crack at the end and stop myself in time. I say, “maybe.... I think I have to put it behind me.... I think it’s time.... that I need to move on.... from my past....all of it....”

“She may come around—“

“It—does not seem that way to me, Jörn,” I tell him honestly, “I do know her.... and I can read between her lines. She —my daughter—holds grudges ....forever, she does not ....forgive, it is her way. I am history to her.”

“You don’t know that,” he says, “you’re her mother.”

I shake my head, and after a pause to collect myself I say,
“I can’t keep waiting for her forever.... so.... I know ....I must figure out a way ....past this....”

He shakes his head and asks, waving the letter,
“If I hadn’t found this, when were you going to tell me—? or were you?—is this why you have not let me near you?”