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 ….?”

Cold springless chill noir

I cannot escape this coldness. And even still, I have become such a stranger to myself, and stranger becomes the events one is forced to know is going on out there 

I am a stranger to myself now.

I wish it were not so but it is beyond my ability to understand how even colors have lost their luster and perhaps it is a numbness 

Who wants to live forever …? like that Freddie Mercury haunting line from “Highlander”

The Vampire soul ….the immortal soul ….if our lifetimes are to purify through our experiences then ….? (the level of tedious and excruciating fails) (…there is so much behind this question that I cannot begin to try and attempt which direction I would take it; which is correct? but none; which is most necessary? all; which to start?—it’s beyond start, dear….)and then there is how our choices steer our courses  

Why has the world grown so cold ….? and I am glad to be deep in these derelict mountains because —if you looked at the earth from the moon as those pictures the astronauts just came back with ….don't you feel it?

Vikings crossing blindly across a sea in a wooden boat, humans in a tin can fly to the dark side of the moon 

I have lived so many lifetimes in this one ….why do I dream of Viking? There were others 

but I guess it seems the unfinished stories or the ones that mattered are the ones you are meant to learn from and I don’t like leaving work unfinished 

I guess then, as I can’t just walk away, Jörn has some importance I have need of 

Clearly, someone has gotten hold of that DeLorean 

—as there is no other explanation for how wildly amuck

 this time line is spinning 

Hvað hefur komið fyrir þig?

Ertu þar?

hefurðu verið?

nokkurn tímann verið?

 

The Big Reveal begins/Electra’s dictionary my vampire lord

I suppose I must have finally passed out from the schnapps ….

“….but there is so much more than you remember ….” Jörn is saying 

it seems he has been talking ….even as I was not conscious….but he speaks to me as if I am….for how long has he been speaking to me thus….

I am sprawled across the giant bed in the giant master bedroom that I know well, as have shared with him ….

like a life time ago

And as I think this I hear him say,

“so many life times that ….you could never understand ….how even centuries and new eras sweep into decades and centuries ….people die and you learn not to attach ….but still you would think ….the memories would have faded to nothing ….replaced by newer—fresher—more dna upgraded ….humans….you’d think your beauty would have faded from my memory ….?without a photo to hold onto ….replaced by some supermodel along the way ….is that what you thought….Elan ….” he whispers this 

It is dim darkness. Our eyes look at each other 

and I don’t really know if it is the left over of being drunk ….but I am held as if out of myself but fully present 

and my questions are in unison of things I can’t fully grasp but think anyway and —intensely ….feel 

I turn my head on the mattress to look at him 

He is standing with his arms crossed, half his body turned to the window but his torso snd shoulders are turned inward towards me 

“You don’t remember ….” he says to me 

I hold my breath 

“You only remember up until the night when you died in the hut ….”

And more still— I hardly dare take a breath 

He is staring at me,

“but that wasn't the time I was ….too late….”

That sick taste and my mouth goes dry. That cold heat. That knowing dread.

“No,” I whisper and shudder as a deep chill overcomes me as I start to whisper,  

“Jag är tillbaka före midnattssolen,” the words seem to come on their own; as if it is their free will possessing my vocal chords

“Ja….Jag är tillbaka före midnattssolen…. you were saying that on the field the second time you died—the final time—“

“Second time?” 

“Ja—yes….another signal to me that it was you….you died and came back—when I got there—you see….and but—you see?—that was it—how I knew—you see?— how I knew it had to be you —that you are Elan—because it was the same date of the same year of your life at the other —lifetime….there was another father you don’t remember—the Druid was not your blood father….you knew that ….I mention this now because you are still being haunted — this is where the father complexities came from—but watching you still fighting like Don Quixote’s windmills, completely blind and I cannot keep standing like a bystander and say nothing anymore ….”

I sit up,

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember him ….you used to talk about him to me ….he was from the keltoi line, the real Celts, not the ornamental posers you see strutting at comic con ….he was from the Germanic tribes from across the Alps but….he became a mercenary ….that is how he found your mother —Elan’s ….she was from the raids ….I believe some kind of Siberian tribe, she was a seer, she was trained in the arts of healing and she had natural skill —like you do…. but he seemed to care for your mother and she had good stories of the early years but—you always felt he wished you’d been born a boy so —you never felt you measured up enough ….that is why ….you always find yourself in ….”

But I finish his sentence 

“The Self fulfilling prophecy ….complex ….”

Fyrsti vordagurinn og við höfum snjóstorm. gleðilegt vor

More family smörgås/My VampireLord chronicles

Amidst all the smörgass family dark matter, 

….i should admit now, i have certain strange quirks —and like the puzzle of the chicken or the egg—

   So I sink down in my chair as the Swedish is flung around the Folkmoot and 

to thus explain —among the laundry list of my dsmv cataloguing of personality registered flagged red my more amusing side kicks is OCD —but mine is its own peculiar category as it stems partial —here is the debate —from my mother ….or is it actually trait dna inherited? Well, anyway —

It’s an artist thing. A kind of discomfort —aesthetics ….it is like rubbing a cat the wrong way so— I get actual headaches if the color balance in a room is off—to begin with the freakishness of my oddity ….then the balance of things as objects around me—it will put me on edge if I find it extremely off; some inner optic scope in my odd little brain; sensory nerves or whatever it is —but it’s right at the inner eye spot that I feel tingle, so call it whatever you like; a side effect of being psychic maybe. 

So I sit there in the schnapps staring out the window as the Vikings surround me finding myself now mostly annoyed that the entire color scheme in the room is completely off 

So what do I do? 

Are they singing a Viking folk song now? 

I don’t know— but I get up and go straight over to the off putting wrong color —it’s that awful color of borscht —a horrid purple pink like vomit medicine —and sweep!!! off it goes!!! as I head straight for the kitchen trash bin to end it ….put it out of its misery…..

Suddenly it occurs to me the singing has stopped 

then whispers in Swedish ….then a loud stage whisper is spoken (in English for my benefit?),

“she’s had a lot of schnapps Elsa —dear—he-he….and you still owe her quite a lot of apologies if you want to go back a life time?”

Yuck…..

     I’ve shoved it in the leek soup’s remains in the garbage—what a hideous scarf!!! It occurs to me now though—only now….that I am drunk. It was a dream up until this point. Please understand. 

No really, I did her a favor….it was a hideous scarf 

La buée sur la vitre

 

Il y a cette peur si triste que tu ne m'aies peut-être jamais vu

Je crains que, peut-être, tu n'aies jamais regardé dans ma direction, pas du tout

Et cela me semble triste.

Peut-être sera-t-il encore possible, un jour, d'être véritablement vu par toi.

Parce que je t'ai toujours vu.

Et cela ne m'a toujours pas fait peur.

Seulement, je pense mériter un regard bien plus long cette fois-ci.

keys, legends & rings….come with me if you dare to

that doorway through….

whisper out past the apocalyptic emptiness

as I gaze into the scrying pool these letters like …. like magic suddenly appear ….

c s lewis d m lewis …. 

I find my way 

a short aside/Electra’s dictionary

“I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time”*

It’s as though Lois Lane has been writing my blog, I think now as I am being drawn to the dining room table ….not realizing everyone else has joined us; there is Elsa at the other head of the table and there is Hanna and Andres…. as I think back to a moment years ago at Gerald’s by the Met, one of the times when he regressed me ….things from that memory—the family gathering I remember things I shared with Gerald from that; so many deeply personal things about myself with him over the years and about Jörn —and again think about Gerald and why hasn’t he replied to my texts…. and I feel like such a blind idiot for not seeing what was always right in front of me

But sit down near Josef who sits at the head, like at the Fölkmoot as Jörn flanks my right and even this feels familiar but still

caught between plains of time….

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=NtBwVWWa3Ss&si=rBNYiRzV_VxLP5Xt

….how funny, it seems, despite being the author of my own story in blog— I am the last to know the hero of the story is a vampire 

when it is clear that everybody else in my story has known all along 

*3 Doors Down, “Kryptonite”

Electra’s dictionary vampire noir/at the hall of baldr

 

I am caught between two duel realities of consciousnesses 

At first I don’t know what’s happened 

I hear things from memory in my mind’s hearing— I hear the words said 

“But what is the anger defending????!!!!”

The phrase holds me like some kind of spell ….or riddle….? it plays a game with my defenses ….it challenges my very ….grip on ….survival …..

Only ….it was not just his ….

     Kiss

….his kiss….it seems almost it is a kind of extra sense….they have. But it is connected to something very human—more so even. It is not ….I sense ….something he can always control; it is easily able to be compromised to react if —stirred ….deeply enough ….by something ….or someone ….and I cannot get a moment to fully process these thoughts well enough but …. I am also having a kind of astral body experience —but almost inverted—I feel as more connected to some inner meaning …. I feel more whole within ….it wasn’t just his kiss, per se, it was the infusion of something real that he felt inside himself ….something directed at me that ….he could not control —and the strange intensity on the frequency in which he exists on —it is as though struck like a tuning fork ….the vibrations ….through my brain waves ….struck ….like that and ….

as though utterly awoken 

And the strange reaction of feeling reconnected  to the whole of myself ….

Again as he kisses me, in that moment of the meshing of lives like pieces of a puzzle completing a picture 

….I hear again “but what is the anger defending?!!!!”

The “reason” steps out of me like a shadow sliced off to sit like Rodin’s ‘Thinker’

I am at once back in his arms and the scent of the hides fill my head….all this just as he kisses me….I feel it all, the memories we shared; our world; our comedy; our….pictures in the sand ….I ….do not just remember ….I feel it….I feel again that night under the stars ….I recall ….it was the first time….I drew a circle around us in the sand under the full moon, I spoke the incantation—it was beautiful ….that night under the stars….the stars….the stars ….? I ….drew a circle ….

I drew a circle ….and slowly as he kisses me there

 before the frosty backdrop from a window view of a frozen land ….

I recall that I drew a circle around us under a full moon ….

This sudden memory occurs as I grip onto Jörn’s neck, I twist my fingers in his long hair caught in a leather tie….as his mind forces me to see more and all of it 

“But what is the anger defending?!!!!”

Again and again I hear these words 

And this time when Jörn asks, his mouth neatly completing his oral ownership of my mouth with a regretful ending peck,

“what is the anger defending?”

I understand 

      I understand ….like that rusty toolbox. It has just a hammer and a wrench you can’t spin the dial of but there it is—to swing it at the blind unknown 

      caught

in the treadmill ….and lost in a maze ….where they keep changing the hedges —so, finding the pattern is just a way to distract the Celf ….but it isn’t their maze it is Celf created which often has been the silly riddle which tricked the super consciousness ….

It is a moment that is quick but also an eternity is spent in the mental scapes he said into my brain with his Dracula powers, there was no argument within me to object to why and how we we all standing there….. there was just the sudden awakening to the miraculousness of ….seeing the man with the vampire eyes from my haunting dreams again —and awaking to what was behind those doors within me kept locked in darkness 

Only it was dreaded pain —loss of life and horror 

What is the anger defending ….

“Do you know how hard it was knowing what happened to you with that evil man your mother was married to and be forced to just watch from the sidelines?”

The words hit like tiny splinters

Then he says,

“Retnuh Nivek back in that college dorm his hands on your throat torturing you, raping you and you think I believe you when you say you never think of those things? Who was there for you? Who comforted you—even after your rape, you never even went to anyone to say what happened ….how did you function after dying ….after having your hands broken from fighting for your life just to breathe? How can you tell me you never think about that? There has been no one to comfort or protect you, so you always had to—defend your fortress…where all the crumbs lead….Why you can’t breathe sometimes—how your second husband only exaggerated your fears of falling asleep ….afraid he’d attack you in your sleep ….you think I don’t know how the nightmares haunt you still….? You know I read all your files Dr. Rothschild had on you, all her notes….I have copies of everything and have had for years; I studied their conclusions and how everything fit with ….the past….the past past….even as you have the family drama which caused some but the recurring themes are ….uncanny —they call it hyper vigilance ….and who could blame you for what we have seen, duva….but maybe —perhaps, it is time —yes? to set down that shield and armor and sit at the Viking table and drink to our fellow demons in the hall of Baldr?”

Til að hleypa ljósinu inn verður þú að auðmýkja þig….before the grace of God go I 

Scandi Noir Vampire eyes (jmmuse chron)

I sit there with the schnapps looking out into the wintry forest and I 

    …. I think about the power of words 

   those things you tell yourself ….those things people say to you 

those words that haunt and repeat and I wonder over the effect of 

    saying much much less 

say less ….don’t say, don’t ever say too much out in the world as I worry about words — ones that hurt me 

so many words have hurt me so much and I find I prefer to let it go, I feel ready to give up this martyr haircoat, I’m ready to be free 

How Josef smoothed my mind before ….it did something to me within ….that place I forgot so long ago ….and so as I look out into the cold frozen Adirondack mountains it occurs to me about eternity and what it means as timelines 

My mother always used to say, “I have been here before,” whenever we visited Paris and the first time she ever saw it. She seemed to know streets and carried the way when we explored down them knowing already where they’d lead to. It is interesting how they say the “connection to the other realm” sense runs in families and usually mother to daughter the trait is passed. This is true in our family line among certain females usually the youngest daughter gets it but it shouldn’t surprise me that someone like me would finally find her soul mate only to find he is a vampire 

I can laugh about it now; isn’t that something? Maybe this means I am recovering from the shock …. I mean, all this time he has been a vampire —why should this change my opinion of him? I’m not that narrow minded. It was just the shock….you know—so weird, I just went into hyper vigilance mode; my go to reaction….but I’ve been already so close to him, it would be almost prejudice to not try and see his side 

I know that. Of course. It is just that it is unfair he never bothered to try harder to show me his real and true honest self 

that is what hurts because I never let people in but the little he got of me was more than anyone else got so —I really think I deserved more in return for sharing an honesty of self ….I feel so cheated ….and this is why I still struggle with looking at him ….facing him …. Like it was all such a lie and I feel played —and I resent that but no—I cannot say! —even though my emotions matter too, don’t they?

It is now that I hear the nearby chair bumped and look up expecting Josef —only it is Jörn 

It is a moment I am caught off guard when I see him— it is the frozen white of the mountains covered in snow; it is the way he is looking st me; it is the way he he stands there ….like a golden god in the moonlight, his Nordic raw boned face and those vampire blue eyes like kryptonite that can burn indelibly right through your soul….it was the dye of thst blue ….the woad ….mixed with indigo ….just right if done on the full moon with a goat’s urine….snd why do I remember that….? The dye came from his trades ….

I touch his shirt—the Lycra sticks to my hands as I stand up and face him and ….i am just caught up in him, lost in his eyes that are that otherworldly shade of unearthly glowing blue in the moonlight 

As I hold up my walls I feel him reach inside my thoughts….he is showing me ….some of the parts I lost ….

For a strange moment it is as if I am balanced between two realities …. a real kind of Einstein-Rosen bridge—I am almost suspended and hover over the precipice between all that is ‘normal’ and ….whatever this is; knowing a world of something considered supernatural; vampires —and they just blend among normal people all the time without people knowing it ….?

Without me knowing it….

But really? Really! I mean…. I had to know all the time, didn’t I— I remember thinking “he’s either Jack the Ripper or a vampire….”

Jörn suddenly laughs at me 

He laughs in that way that works like weird pagan magic and this time when he bends down to kiss me, I don’t stop him, because this time it is with all of my soul in that hut in his arms again—it is him, he did come back for me ….

Epocs & Schnapps lapse

….And maybe it is the schnapps

but I find myself thinking about someone from my early childhood….Annie  —and maybe it is this way on a much larger scale for all of them

                                                    like going down an Einstein-Rosen bridge through time

but as I sit there I am not thinking about vampires or what is even happening presently…. no I am somewhere else thinking about many years ago like a life time ago as a little girl and time is so strange 

People say Florida is not really the South as it’s all owned by the Yanks but considering one hundred years is just twenty years more than a lifespan. How much closer it brings the American Civil War into a present reality. Because the locals before the Yanks arrived had their roots already there and these were the ones New Yorker’s kids went to school with and were taught by; these were the locals who got hired as “maids” and “gardeners”. And who were these people and where did they learn all that from 

So….sitting there looking out the window watching for deer or coyote my thoughts drift to Annie and maybe it is the schnapps ….but inwardly I start to cry— only one tear escapes as I keep my eyes set upon the dense forest…. Why do I think of her, from a life time —it feels—ago. When it feels I’ve lived so many lifetimes in this one 

She was the one I would see first after school. She was the one who asked how school was. The one who always gave me the best advice and the one who saw the family charade for what it was but never uttered a word on it. And always I was called “Miss” by her before my name and she spoke with a very thick southern twang, the kind with the long drawn out drawl so a sentence could dangle you in suspense for sometimes awhile if she was ironing. For a very long time I never asked her why she did that; called me “Miss” before my name. Then one day I did. And she told me about her life and her family’s past on a slave plantation (in Georgia). She seemed old to me. Maybe she was. She had grown children. Her black lined face showed the years and her black hair, always neatly pinned, was coursed with gray. I still didn’t know why she said she called me “Miss” out of respect and I remember saying so because to me she was more like a mother ….

you go back to a point of reference within where you might have recalled a glimpse of comfort ….her hugs always made everything right and looking back I know she favored me and perhaps now I understand why….it was with her the day on the public bus when they pointed st me, the day my mother forgot to get me, the day my notorious father died it was; Annie brought me to her house for the one and only time I ever saw it….it was in the ghetto. I remember holding her hand in her kitchen as she called all my family’s emergency numbers

It makes me wonder about Jörn —that he should love me ….so faithfully through time ….how could I be so blind realizing 

Noir family matters

….but by the time Josef and I go inside, it seems the subject, for now, has reached a stopping point in which to pause 

So, we find Jörn in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching the electric kettle as it makes noise boiling water. His body language and expression is resigned. I don’t know why this disturbs me so

I’d hardly noticed him —so caught up in the terror of such a surreal awakening destroying my previous reality forever that I seem not to be at all in my temporal state of mind 

There are so many levels to sift through still and consider ….and being an analytical sort of person, I cannot rest until I have all aspects noted, labeled and categorized in my mental filing cabinet ….

He wears a deep dark blue Lycra long sleeved, that kind of blue that in the right light looks like a peacock’s feathers and then turns back to navy blue; it is the same color as his track suit running trousers that fit him like a second skin. For a silly moment I wonder over my previous thoughts of him as a stealth ninja; his obsessive need to go running and his well toned torso warrior muscles show right through his t-shirt. It makes me wish to know such silly things ….

as though giddy—

“Are you a berserker?” 

I don’t know why I asked him that

But then I start to laugh—it’s too ridiculous ….

“Get the schnapps,” Josef says quietly, I almost don’t hear and I know it doesn’t register 

I was expecting tea and sat down by the window where the square wood kitchen table is and turned to the window to absently search for deer or coyote but what was handed to me wasn’t tea at all and something more like what my grandmother threw back in the kitchen —peachy but more pretending to be but before I could complain it went directly to my head 

Electra’s dictionary/thoughts in the cold with a vampire

Should I feel ashamed that he does that to me…. that it happens in sleep …. there is intimacy which is not the same as what you think of usually as intimacy 

I suppose this is why I try to step out into the freezing cold — to free my mind from the confines of walls. Feeling boxed in within walls and mountains 

it is hard to think with Jörn so in my head. So…. I am thinking about beyond myself and what his need is to have me, if only while sleeping 

….always it was….he comes to me in dreams ….

    like a memory ….reaching through the subconscious ….and through time ….that horizon I chase so blindly …..walking ….behind him? wasn’t that the great shadow that was always there in front of me in those foggy, hazy, misty dreams…..mixed with the bats on the walls ….I remember the bats now as part as when those memories first started surfacing 

So he is reaching for ….Elan ….when he makes love to me ….he is making love to her ….it isn’t me….is it….or is it….?

I try to step out of myself. I try not to feel upset. I don’t understand my emotions ….lately….I just don’t make sense —everything in the lens just went surreal like one of those films from avant guard film class ….

But if her is me…. I am really her….that is—it explains the irrational nightmares of being lost ….of looking for something I cannot find but not knowing what it is ….then this means ….

I have been looking at all of this wrong ….the way Jörn masqueraded as the psychiatrist back in Chestertown back when he was on that case and there was something about Dr Rothschild —he had found something about me ….the case study she did —? I forget ….

I think ….i shut my eyes….the cold goes up my sleeves and I turn into the building to brace from the wind….

My face is in the wall as I think, huddled from the wind ….and even this strange action —triggers memories of the man with the vampire eyes and the hut….i recall the cold and the thought of the hides ….they were our source of warmth; I remember this—and the smell of the skins; the way it would sting your nose when the heat from the fire filled the hut inside. This I see and feel all at once as I shiver off the wind…. and right now, I find that I feel—I long so desperately for the hides and— the heat of our hut….it comes to me like ice water on my face, a sharp pain, like a stab in my heart—

Dracula magic? ….is he causing me to remember more?  —and I half expect to see him behind me when I hear someone approach 

But when I turn around I see Josef

His appearance at this moment throws me completely off guard —I half gasp 

“mitt kära barn, you look like you’re seeing a ghost! It’s just me, kära…. I just wanted to see if you are all right standing there as you are—you seem in some kind of a state, why don’t we go inside and have some tea? It’s quite cold even for a Viking!” And he chuckles at the last bit 

Because it seems inevitable we should confront I don’t object. I only stand there feeling confused. 

Of course I am imagining him at the dinner table with Elsa in the other long house behind this one….so I am imagining her serving from a big Steuben Crystal soup tureen some blood-red liquid for dinner….it makes me gag 

“We don’t do it like that,” Josef says to me

“Did you just read my mind?—do none of you guys have any ethics on mind privacy?”

“Kära, you are dealing with a very unusual matter here and I am only trying to be a supportive father figure, believe me, I have had years of experience and you have had little—let’s go inside and have some tea….” 

It would have taken a feather to force me to go, suddenly, I was glad of his appearing because hearing it not from Jörn might make better sense 

“It was Elsa’s fault….” Josef says as we walk along the heavily snowed walk to the house’s wide back deck where I left from, the garage is further past the deck towards the kitchen. The sliding glass door leads into the lounge living area 

“Hmmm?” I ask mildly as we walk, he is behind me

He tugs on the back of my coat so I stop and turn around to look at him

He looks at me with his frosty white brows and icy Nordic blue eyes with their curios twinkle; he waves his hands at himself and twirls his hands.

Still I have no idea. I look blankly at him. 

So he raises an index finger and apes the Hollywood version of a vampire sucking someone’s blood 

I stand glued to the spot. I don’t notice the cold. But I stare blankly.

“It was Elsa’s idea —all this….” he raises his brows at me, “how long can a husband be angry at his wife? A few centuries?”

Is he joking?

Is this like a gag joke he does and I’m missing the humor?

“Huh….” I think I said. Maybe it was a question. Or ….maybe it was my attempt to make my mind catch up with events 

“I ….feel I should tell you before we go inside,” Josef says

“Tell me what?”

“Jörn didn’t ….he was trying to save your life….Elan’s—“

“You knew Elan?”

“Of course!” Josef stares at me 

He stares at me ….in that way Jörn does when it is Elan he sees in me. It makes me feel upset. I don’t know why ….

I look up at Josef as I feel this but I feel him in my thoughts and something strange occurs; like a wrinkle smoothed out, if a thought could have a wrinkle —he smoothed it. And the correct lens dropped into view 

“Adelsö….” Josef whispers to me 

I knew when he said the word that it was a place. And as he said the word a vision came to me. I saw the hallways and the tables and knew—he was there ….he was one of the judges on the island…. It was before arriving at the other place —they were there ….they were all there, even Andres and Hanna….

I feel so dizzy, I lose my balance and fall into the side of the house, but then I lean against it for support as I look back up at Josef 

“How was it her idea—what did he think he was doing?”

“He—you must understand, it was a bad time for him— he’s never recovered, kara….he was willing to do anything to—to—bring you back….he himself was a walking corpse ….”

“Are you saying Elsa knows black magic?”

Josef actually laughs when I say this. It’s a laugh not intended, like the surprise of what I said caused his laugh unchecked 

“She’d love you to think so,” he amends

He walks beside me and then leans against the wall too next to me,

“she knew of a woman ….we were pagan in those days….there are a lot of myths about our gods and there are a lot of things that have been hidden from what modern people may think of as Common Knowledge. And that’s the way the rest of us like it to stay but….thats for another time…. There was a ritual—it required all of us, or so Elsa said ….i don’t ever think she wanted to resurrect you but back then, we didn’t know it couldn’t be done. Elsa knew. So she duped us—he kept the body frozen ….the ‘witch’ I guess you’d call her today….she came to the ….it was a structure, a small building where the welding was done, where he lived in that clan’s settlement as their welder ….they were not a good people but at Adelsö it was decided that was where the terms from a —a past blood feud it was —we—they sent him there, it was Hovgården….”

Integrating the dictionary/Electra’s dictionary

I have not thought of the day I had to call 911 emergency 

    he’d had his hands around my throat in a rage and I was terrified —the weeks of his lows were exhausting ….Chris…. he couldn’t face it —and I had to stop carrying him because he was killing me —the people arrived …..the drama out on our street. Everyone saw. I went with him. I slept there the week on the floor 

As empaths we absorb so much of others emotions when we feel them 

we take it on— it isn’t a choice but a burden or gift yet not something one turns off 

Unless induced and I guess that is why the need for escapism was ever the choice 

The crumbs I left behind ….it’s a riddle that nobody has ever solved 

but I’ve left all my clues in the legend 

After the years —looking back…. I couldn’t have escaped my husband without their intervention ….the doctors ….the forced treatment —to get him out of my head; he was a sickness and I was trapped in his bipolar cycles always ….the angel of mercy ….but nobody is for me —

but then there is Jörn 

Electra writes; dear electra/Electra’s dictionary

Tonight I feel like Cathy having lost her soul and wandering blindly through the mists 

it feels sometimes as if he has sucked out the whole soul of me ….not just an emotional vampire then ….he has become so much a part of me even with the interruptions of what tends to happen with us 

I am exhausted ….I do not know where I end and he begins and I never noticed it happen; the integration was ….so subtle ….he wove into my worlds and into my thoughts 

He says to me,

“How can I be emotionally dangerous to you when I have watched far worse with the way you’ve let Bran walk all over you!”

It was like he spat it at me. 

It stunned me. 

It made me think ….if he can infiltrate minds—but feel what they feel too …. How long has he been empath-ing me with his Dracula powers? 

While it violates the very meaning of privacy—of the mind ….to know he has invaded mine for so long….how much of my secrets does he know…. 

Yet he stands there looking at me in that way ….like it isn’t me —but it is me….they are things that happened to me —I know their references and their impacts on my timeline 

How does he know how Bran —?

….how dare he! ….how could he? 

Only ….he has searched 

     centuries ….? 

Searched centuries …. Only to find someone you’ve been looking for through lifetimes but —he never dies ….it is forever for him to wait but then to know it is fleeting anyway 

What do you say ….how to amend …. how to insinuate yourself into a stranger’s life that ….you knew when she lived as someone else ….

I wonder it must be hard to watch me live my life and ….he could never come near me —to say who he is ….

so I think of this too only now once the rage is now spent out of me 

But how do you lay this on a person who’s mortal and expect instant —instant what exactly ….what is his end game plan in this anyway ….somehow I don’t think there is one for him exactly 

Electra’s dictionary/legends are given by permission

It is like we are suspended 

     in some separate reality …. that is not the world —or not Earth 

The frozen sky and the northern hemisphere cloaked in their own frozen reality and separate piece…. but these mountains may be physical for the barriers they serve but beyond that, they do not contain me

I have been somewhere else. Far away. Somewhere far far away 

It is awhile until I realize I am awake. I seem to have been watching the sky from the angle of my head as my vision is turned to the window. Watching a sky. A sky I don’t see. So where am I looking? Where am I?

“The hardest part ….” I suddenly hear Jörn say, along with the sound of his motion of him as he reaches to draw back a ringlock of my hair as it covers my face, “was watching your pain in this life,” he says now 

But I am still staring at the cold gray sky outside the glass of the window; his words don’t fully register 

I shut my eyes ….how long has he been there?  I feel him in my head ….and the warmth of him next to me

“Finding out how you grew up, about your abuse at home,” he whispers this into my ear and moves his hand to rest on the other side of me so his arm is draped across my waist—but I try and resist this, and push against his too familiar half embrace and turn my back to him. I turn my face into the mattress and cover my ears with my hands 

I don’t want to hear this. His sympathy? About something I never think about? How dare he! What an insult 

“I have to tell you,” he says taking hold of me and turning me round 

“I don’t want to hear this!” I look right at him

“I have to tell you!” he shouts at me

“Why?!” I shout back

“Because somebody should!”

But he’s only made me angry,

“nice wake up—and why is it only when it’s scheduled by you that the timing is always right to invade me? I certainly have a million questions but one of them is not should I give you cart blanche to my emotions. You are emotionally dangerous to me, and you have no rights to my thoughts unless I give you permission and you need to earn that first!”

I shout all this in one long tirade, sitting up and then leaping off the bed

But when I’m done the outcry leaves me dizzy ….I sit down at the foot of the bed 

I slowly look at him,

“how young was I before you realized who Elan was in this life?”

“I told you —we—I ….didnt put a face to it—you—until that case of Willem’s”

“Wasn’t that a bullshit story? How does Willem actually fit into all this —‘cause….you said it was your first case together, wasn’t that the story you told me?”

Jörn clears his throat. He walks to the window on the other side of the room and looks out. After awhile he lets out a heavy sigh 

“There’s no way to explain without telling you the whole story and ….I’m not sure you’re ready for all of it,” he looks at me from across the room 

After awhile he paces across the room, first to the door and then to the closet and then back to the window he started at. He does this a few times. 

 

views from the mountain 

Electra’s dictionary; living/time

I think about Elan and the connection to that her in me. The feel of the motion in my hips when I am walking ….it is like that horizon has never left me…. I am always chasing it ….searching for it ….trying to find my way back to it 

And outside it is ….

Yet another snow storm and I am lost in my thoughts. 

I pace the rooms all day and forget to eat ….reading the same sentence in a Room With a View 600 times …. 

Because I try to be centered—find the normal within ….within this mad mad world ….it just gets wackier out there so whatever ….the Chi inside is mine to claim 

Jörn has left me space 

    ….the times in the night he visits me when I’m sleeping I think are dreams as it is happening ….he does this on purpose ….you see? it is the elephant in the room I’m pretending isn’t there ….by hiding myself away upstairs as he does —Dracula things? whatever he does ….what does he do? hunts….? 

But it is clearly a gift he has honed. I just never realized how good at it he is. It’s a mental thing but it’s not because he can do it even if I’m asleep. He enters my dreams. I don’t really think it’s ethical. This is what makes me kind of annoyed with him 

but ….like I say, he is very good at what he does ….and I also think a part of it is something far deeper —it is as though he is waking her up —no….he is waking up that part that was her within me that I forgot and —how can I be angry at him if ….he is trying to find me again as Elan —while selfish perhaps, it seems almost the opposite; a shocking deeper level of ….

This is why I choose time to myself ….we have not even spoken beyond a perfunctory and polite Goodmorning over coffee and, pass the lingonberry jam which could be any time of day…. it’s a blur lately, the intensity of the impact I continue to reel in ….

And if I were to be frank with myself, would I truthfully say I never suspected he was a vampire? I totally blindsided myself 

It was that whole ….emotion ….he gave me —I felt a knowing of him ….of him from another level of me —and I ached for him —it was immediate ….that wasn’t his Dracula magic; it was the surprise moment the first time I ever saw him but I pretended it wasn’t there. But I knew it was. There was a pull. It was as if a powerful magnet was drawing me before I even looked up, but he wasn’t yet looking at me ….before we got into the elevator —the day with Gerald, we were talking on the way heading by the mailboxes in the lobby ….he had the cello and was turned toward the street still as he came in through the apartment building’s glass doors 

What was it? It was something so familiar —the silhouette of him—it was the way he carried himself ….the cello case ….the set of his Viking shoulders and the glint of gold in his hair as the sun caught it in its light ….that was what it was; like stupefied for a moment —and if I were to consider this now, I guess ….there was the sense, how could that be? But no—as if—Elan thought it

how could that —him ….still be?

Time after time; Electra’s dictionary noir, jm chron

I type into my phone as thoughts wander, and still skirt the Dracula subject —I’m not quite ready

Time~ among Jörn’s world does really flow differently, it fools with the mind. It is as if the world out there is some outer galactic place 

It is possible I am just quite mad or that is only a symptom of —what Dr. Rothschild had opened my mind to; Dr. Brian Weiss’s best selling book Many Lives Many Masters is a profound journey past the white light

Why do I think of this now? Brian Weiss is a real psychiatrist and he had a patient who he was trying to help get over some serious phobias that were ruling her life. So, it begins with this account and how he used hypnosis to open her mind through unconscious awareness. This was how Dr. Rothschild had suggested to try hypnosis on me 

But what happens under hypnosis is, he asks her to go back to the original source of the phobia—he asks her to try to identify when this phobia began. The shock is her reply. As it turns out she says it was in Greece and during some time BC. Apparently  the woman was not well educated. So when the doctor asked for details of her surroundings or what food she ate or how food is prepared the woman gave a full detailed explanation for how things were prepared with ingredients not at all familiar to her locally, and more still—he asked for many details which he later researched to see if things added up. Being a university of Miami doctor, he had a lot of historical colleges who had access to information supporting what the woman described, Dr. Weis is stunned. Not only did things she said add up, but once out of hypnosis she had no memory of any of this. And he never told her because she was, in this life, a Roman Catholic.

He cured her phobias but she never knew how. And it had to do with a childhood trauma that happened from a previous incarnation. 

The doctor who wrote the book is a doctor of science and he had trouble believing what was happening. He was not a believer in the concept before this occurred. 

He was able to cure her of all her complaints and then he had future patients he regressed to help deal with deep rooted phobias. 

People are so complex—and I think this watching Jörn from the bedroom window shoveling snow…. and it is like I can see him —through Elan’s eyes in moments when my thoughts go unharnessed 

The mind and psyche are not just a brain with cerebral chemicals —it is much more 

And I suppose now as I think of headshrinkers in doctors offices ….their assessments and their labels —those mental tests they make you take when you’re on ‘the radar’ ….my laundry list of diagnosis that is as thick as a text book —and the man in the white coat who runs those tests looks at you like you’re a guinea pig and the somber look as he says, “unfortunately at the top of the list is borderline personality disorder too….tsk—one of the hardest to cure tsk….” Tsk tsk indeed

but as it was my field of study, I was able to combat his remarks calmly and correct his approach  —and pointed out it is just an umbrella term to make their jobs simpler by shoving you into a convenient box, 

but the human mind is far more complicated to be sliced up like everyone is the same, like sushi rolls on a conveyer belt and write in their files in neat bold letters with precision  numbers of what degree of a freak you are and the fun part; their candy box; the head shrinking drugs forced and applied—for their convenience ~borderline personality ‘disorder’ (there were a lot of other nutter names in that file for me, he was so pleased!)just needs to be better understood; that is the ones labeled as such need to be better understood and not forced to uniform to the world’s convenience 

And as I watch Jörn now and feel that other landscape come into my mental view I wonder how Dr. Weiss would assess once considered from Elan’s influences —often you see a tree with long branches that somehow grew around and through the wires of a fence. Experiences force us to bend and adapt and react but maybe other people who make up the ordinary world are not able to grasp the whys and the what’s of behavior so they need neat labels with neat prescribed answers—because for lab coat doctors, it is an abbreviation for having to think critically for themselves. People are not statistics; we’re individuals ….with many pasts

https://youtu.be/9AhoZBK1z50?si=dFHBNe0Xbhk-H8Dl

of worshipping ancient gods

He gets into my head ….within slumbering walls within, he finds the way to lure me ….like those shadows like bats on the wall, it is almost a drug; a mind control seduction ….so, like the primitive within, awoken and primal I forget me and only think of wanting ….him

I always enjoyed sucking him off; watching his member become erect before my eyes, how poised and firm he stands before me—at my command ….suck—mmmm licked, pop ohhhhh it is a dream 

he wakes me, is looking down at me,

“Duva…..”

like a golden god he comes 

    

      to me

Electra’s dictionary noir; jm chron/diary thoughts; awakening to feeling Whole

The clarity I value more than anything. I lost that for such a long time; I could not find my thoughts; I could not find my connection —to the whole of my consciousness. 

I compare that to now. Waking up from that. After years. Of numbness. They forced prescriptions on me; four different psychiatric prescriptions. During that time— the years …. of sedation that are addictive —join us; they beckon….i lost everything whilst under their drugs; family; daughter; rights; sexual urges; passion; art; focus—I was a programmed value; their comfortable success story— neutered and numb; bloated and forgetting what me I meant to fight for 

But Jörn ….has never faltered, has never let these things that trapped me cloud his value of me 

How ungenerous I have been to him —I start to think….only no—I couldn’t fathom until now his ….steadfast and infinite loyalty 

It is like waking from anesthesia —the dulling sedative of sleepwalking zombies which the world so often seems but —with him 

All the years of searching and wishing to be seen…. how silly I have been; obtuse 

Alas, there is that sense of reconcile —only for once in my life I find still…. the need not to put all my thoughts into words or ….even think….

     because I find for now; right now— I prefer just being ….and feeling one with my whole Celf 

Electra’s dictionary Noir; jm chron/Waits&measures

Thoughts move more swiftly lately

The view I have come to love more from my glass foyer ice cubed shaped ad hoc studio.

    I suppose it is the permanence that, in its quiet way, works like a gentle fingered massage to my skull —Jörn never has to say a single word —I feel all his acutely and ….he does this consciously without intrusion 

And I appreciate this space —it isn’t that he allows it, it is that he understands it 

something I have still as yet to; but that is for another moment

no instead, I think about those minute and rather forgettable things I think of —the space of time in between events and there is my peace because it is in these such moments I think of in past when I recall being open ….to letting him in 

one has to be able to, 

the shields willingly laid down 

and when the inner Celf knows —this one’s ok, just feel the energy

How long has he searched for me? How many lifetimes with his one life time has he ….longed? ….but it is without sense to myself, it is only with the desire to fully understand him ….and once I remove myself from this equation I understand a little better ….and in time….i shall ask about the weight he has carried through the ….wait

Electra’s dictionary noir/more diary continued

Perhaps it is serenity I have sought 

    while it has seemed as though I could not find my way in this world —now I do; now this unsaid truth has been whispered to me, all is well within

my north 

    has always been where it always was 

Who I am— and all of myself fully I’ve walked that tightrope all the way and —how very blessed to know ….Jörn knows the whole of me 

….and more 

      to be seen is one thing but to be fully and utterly 

               loved and desired for ….perhaps a scope of things I cannot now comprehend 

That question again echoes …. “Do you know how long I have searched for you?”

Like some kind of indelible ink burned into my mind, he repeats this question to me for days now; I am haunted by his words 

It is too much—a lifetime of loss is more than enough for me—how many has he known….?

and—that nerve; that gut reaction of an empath —I am too much to the core of my Celf gutted ….by this very tragic thought 

Electra’s dictionary/diary noir

Dearest Celf,

today without expectations of anything, it is a better day; I do not probe into my thoughts, I do not wonder so much about how many rings are within Jörn’s tree and all that this involves ….instead, I have a better day 

We have been back a few days, and while I did dread having to face the family drama, perhaps considering the impact of —things ….they have given me space 

When we first pulled up again to the property, I was struck by the sense of how much it resembled ….the long houses from my dreams —my ….visions….or —memories— I suppose it is time to accept —but still, I just choose not to take it all full on in all that it means ….and choose to do so without censorship of thoughts I ….let it

I always resisted the memories —I see now. The fear was there always with the whispers in my dreams 

Only as we pull up this time—the barn house with the two story plate glass window and the clear view of Jörn’s grand piano —I blink twice because I think, looking past the house, that I see double. 

But no…. 

And only as Jörn pulls the car around to the side of the house by the kitchen entrance do I see—there, past the sauna house —there! where the old original farmhouse used to be—is now —another barn house! It is the twin of the one in front —exactly the same—and ….like this—in parallel, it is de ca vu —almost ghostlike, I had to blink as they look like the ….memories; the long houses past the hut—they are lined next to each other the way they would so often appear in ….those dreams. 

When you think of time as endless —you start to comprehend Jörn’s family’s behavior 

   and I realize the space they give me now is but a second to them 

They now occupy the newly built replica house like the one we all had lived in together before. And as the damage done by the assassins has now long been successfully removed, I hardly recall the way it had looked after that horror went down. 

Somehow, whether, it is from the sense of those other memories, or how well it holds off the howling stormy winds, it is like a fortress to be within walls like this again. And I guess I choose not to question why ….things like—why do I matter so much to Jörn? ….his “Duva….”

No, I do not bother with these kinds of questions, as it no longer is relevant to the big picture ….and even Jörn has given me space. Space to think and to write and even paint ….as the farmhouse had been where I’d gone in past to paint, now there is a better space with natural light as it is the open foyer under the stairs with floor to ceiling glass walls that behold an Adirondak mountain forest of frozen white

but there are screens which I added to enclose the space and set the easel and mediums upon the slate floor and for awhile I am glad to just paint trees as I think or don’t think and ….let thoughts wander 

And of course without meaning to…. I start to scry 

Electra’s dictionary JM chron/Diving deep into vacuous

It is odd and funny the way the mind goes; the trail of thoughts that lead you ….sometimes down and climbing up walls of unexpected attics 

Because as he drives through our timelined walled highway, I play a mind game with myself. 

I ask myself—find some safe place I know …..some reliable place….a place I would feel best at ease to be

right now 

And, of all places—it is the art warehouse. So as Jörn drives now in silence, and our thoughts are linked—yes, I feel the tickle of his probe….but a latent talent I immediately know….?—I instinctively, and without hesitation, probe back …..and demand the space it provides as I defend the fortress of my mind 

and ….

there we are; it is predictable—the list of locations that require fulfillments ….their list of items with item numbers ….find the items by number; write it down what isle in the massive floor layout that included numerous shelves, upper cubby space, warehouse cubby space, and still to be received by the shipping and receiving desk that belongs to the daytime shipping and receiving staff by the loading dock 

I’m not in the car anymore; I’m there in my space at the warehouse —it’s a work bench made of heavy duty hardware which doubles as the shop’s carpenter and handyman’s work space —and— the PM night shipping desk—mine

Only now it occurs to me—by AM it belonged to Anthony. We passed as he’d be leaving. He’d be punching out. I’d punch in. There by the ordering department office was the punch clock. There was our desk

Why do I think of this now as he drives? 

Time lines 

My eight hour shift…. my work home was that desk. A workbench. But ….

I never much thought about Anthony …. ever

yet we shared the same space. I’d clean up each night/morning when I was done. He’d hardly know I touched an object of his. Knives, razors, staple guns, glue guns and more all neatly replaced and filled up; surface cleaned tidy 

Is that what it is like ….I look at Jörn’s profile and think —

    we inhabit the same space but 

         how we imagine we own it becomes our reality 

why do I think of this now in relation to ….Life and our conceptions of —Reality ….it’s all relative but; isn’t it more necessary to see its relevance to the Self

It’s more about the subjective need to see one’s meaning in one’s relevant space —the other reality is theirs and 

Not actually relevant 

                                   to what you need to do

Electra’s dictionary noir JM chronicles/ thoughts in rewind

It is awhile; I don’t know how long, but it seems I fall into daydream, as though my brain yields the reins and gives up over to some higher conscious mind within. You can see the layers of time in the mountains…. when they cut into them to make the highways, the geological time lines, they exposed the secrets of the earth for all to view…. I watch this go past us as he drives…. They are all different colors, the layers, like sand art, but this is the earth’s past in fingerprint for some of us to get a glimpse of. 

Perhaps watching this hypnotized me, lulled me into another state which from mental weariness it was easy to fall into, but caught by the earthy beauty; a reminder of life…. And the seeming insignificance of …

Only now does it start to sink in; his words….only now do I see how possibly unkind I was but still—I am not quite there emotionally to let all of that through

“Do you know how long I have searched for you?”

Only now do I ….only now….watching the geological lines of time….speed by me….as Jörn drives, grinding his teeth ….his words only now reach me ….like objects that bounce in slow motion, his words ….start to take shape in my thoughts…. What would that mean

Really?

When we first headed out, leaving the property of that creepy home that belonged to my natural father, he had tossed out that incomprehensible question,

“What would you do with a thousand years?” and pausing to look at me as he pulled into the gas station to fuel for our journey to the Adirondaks from the Catskills —just as he opened the driver side door to get out— he looked at me with those Vampire, ice-blue eyes with their bolts of kryptonite and added to the question, “….or more?”arching a pale blonde brow he stared at me, beaming with those bolts into my soul

And now, only now, as I watch the blur of lines speed by I thought about this question

And I then —after a long reverie of thoughts over ….events-of-history …. I thought of him and —what has he seen?

Maybe it was exhaustion from the last few nights…. But I found myself suddenly swept over by what his words meant. The other words. 

….how long he has search

   ….for me

Driving back to ….the dungeon?/Electra’s dictionary noir

I suppose it is the need for “normalcy”, after a great shock ….because I do not question things; I do not even for a moment go there at all even as the frozen snowy scenery’s alarming and desolate beauty should be enough to sober me out of this catatonic state of ….disbelief 

You try to make it normal —or you try to fit your head into how far off the bend this ….all goes 

But then it’s not real. Is it? I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming this. This cannot possibly be ….

be why …. all those strange feelings from the moment….we first met

I literally slap myself. Wake up.

I take my hand and slap the side of my face.

“Duva?”

Jörn is driving. Of course he’s driving. This is all normal, see? We do this all the time…. except when we don’t…. We have those lapses. Lapses where I’ve had enough of his spy games and shut the portcullis….

       And I must think because I’ve missed something ….was it perhaps during our lapses—do they hibernate—? —or have intergalactic meetings to determine the fate of Earth? …. at this point any wild idea I am willing to put on the table to examine…. what things has he been he up to that I have dismissed ….? I mean—clearly I have been missing so much ….Gerald?

“Duva?” Jörn touches my arm…. I get the strangest—strangest ….what is it? It goes like a charge right down to my fingertips. I even watch my index finger jump on its own. I always ….put it up to his effect on me, you know, the way he has this way to just melt my knees as soon as he is near. I’ve tried to shrug it off, I don’t like to admit it; but he has the strangest effect on me and even as we may just say that it is sexual; it would be doing the effect an injustice not to include that the sexual trigger is caused by the other things that ….he does to me. 

I turn my face to the frozen mountains and pull my arm close to me 

No….because it is more now that I realize —he knows what he does. But worse; what he uses. 

Only….these are things I must see

I must integrate Elan’s ….i must integrate my lost memories from the life when I was Elan ….because I still carry ….what we lost and—I know that within all of that loss, heartbreak and pain, I suppose there was anger at him; why did he leave me there; why didn’t he get there in time; why did he let me down….and worse even;was I not enough?—for him to make it in time ….but these are not my thoughts—these are what I recognize as hers—but that I have thrown upon lovers in my own current life, like a self-fulfilling prophesy, all through my life, looking for people who will let me down; it has repeated, I see now looking back at my past; like being in a subconscious loop of self punishment for ….trusting him—a killer; a pirate

I turn to the mountains and look as the chaos of speed smooths the horizon into an impressionist landscape

I take out my phone. I look at my messages. 

I say,

“Gerald has not answered any of my texts,” and now I look at Jörn’s profile. There—I see the nostrils flare ….

He knows I watch him, but he drives in silence now. But as he clenches his jaw, there it is! The glowing blue is illuminated by the cast of the sunlight through clouds, reflected on stark white mountain peaks all around —it glows as if connected by its light source energy 

“When did you start to know?” Jörn asks now

I say, turning back to the road in front of us as he drives,

“it was not a sudden knowing. It was more that I started to realize how much energy I had to put into trying to find reasonable explanations for —too many weird things —that made all the other odd things seem like child’s play once the idea that those odd things allows everyone in this ….to hide the bigger more seriously fucked up thing.”

Jörn says to me….

 he says….