****
I guess, at this time it is necessary to elaborate more in detail things I have only touched upon
—if we are ever to reach Paradiso (or do I mean Valhalla?—with Jörn as guide?)
******
the morning after....
I wake up hungry and go to the kitchen and start to make something for breakfast ....he has gone for his run .... in front of the stove, I find I get lost in thought and ....need to write
because as I think about Jörn and his more lucid and sensitive moments of .... what is that? Reflection? I was going to say emotions, but is it that....? as I struggle to pinpoint if I’ve observed .... any there but.... there have been moments —like .... well.... I have seen those glimpses about him, especially engrossed in his music, or when I know he remembers and thinks about those memories that we both share.... the dreams from what I have come to accept as real; from an actual real life.... dare I say it here? and all that too about Jörn— I know he feels there is something to it there
And even related to present life, how when something is going on —I have seen he avoids it
as I am aware he does feel deeply because— I have seen the hints of it behind his eyes.... those hints of something quite deep and intense— but he will not express this, I know I have seen it pass across his features and I have felt it from him—but something seems to always stop him from letting it; from fully feeling it.... and I think something keeps him from letting himself
it is the intensity. Only I do not believe it is as simple as ‘fear’
..... I saw it that night; it was before he left for Sweden back in September—it was that night when he found me.... outside .... the night after the zoom call with Paulina, when I found I’d faced some demons from out of the closet .... and I saw something there in his face when he found me on the ground; it was there on his face—like a window shade drawn down showing almost another face— a moment there it was; across his features, a white fear; a glimpse of worry—and I saw .... was it that he thought.... ? he had found me with the pocket knife.... and then I moved and —then it was gone; it just quickly evaporated from his face; like the shade quickly shot up.... but right before it went I saw it there clearly— I think maybe it was terror, you see, because he could not find words after as he looked at me to even express what I could see had been there just a moment before in his eyes....
those deeper emotions which I am certain are there but that he steers clear of. Each time I have ever asked what he feels, he refers to his music .... is that his legend? the keys.... his own keys to everything ....?
and so I have to wonder about the dreams ....with their terrors —like the music to his opera which he has mentioned before; like the battles that he has referenced.... like those shadows I have watched on the wall as he plays out scenes of a life and its purpose to compose it which seems to mean more than to share it or have it performed .... are the smeden’s swords there too in his music, I wonder?—the endless nights by the forge? ....maybe they are there too in his music.... like the beach and the stars; the moon.... and running into the waves —to drown ....the beach and the midnight sun .... it is all in his music, isn’t it? have I not heard it? I recognize it all, I realize
and even the last memory in the hut .... with the hides turning red with blood .... as I have also known and felt ....going cold and looking up and seeing, watching me, those vampire eyes
It cannot be that it is just to dream of —not just to haunt a soul. It must mean something more than —just this
and his music— to him, it must mean more, the musical keys more than just keys to music— because, I think, they are more like actual keys
these things in every day life
we walk by
we ignore them
don’t we laugh at strange coincidences?
No, instead it is easier to believe what society ingrains, isn’t it? Empty material concerns which in the end mean nothing at all and .....we are all required to be part of a machine and for whose benefit? an assigned role to live a life which blinds too many to live such empty lives. So why is the world so dissatisfied? Is anyone really alive?
So long ago when I first began to have the dreams —when I was going to see Dr. Rothschild. I told her about them and —she believed me. That is why she regressed me. Did hypnosis which, she told me at the time, was frowned down upon by her profession but— as she was soon retiring to write a book on her works, she felt daring to break some rules. And.... I know, to also document
I get a chill now and half consider calling Gerald to talk.... because ..... as I write these thoughts into my phone .... it feels like something necessary is surfacing
but I find myself locked in a kind of wonder .... as if on the edge of some kind of epiphany
—if Jörn has been my Virgil, maybe it is no accident then .....is it possible too, then —that maybe I am —his— Beatrice.... ?
to take some journey back to .... his battlefields .... and face emotions
and maybe the music is a kind of ‘bridge’ —his own need to integrate something because
as he seems not have access to something .... that keeps him from experiencing — but the opera ....it haunts him like a tug-of-war that keeps that hold on him and pulls him back and I see how it refuses to let him go
So now I think.... as I know I search and struggle to understand life and meaning; especially now in this nightmare of times of what feels too much in this present life as apocalyptic times.
So ..... I guess I find I wonder.... dictionary..... what if to each other we are both guides?
who found each other for this purpose; both artists who are a bit ill equipped with expressing in the ordinary ways but to each other somehow find ways to communicate; like pictures in the sand ....and it occurs to me, as it so often has, that he understands me better than ....anyone I have ever known
My mind goes back to that day before he left—what he had asked me that day....what was it he said?....I forget his exact words something like “How was it that I beat the odds of the statistics?”
because I had once told him what Dr. Rothschild has said (no, that was not really her name, I chose this name for a decoy to conceal who she really was as her family was also of another well known dynasty —in this country—so, for purposes here, this name characterizes and safely serves to deflect who she really was; as woven in, much of what I write is actually true)
when she had called me a “trailblazer mapping my own course in uncharted territory when no one else known ever had....” because around the time I went to see her there had been no known documented cases of someone who had survived to adulthood —
I mean....so again, I say this: I guess at this time it is necessary to elaborate more in detail of things I have only touched upon....
It was because, you see, I had not succumbed to the statistics — those peer reviewed, documented and charted cases of those who, to put it bluntly: beginning at an early age, those who were victims of physical and sexual abuse on a regular basis and which, oddly enough, always seemed to be the prologue to later experiences in young adult life of violence and rape, lending a checkerboard pattern of calamities throughout their short lifespan. In effect, what would tend to follow was a life of drug addictions leading to overdose, or experiences of assault or their own intended suicide. As two other ....such persons.... I have known in my family whom —I have made reference to here....
****
I am sill in the kitchen when he returns from his morning run.
he intrepidly walks over to me and tries to be somewhat playful, not knowing how to act after last night— which, he may not realize, be that as it may, after a month of dormancy, has left me sore— and more in his favor
but still he says,
“your flaming ginger roots are growing in,” as he tries to make light conversation, “they make it look like your scalp is on fire—have you decided to stop making it that dark burgundy?”
I am not sure whether to laugh or to be offended,
“I just haven’t been in the mood for the whole henna process.... Jörn, I’m not mad at you....” I say looking up at him, “you don’t have to act like you need to walk on egg shells....”
“No.... but I think .... I understand.... what you have been trying to say....” which does surprise me. He moves nearer to me where I am mixing a pot of porridge; today it is whole grain wheat and the warm aroma fills the kitchen. He takes a lingering reflective moment to play with my hair roots, “I don’t understand why you go through the trouble to cover it, some people would kill to have this color naturally.”
“It’s almost blonde now. I don’t see myself as a blonde. But, the effort to bother lately doesn’t feel worth it—“
“No, it’s definitely still red— it’s flaming!” he teasingly objects
“—so what exactly do you understand? —what Jörn? I mean, since now you have mentioned it....?”
“You think I come and go as I please ....with no concern for you.”
“It was a month with hardly a phone call, who knows what you get up to back in Sweden with your ex there among others....”
“My ex? Duva, I wasn’t just in Sweden, I was actually on the move quite a lot, and that is why I did not have a lot of time to ....call. I’m sorry. My work gets in the way of things like this. Probably why, before we met, I had not been in any meaningful relationship for a long time.... But, listen, there is something else you should know—“ he pauses an instant to meet my eyes, “I guess you won’t be shocked to know this because of Gerald— I was being followed by—a certain demon of —your—past....”
If I was not sure whom, his tone is enough to fill in as it does not take me long to deduce
“Nevik Retnuh....?” it comes out in a rushed whisper as I shudder and stare back into his eyes
And his eyes squint a bit in reply as answer and indicates the affirmative with the slightest nod of his head and then he reaches for me as I seem to suddenly lose my balance and stumble,
imperceptibly, his touch is unobtrusively —affectionate; he grasps hold of my elbow to steady me
“Why do you think he was following —you?” I ask
“Well because.... of a certain set of things I am now again in possession of ....”
“The safe! And the table?”
He hardly moves a muscle as he looks directly into my eyes; their vampire heat seems to dance there, deep within the platinum blue with some mad and wild flame
The dizziness of fear rushes through me and I reach for the feel of the stove to right myself to gravity

1 comment:
Wonderfully written!
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