Eye Spy Noir; driving back to NY

“I can understand why Nigel referred to you as ‘feral’,” we are on our way back to Manhattan

“How do you know about that?” I ask after a pause of bemusement

“How do I know? Because I read it in your blog,” he says glancing at me for a moment away from the road

I shake my head,
“well then that would mean....” I shake my head.... “no—wait.... I wrote that in my Nigel entry ....” I look at him; he has his profile turned to me, his aquiline nose in perfect silhouette against the dimming sunlight. I see his nostrils flare —that is all that gives him away

Is he testing me?

“Then you must have been reading my blog....” I stop speaking. I have to breath. I take a moment to configure the chronological time frame

“Before we actually met—“ he turns his head and lets the steel blue of his eyes pierce right through me, almost like supernatural beams of kryptonite. “Is that what you mean?”

“Because I took down all my Nigel posts....” I glance away feeling strange; dizzy.... overcome with a lightheadedness.

“Yes, I know, you removed over a year of posts, I noticed when you did that,” but he doesn’t give me time to allow the impact to settle in and continues with a different line of thought. He asks,

“Tell me, why do you say it is ‘too late’ to get any justice about the man who sexually assaulted and attempted to murder you? Retnuh Nivek,” he says

My mouth goes dry and I can’t breath,
“what are you talking about....? How did you find his name?”

“I went through the graduating class at Bard— didn’t he go onto being a practicing psychologist?”

“How do you know this?”

“He lives in Maryland and has a family— at least one daughter. I wonder how they would feel about this....”

“You are a spy, admit it!” I say this in s half insane kind of muffled scream

“I wouldn’t call myself a spy but I do research useful characters that come up on the radar....”

I wait staring at his profile and notice his nostrils have relaxed. He says calmly now,

“I mean, what happened is a felony—is that the word? There is no statute of limitation for murder, are you aware of that?”

I don’t answer right away. It is almost five minutes of quiet, tense driving with my mind spinning before I structure a sentence that framed some semblance to a complete thought and say very low and hoping almost that he won’t hear

“He said he would finish the job if I ever told.”

I think that he does not hear this

He does not respond

But after another five minutes he give me a chilling look and then says,
“I have no doubt I could do quite a job on him myself—by now I believe he’s turned into a blubbery fat mother fucker and I would love to be in the front row when you kick his ass.”

He is calm but I see his nostrils flare again

Much to my own shock I actually laugh,
“you think I can kick his ass?”

“You hiked from that estate to the Hudson —which is roughly about 19 kilometers—actually a bit more ....your legs are lethal weapons, min lilla duva,” he says and then reaches to switch on some music. As he does this he says, “to answer your question, yes, I still work for the government; it is not exactly a vocation you shrug out of, you might say. Especially once you have the instincts for it. It helps to be a symphony musician for them but also it keeps me sharp for the music and well.... you may not be aware of things about your assailant. We’ve been watching him for some time ....he’s been connected with international terrorism going back—oh—quite a number of years and when his name came up in connection with your school I started to put things together and it also revealed things about the man who raised you— there is a lot of evidence that he sabotaged the real man who was your father—Ethan— he was behind the downfall of his political career and likely turned double agent in the process.”

“Double agent....? You mean....” I look at him, “that’s crazy ....”

“I can show you when we get back. I have photographs of him at a meeting in Barcelona among a very interesting gathering.”

I don’t know how much time passed before I realized we were starting to see expressway signs for New York but I must have become lost in thought

I hear a text come through from Ilya and have to check

“Oh no....”

“What’s wrong?”

“The penthouse roof is coming down, she says there’s a flood now that they have emergency workers there now,” I try to find out more and call her

She tells me,
“they’re patching it up now, don’t worry but.... there’s a lot of damage. Especially the bedrooms.”

After I hang up I tell Jörn

He says,
“you seem to be having a lot of that lately—perhaps we should recruit your mason workers to come back with us.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” I ask him

“I’m sorry— you should stay with me tonight,” he tells me casually, “although I forgot to mention I have a full house right now, besides my son, my parents are visiting.”

“Your parents!?”

He says,
“they’re here in business. In a way—they are appearing at an opera commemorative for the birthday of a late well known friend and are special guests. They also have enlisted me to be involved, as usual, they’re using a piece of mine and I have to perform with them so, be prepared for a lot of drama.”

Back at the estate

“I have decided I want to be one of those mad old women,” I tell Jörn as we pull up to the estate

He throws a look at me that says, whilst holding back a rage, that he has no time for nonsense

— his eyes say that

I realize he’s angry at me

We both stand outside the crumbling mansion and look at at it. To me I see the new work done by the masons who have been hard at work; in fact I notice a  few new completed ionic columns where the top parts had been all broken away. They have fixed it like new! You can’t even tell the difference. So I stare at it awhile. For a moment I am breathless with the happy wonder of it

Only Jörn makes a disgusted sound as he gestures with his shoulder,
“why are you staying here?”

He looks at me in that challenging way he has that is almost antagonistic. But it’s not that, it’s something else; it’s a sublimation of his frustration with me— or what is that really? Passive aggressive?

I suppose I find it amusing in a way which is what makes me smile inappropriately just then. He sees this and seems to look even more enraged

“It’s a favor to Joanie,” I shrug to gloss over the moment

I start to head for the entrance over the broken stone walkway which was once a grand neo-classic entranceway and as we head inside over the old marble floor inside, covered in the soot of time and the regular traffic of the workmen, we hear something in the rafters

He looks at me pointedly,
“What was that?”

He stares with those eyes

I hide a smile,
“I don’t think you want to know, Jörn,” and I start towards through the main part of the interior that leads down a long hallway past the wide, elaborate, staircase ....that is also quite in a state of disrepair

My shoes echo down the checkerboard corridor —and squish too as they are still rather wet

There is a large ballroom that we pass where there sits an old broken piano

this makes me look at him because I see his eyes light

“Is that a Steinway?” he asks me

But I keep going then because I sense he is now intrigued. We pass the main dining hall and here I cut through the doorway that leads to the kitchens

It is huge

It took some doing but I figured out the trick of the old range positioned at the center of the main wall.... also huge. And somewhat intimidating. I couldn’t attempt it at first. It was so formidable to just stand in front of it at first. But then I remembered from Nigel how they work. And this kind was built to last ....never mind the state of the rest of the place.

I don’t think the kitchens, as they stand, would ever pass any public safety regulations. The floors are far from hygienic, for one thing, and the counters make my skin crawl

still, with some skill of ingenuity, I convinced a worker to lay a slab of marble by the old farm sink and this served as a good spot to chop an apple or make a sandwich and pull up the tall servant’s stool

There is a long old wood table at the center of the room that I imagine must have been where the cook and his assistants did most of their work. It is a fascinating piece with its battered dents and worn corners

These had been the servants kitchens and it is quite overwhelmingly huge to spend any time in

....by the time Ethan owned it he had a installed some “modern” equipment —so the refrigerator, that still works, was at that time state-of-the-art, of course but now to our eyes seems like it is something straight out of Donna Reed’s kitchen. And yet, thankfully, when I first found it, remarkably clean inside considering. It only took a few hours to scrub it down

I walk through to the narrow hallway that leads down to the servants quarters

“Where are you going?” he asks as he follows me

“To change out of these wet clothes. Did you bring clothes?” I ask him

I just hear an annoyed sound that comes from the depths of his throat as a reply

“Well, I’d offer to share mine but,” I laugh because his legs are much longer than mine

“I came to bring you back with me, min lilla duva,” he says now. “I didn’t count on a dip in the Hudson,” then adds, “we’re not staying the night here, in this bat infested haunted house— and uh—I have a concert tomorrow.”

The Pirate with the vampire eyes and his dove/Vampyren och hans duva; the story and backstory

It could have been that her strange and exotic colors and features could make him forget the family, the sons, the daughters and woman from before. The family that had been his, along with the mother and sister who were caught in a blood vengeance and began a conflict with another warrior leader who eventually conceded to his skills of warfare. After burning down his huts and women he was let to stay with the blood enemy when he had taken that leader’s right leg and arm and thus became the war leader by the victory of a battle that Raoul fought only to avenge his heart without the lust of power nor had it been for gain. For long after he felt a stone had replaced his heart and all will for life beyond except for anger. This was where the bitter coldness began within those vampire eyes. The breeding emptiness of life. Sometimes too much loss is more than one human life can take before turning into an empty living corpse

The first time he saw her that day at the market village, her strangeness was so otherworldly so as to make him believe she was an angel to distract him from the emptiness of living.....

——————————————————————

The first time I dreamed of the pirate with the vampire eyes, I have said, was when I had been very ill with mononucleosis

..... and it was one of those times when I had fallen into a deep sleep. 

It is now many years ago since that first dream and over the years little by little more of the ‘story‘ has been filled in. Sometimes upon waking I recall more of that story, sometimes more of the dream gets remembered throughout a day when I don’t know that I dreamed that night

But what stands out the most are his eyes, the boat and the cold and icy land....

and too, the hut where he took me (that ‘her’, because I saw everything through her eyes)— to where most other memories are mixed; good and bad

Those ....have such a bittersweet....happy and very sad connection of emotions with inexplicable parts of my subconscious .... and how I mean this has to do with things I feel drawn to; places; cravings; longings.... and things that haunt me and interfere in my life in such strange and disturbing ways

When I first talked to Gerald about this; soon after the illness it was....

we were then working together at the bookstore outside of Hempstead in New York

but.... you know 

I learned to chalk it up to part of life’s mysteries; like so many déjà vu’s

Sometimes years went by and I forgot all about them as well as the tall, blond warrior that haunted those scenes from dreams that lay indelibly in my deep subconsciousness

And then when I saw him that day....

Those memories flooded back —and it was the night before I saw Jörn in the penthouse lobby that I had the dream again after many years of dormancy; a foretelling it would seem.....

You see, as I have said, it was years ago, when I had been very ill with mononucleosis for six weeks at the time and I lost my job and so, had to give up my apartment on Long Island; forced to swallow pride and endure the humility of asking ‘my father’ for his allowing me to recover there where my parents lived; an unwanted guest and an unwanted situation

yet those first weeks were so submerged in the illness and the dreams that I did not at first notice much about my surroundings; submerged in fever dreams that flooded me for weeks

After my recovery I didn’t have time to think much about those dreams. My ‘father’ wanted me out of his home and I was tossed back into the turbulent sea of trying not to drown in the overpriced cost of living of New York.

“I walk alone I walk alone,” as Billy Joe Armstrong sings and me, like as a modern day Kerouac dharma, was paved on that broken road and as before and thereafter and evermore it seems

I don’t really care for the material world that my father represented; all his material values had long ago disgusted me; I embraced the life of a nineties grunge queen

But those broken wings don’t get you far, nor carry you forever; the broken bones from my attack took their toll

and maybe I forgot how to dream for awhile

Their first time together was on the beach enclosed in a rock cliff beneath where the water lapped up against the rocks and when she looked into his eyes and saw the soul within she did not fear the force of his passion

He was not what she had once imagined as a maiden growing up; that maiden dreaming of a man that may one day claim her

but she was no longer that maiden who had once held such dreams

She had witnessed her mother’s violent death and knowing that he was capable of knowing loss but also capable of fierce violence seemed to draw her.... compel her as something almost primal and with almost the same force of violence she had witnessed in him when he saved her twice; first from her father and then by the warrior from his ship

He was a strange man.... both twisted with anger but capable of a tenderness she had never imagined could exist from anyone

The weeks that followed the voyage on his boat with the other men altered her and perhaps both of them 

as he would watch her constantly when they were at sea, she would turn to see him as the wind whipped back his hair from his face and the sea crashed around him; a new idea of a life formed in her mind and he was at the center of it 

so that when the day did come where his boat pulled up to that frozen land, she wasn’t afraid to follow him to the hut, reached by a passage behind a kind of shrub or skeletal grove; a group of dense bushes and ....by then they knew that a child had begun to grow within

The pirate and the dove

Elan chewed on a type of tree bark mixed with the seaweed she had gathered and dried when she had been searching for moonstones. She chewed the bark and seaweed every night after twilight until she blead from her sex by the third week. She washed herself in beach water

At first full moon she would whisper the incants and stare into the night sky reading the stars

It was something they both knew much about. Elan, because her mother taught her the strange characters of the sky and how they moved across the horizon of the sky all the days through the seasons. Her mother taught her the secrets of the stars. She learned to memorize the characters

Raoul asked her about her strange sounding incants with his questing gestures and some words they both knew

He patiently smiled with an indulgence that suggested he found the chants useless

She smiled and drew a picture in the sand

They were by the shore and watching the full moon

She drew a picture of a baby in her mother’s arms. He was impressed with her ability to draw and praised her with his words but his gestures filled in enough to express his genuine praise

For a moment she looked away. She lowered her eyes. Then she smiled looking back up at him

Her eyes looked at him like, it seemed to him,a child basking in the first compliment ever said and with the same unabashed modesty of not knowing how to feel

Then she pointed to the baby and then at herself

She pointed to the mother and made a gesture to her eyes to express tears falling for the mother and touched her heart. It was then when she repeated the incant and gesture and she expressed to him this way that it was not for faith she did the ritual and drew two females in the sand to tell him it was a way to remember her mother because it was something they did together

In this way he asked her about her herbs and he made a frank gesture to her sex and pointed to the baby in her drawing

She realized he must have seen the evidence

It had been seven days since

But she became upset and stomped on the baby she had drawn and obliterated the image in the sand

He saw her eyes become angry but then fill with tears before she started to run into waves

When he caught her going under the water she was sobbing into the waves what sounded like “ma-ma”

She would always wonder if he had only waited for her monthly flow before he decided to claim her with his sex

or....

if he had only been waiting for her consent

It was soon after this that it happened

He had built a fire in the sand and dried her hair with a hide in front of the fire. He began to talk to her with words of his own language, interspersed with hers and gestures as he ran his fingers through the red tangles as they dried and he then he pointed up to the night sky

She had begun to know his words from his repitition but with only a dullness of interest, at first, she found herself listening to his story of the stars. And other things he began to babble on about 

His story was about his voyages. He told her how the sky watched over everyone and how they determined when it was time to leave home for a journey but also he told her how they guided them to their journey and helped them know how to go back home

In this way they had began to build their own private language between them; sometimes using their eyes to say what they could not find words for. Sometimes they used voice and tones of sound, sometimes expressions or her pictures

Elan did not realize that in this way she had begun to respond to him with a sense of trust towards him nor notice that she had begun to relax with him

Those visits with the village women had happened less and, in parallel, inadvertently, her trust of him also had started

The last time he went to a village woman had happened the day before this conversation

Which had been, in part, behind some of her anger

....because it happened then before that it was the first time he put his hand on her in such a way to tell her he meant to have her

But it was because she had pulled away from him that ....made him angry

But she had pulled away out of fear and out of habit 

.... and they went to the stall by the market place where those women “traded”

and made her sit outside the doorway where she could hear .... forcing her to listen

But now.... when he used her pictures to tell her another story.... it was a sad story

and it was about his own family.... and it was a very sad tale

It was the surprising sadness of his eyes that changed her towards him and so she reached for his hand

and then she placed it where he had

he would never know if it was the picture story he told her or the woman’s sounds from the night before that changed her mind

The men on the boat immediately noticed the change between them

And their resentment of him grew

History is written on lies; what archeology reveals gets tainted in the politics of the backers of the expeditions

There had been a written language

no history research can tell you this because the language had been outlawed and any writing too

Everything written had been destroyed by the Romans but the pride of the people remembered anyway and told each of their children the true story.

Hid secrets in knots

Secret codes.... wrapped in a maze of design and woven into the memories

What is in the DNA?

what does get passed down? Darwin suspected the secrets and is it not all about survival?

But if we forget the knowledge learned how much loss for the knowing that it first took? How many seas were crossed? How many mountains .... how much was sacrificed along the way

The pirate with the vampire eyes

Yet he does not demand anything

Elan sees him go to other women. She sees him do this each stop they make. It is at villages they stop by to trade at. He never touches her, he only protects her from the others. Yet Raoul keeps her nearby and makes sure to keep  one eye always on her; he keeps watch of her and as he goes behind the doorway with the kind who give their bodies for something he sells 

he says,

“stanna här,” and points for her to sit at the bench of the proprietor’s stall

she hears them through the doorway as she waits.... hears the sounds the women make and sees the way they look at him after 

She always averts her eyes when he steps out

It is one of many times that he sees her washing by some fresh water and stays concealed behind trees

The perplexity of his face as he watches the girl. The way his eyes stare

The early days they kept a respectful distance of each other as they traveled or when side by side having a meal that sometimes she asks if she can prepare because it is something she would always do for her father. The first time she asked this he gave her something that had been hers from her father’s trunk. A leather bag of herbs

When she looked up at him for this he smiled

and then very slowly.... she smiled back

That was the first time

Something kept her in his stare and she stared back. It was a look she had never known before but it was mixed with a look she had known all too well

But she did not pull back

After that, each time she waited outside a proprietor of that kind she felt a feeling that she did not fully understand

It made her angry at him and she didn’t understand why

He noticed it though the first time when he motioned and told her to put on the cloak which she did with a cold look ....and it made him smile

She was angry all the way back to the boat and all through the voyage to their next stop and each time it happened hence 

intrigue Film Noir

“How did you get involved in spying?” I ask him shivering in the car as he drives. I don’t ask him about the car which is an SUV but I do notice it is a Volvo

Jörn grimaces, and shakes his head,
“....spying....”

“You’re trying to deny it?”

He sends me an icy look that is meant to scare me but I don’t feel scared. No. I suppose in a way I am intrigued

“Well....” he shrugs now and says, “it was during my rebellious stage— you like research, you’re always digging things up on Google.”

“I like archaeology. I liked it even before Google.”

“Yes, archeology.... I was more interested in the science angle,” he glances at me, “how biology tells its own story.”

“Pathology?”

“Yes—but even more than that. So.... at first I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a musician because everyone in my family is and I was always interested in things like what can be learned of a person’s life through their diet or biology or their .... remains.”

“I see. Gruesome.”

I see his smile even as he keeps his head straight and his eyes on the road

“It’s interesting, min lilla duva.... anyway, I studied at university for awhile and a friend of mine invited me to one holiday at his family’s summer house. His father happened to be an investigator.... is still actually....”

“What kind of investigator?”

“For the government.”

he says this simply with a shrug

I turn to look at him but still his head remains straight and his eyes stay focused on the road

“And?”

Only now does he glance at me. He draws his brow,
“and?”

“There is more to that,” I say to him

He looks back at the road,
“Hmmm.... you think so I’m sure.”

“Obviously.”

He shrugs again,
“well.... obviously I am a musician so I did end up following the family path.”

“I’m not sure if you’re really insulting my intelligence or if you think I can’t see through this.”

“No, I just don’t feel like talking about it because I just dragged you out of the Hudson ....so why don’t you tell me about that instead of trying to think you can distract me?”

“I don’t think that.... “ I say but then I add, “I just don’t feel like talking about it,” I say

Jörn, the drowning sea & the loss of reason; A mermaid’s drowning voice

“Our conversation earlier has disturbed me greatly,” he tells me

My mind is blank and fights through the morass, I stare into the Hudson; it goes to several of many conversations but I still

....well I don’t know

Jörn stands there in front of me and I have to look way up at him

“You told me about your dream, min lilla duva....” he squints into my eyes from up there because the sun is in his eyes; the way the sun glitters into them has me caught in the memory of something else

That he has come here makes me rethink what I may have....

I cover my face

“What were you planning to do?” he pulls my shoulder to look at him; he is now knelt down next to me where we are now by the rock ....it is nearly submerged now slick with water like I am and so is he

“Look at me!” he shouts this

I don’t look

Instead I realize what dream he is referring to. The one about the angel of death that has kept me up every night since

It has been almost a week

“You have been avoiding me all week staying up here....you say you are disappointed in humanity?” only this he whispers

“How did you know I was here?” I whisper back at him

“You posted on IG....” then he says, still with the intimacy of a whisper,

“don’t disappoint me....”

but why do I almost hate him now.... for saying that and finding me

“Plus, you haven’t finished your story,” he says in a gentle chide

I remember he is a father. And I remember he has a daughter

.... it makes me angry

before I find a retort he throws me over his shoulder like a bag of swords

first edit; JM chronicles of the Vampire Pirate; the early memories of the vampire and the priestess

Raoul knew some words from other languages from his trading in different places; enough for some crude and basic communication and this way they learned each other’s names and began the basis of some initial conversations

at first she only stared into the water and barely noticed nor responded when Raoul tossed a hide to cover her against the winds from the sea

It did not occur to her to be afraid. Not at first. She only stared into the water

It was only when the other men on the boat started to notice her. When they would reach to steal touches of her body; when the raiding leader wasn’t looking and then, she became resentfully aware of another kind of danger when she kept hearing them refer to her as “Slav” and choosing not to show fear, from which she would raise her head up higher and look at them with disdain because she knew what that meant and knew her people were not of those parts

Sometimes when they said that she would spit with a sneer at them and reply with another word to clarify that she was, instead, from the other lands and spat,

“Keltoi!” at them because she remembered hearing about the lands of the Pyrenees from the ancient stories her mother told where the people were marked by the red of their hair like Elan and what her mother had too. And how her father had first come by her mother on his travels as a bard. Her mother had traveled with her Druid husband. He was come from the distant isles to the west from Tintagel; he was of the Cymry people with the dark eyes which Elan also had. Her face was a hybrid of cultures which caused men to stare because it gave her an exotic look

and so from place to place they had traveled often by mule with bags on their backs and sometimes by sea when her father had found passage with the peoples they traded with.

She knew of the Slavs from their travels and had seen how their people were often smuggled; kidnapped as slaves 

But many times her father devised a way to help some escape the clutches of the Rus by putting them in the trunks they traveled with. Being a magic man he threatened curses as the means of protecting his property during those fearsome encounters with the Rus

....and she would slip potions in their ale 

during the hours of the bard’s story-telling by the fire 

when she had been required to sing and dance 

and dangled like a toy by her father; the old Druid who told his news of the world through stories told sung through his song

her father would take out his harp and oblige her to dance and sing the chorus 

as the warriors watched her; as her father dangled her

Those warriors who expected more than just her voice nor just to watch 

She had little faith in the Druid spells of incantations but she had learned a lot about the plants —which aided to confuse during necessary times. She knew the healing plants too and the plants that could both give and take life

Once the shock wore off that the warrior had killed her father she began to be aware that her life was to be drastically altered. She had never imagined a life free of her Druid father beyond those childish dreams of youth that long vanished ....those dreams of rescue and of finding a good man that she had had glimpses of during those stops at towns where they traded. But those dreams were destroyed when her mother died and her father turned to his daughter for his lustful needs in his drunken and twisted grief. She had learned shame. And her dreams died with that shame. She had learned to feel a loathing for that kind of act

Freed of her father’s dirty intrusion of her body but replaced by the threat of a ship of savage warriors, even as she was not the only female on board, she was the one most prized and favored

Raoul was the leader and respected by the others but there were some who resented him, she quickly found and then.... it began to dawn on her ....that pirate who claimed her would expect more of that kind of shame.... that act of what she had learned to despise

Yet he would guard her during that voyage that continued to other trading villages 

but he could not always be there

It was on such an event of being dragged by one at such a village .... it was on the event that she began to associate Raoul with safety 

when he stopped a brutal encounter —one of his shipmates who stripped her of her dark blue robes; when she nearly lost her life as she fought the hands that invaded her body

Raoul had saved her

After Raoul killed him it began a kind of tension among the others from the ship and they all watched her with sidelong leers and called her the spawn of Loki.

JM chronicles; memories of Raoul

Raoul


He watches her from the market when she goes to the water to watch the waves and searches for moonstones

Jörn sits at his piano and plays as the memory plays back, thrown back from dreams in his mind

He creates

Recalls from dreams

He plays. The music where he is conductor. Conductor of all. In control

He’s in control

Always in control

Of all his emotions....

She goes to the water to wash. To wash the blood from her clothes.

He stayed to watch her because earlier he had heard her screams. The father’s shadows on the stall wall behind the curtain he watched....

The Druid with the silver and gold; the crystal ball.... they were going to sack the market but he convinced the men otherwise. To trade instead his hides.... to sell his swords he spent all winter at his craft

They were going to sack the market

Instead he watched her red hair escape from the hood of her dark blue woad dyed robes

But as he watched her the men back at the market were drinking.

There was blood on his blade.... things turned when he heard her scream in the shadows and his blade found the reason for her screams and .....

He saw relief in her face as he dragged the Druid from her

 And as he watched her wash still stunned she searched the shore for moonstones, washing the blood from her clothes

the screams from the market reached them. The look on her face reminded him of his dead sister and he ran and hauled her over his shoulder like his sack of swords. Her robes wrapped around and falling in drapes down his back as he ran to the long boat with her

His music on the piano goes mad as his fingers slam down on the keys

JM Muse Chronicles Film noir Jörn scene continues

Jörn: I did not know who you were when I first saw you in the lobby

Beth does not reply. She waits watching him. Her face obscured and just the set of her shoulders expresses the sense of something like a bird waiting to take flight

Jörn: I found out from the doormen who you were

Beth: the doormen?

Jörn (shrugs and inclines his head downstairs): so I read your blog.... going back a few months and....

Here he stops to reflect as if only just recalling an observation

Jörn: I started to dig around. I half suspect that is how they figured out .... yes, min lilla duva, I do have some connections with.... secret intelligence

Beth: some connection?

Jörn (does not reply but rather stares st her and shrugs)

Beth: I see.... you mean you are a spy?

Jörn: I wouldn’t say that

Beth looks at him and they trade looks

Jörn (with a reluctant sigh): not.... exactly

He is caught by her look

Jörn (Again a shrug): not .... per se.... so to speak

Orpheus JM muse chronicles: Scene 1 of The Pirate with the Vampire Eyes parallel drama

It is a market scene by a port circa 870’s

The one known as the Pirate With the Vampire Eyes is seen leaving the long boat and he walks to the market to trade his hides

He carries his crafted swords he forged in a thick sack he carries on his back.

His long, gold-blond hair is caught back and tied in a leather cord and he walks with a proud and energetic gait up the beach to the market among a group that leaves with him off his ship

He is seen walking as the scene of the market’s activities fill the screen

The camera shot pulls back to cover the scope and then capture the scene of when the Pirate we shall call “Raoul” first lays eyes upon the Girl, whom shall be called “Elan”

He is dressed in warrior clothes and armor

Now in profile of Raoul watching her with her father. Her father is wearing the dark blue woad robes of a Druid medicine man. He is a healer and he is also a soothsayer. He travels from port to port with his daughter. There is a scrying bowl on a wood table made of crystal and jars of herbs and teas. There is also a small harp which he now picks up to play, sending his daughter out to search the beach for moonstones

Father: It is low tide now, Elan (his eyes peer at the sky)

Elan (wears a long dark blue woad dyed robe, the hood covers her head except for long red locks that escape it; she wears a pendant that falls to her waist that is a heavy silver crescent moon; bows to her father): yes father

Father: don’t forget to si—

Elan: to sing the incant; yes I know, Father

Father: To the four winds

Elan ignores him and picks up her basket and as she does she begins to hum the incant but this is when she sees Raoul and she stops suddenly stunned by him

In profile the two on the screen in silhouette

In slow motion she drops her basket. It rolls right to him. He grins at her as his eyes openly expose more than a decent interest in her. She reacts at first with fear by suddenly jumping back from him. But she then stops as if magnetically pulled to stare back at him.

He picks up her basket and hands it to her. She stares and slowly takes it from him. Bends in a curtsy and rushes quickly towards the direction through the market that leads to the beach

He watches and then looks towards the stall where he saw her come from. Raoul narrows his eyes on the father thoughtfully before he slowly walks towards the stall

Jörn; Beth entry Film Noir

Of course, I realize, it is madness to believe that I could outrun Jörn—but I don’t think, I just act and the impulse is purely fight or flight

Jörn easily overtakes me,
“where do you think you’re running to, min lilla duva?”

His eyes look like ice when I am stopped by his grip upon the shoulder of my coat as he turns me around; they blaze with a kind of electrical charge that seems to spark and for a second there I forget where we are; when we are

I am reminded of the eyes from ‘the dream’ ....the pirate on the boat from across the sea

I get a chill that stops me to stare into them. I am stood frozen by them on the spot. This is when he drops his hand from my shoulder and he tilts his head to one side to stare into my eyes.... and

I see the smeden there inside and this is what I trust

This unreasonable feeling. I just do

....somehow....

I don’t know why....I do.... somehow—I don’t know why

“Where are you running to?” he asks me now in repeat. His voice cracks into a tone changed to one that almost pleads as his ageless vampire eyes....implore

with unspoken words that I don’t yet comprehend but strangely.... believe

I see a veil lift from within the gray and he says as if reading me through my eyes,
“you think that you can’t trust me—“ but he stops himself from saying more

Yes and..... yet—I don’t know if that is really what I feel. Not fully

“What it makes me fear is that you will turn out to be another one who only .... came into my life with preconceived ulterior motives,” I tell him

“Like Nigel and Eliot....”

“Like everyone turns out to be.... “ I say this as I think about the last few years of my life and all the users who pretended friendship when they had other uses of me in mind, so I say,

“tell me now, Jörn, did you set all of this up? Everything that’s happened? Our meeting that day?”

“Are you serious?” he stares at me with a look of deep hurt, “Do you really not trust me, min lilla duva? All the dreams? The memories we —both—share....? Do you think all that stuff with Gerald was ‘bullshit’; part of some cover? Do you believe I have such vile scruples?”

‘Jörn Film Noir’ foreshadowing

Because he drives I sit in silence, even as he talks .... my thoughts are working

Jörn talks about his mother when I ask him how the surgery went, saying,
“it was not a big deal, everyone made more of it than necessary— we at least all had a family reunion—we’re talking about getting together at the summer place....”

Still my thoughts....

“You met with your Dutch friend....” I stare without seeing what I look at, staring inward

I feel him turn to me but I I don’t look

“Why would you do that?” I ask

I listen for anything he may give away

It feels like too long before I hear him sigh,
“I guess I was curious to know—the off chance there could be a connection.”

I whisper,
“To your Dutch spy friend? bullshit, Jörn.”

I don’t even move and just stare ahead. I consider why I had the impulse to pick him up at the airport after his dropped hints of the details of his flight

After awhile he sighs again,
“what are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know.... it just seems too convenient to me,” I say in a whisper

“What does?”

“All of it.”

He pulls the car off the road to a rest stop area. The car hardly stops when I jump out

But I don’t run towards the building there. Instead I run anywhere else

messenger of the gods

Within the perimeter I’ve skirted my issues

using veiled and curtailed words

You see, these memories of that man appeared to me in times when I was most lost

As I was often on the brink


the ledge

I would remember him

It always called me down off the ledge

My thoughts are so different

So odd from most people

I don’t know where this comes from but I never have fit comfortably with society because I am somewhere else —coming from somewhere.....

 else

And so 

 it was when I started reading his words that— I went to the library to check out a book he wrote


.... suddenly I realized why I did not fit the family I was in. The school room; the country, etc etc


It was so strange

it was so strange to connect with a mind I finally understood; the patterns of thoughts; the flow; the philosophies and social concerns but most the value of why the humanities are at the core of evolutionary civilization that .... makes or breaks extinction

so strange to hear the echo within a conscious place

And just feel bereft of some unnameable loss

I think of the smeden who was too late for the girl

I think of the darkness in his pale Nordic eyes .... the vampire who dies a million deaths and never dies

who carries the burden of loss

But I think of the purpose of this emotion—an emotion that is not wished for but instead chases and haunts in some tucked away inner place

In terms of what archeologists discover written on caveman walls

This message is at the driving center of existence whether anyone is willing to ponder existence or not— it is there anyway

and written on the caveman walls

like a mural of a wave —and overwhelming emotion

Maybe the vampire is the only voice because he holds all the abject memories

I do believe art is one continuous conversation through time and all the threads are valuable like what we find in a DNA helix

6 February 2019 Orpheus’s Testament & Starbucks

Orpheus’ testament 

It is randomly that I hear the strangest shock of a sound— or rather, more like an alarming array of notes,

“Oh my god! What is that?!”

“It’s my mother....” Jörn says to me 

Why does that make me look around?

I see him go over to his phone to check a text. I watch him grin and chuckle and then he looks st me and blinks switching lives between Sweden and here

“I think you’d like my mother....” he says this walking back over to the birch wood dresser where he is busy sorting things .... it is hard to determine if he chooses color or purpose when he’s organizing but I find it provides entertainment to watch

“You said she’s a musician too?”

“Did I?” he asks

“Yes, you said something like how all the people in your family are....”

He seems to have found something he was looking for behind some socks and sets it aside to stack a pile of neatly dry-cleaned shirts across the top shelf of his closet that I realize is eye level to him

“What instrument does she play?”

“My mother? She’s an opera singer....” he goes back over to the dresser looking at what he found in the drawer; they are cuff links I see now and he looks at them thoughtfully before he closes them up in a box

I hear that crazy sound again and he turns to go back to his phone

I realize this time it is the sound of an operatic voice singing in exclamation “OOhhhhh!!!!!!” in a very high pitch ..... as if demanding to be heard as if to drop everything immediately. Which clearly he does

“Is that her voice?” I ask

He glances at me while he’s texting his mother back, smiling, so it must be funny
“Hmmm....” as he looks back at his phone

.... it makes me I wonder if he recorded that himself or —?—bought it on a Swedish ringtones app

“What instrument does your father play?”

“Oh, all of them,” he shrugs as he is busy replying to his mother

Another sound emerges from his phone and this one sounds like a crescendo in an orchestra with one dramatic and long open note

“Father?” I ask looking up at him as he walks by me laughing into his messages

“He’s the conductor at the opera house,” he says to in answer to my question and says this also with a shrug — but now he pauses suddenly—thoughtfully as he looks up from his phone at me to study me

“What?” I ask at his odd expression

“My father says ‘hej’ ....”

It takes about three seconds for it to sink into me that he means that his father says ‘hej’ —to me

....Jörn concludes, for us both now, a bit stunned,
“Andreas must have told them about you....I think —they want to meet you....”

I feel the need to sit down.... now.... wow....

Parents?

the parents.... I never thought I’d be meeting anyone’s parents at this point in my life.

It’s been almost twenty years for me


Mine long gone.... a long time to not have .....the overshadow of their looming subconscious presence. I don’t remember anymore what it’s like to have parents


I begin to feel a sense of fear and panic

“Why do you think....?” I whisper this..... I feel nervous and start to organize my own things —the contents of my purse are all over his bed and so I start to gather everything

Jörn watches me now and laughs,
“They’re in Sweden, min lilla duva, it’s not like they’re coming this instant!”

It is a self conscious laugh when I realize I have exposed my fear to him by this.  And I don’t notice I mumble something until he asks me,

“Why do you keep saying that phrase? You keep asking if they speak German....”

“what?”

“‘pratar du tyska’?.....”

“Ohhhh—Have I?”

“Yes.... he smiles at me,

His electric stormy eyes are now laughing at me as he says,
“have you been falling asleep to that lära sig svenska app again, sötnos?”

“Ohhh....” (he knows I do this?)

“Anyway, I must get to rehearsal, have you decided to come tonight?”

“What is it again?”

He walks over to kiss me quick on the lips,grabbing hold of my hair as he does so as if it is a rope to pull my head to him
“I told you twice, min lilla duva, Stravinsky and Mozart,” and kisses me again

“I have to meet Eliot about the Project....”

“Do you think it’s wise to trust him with your work? He seems like such a shark, isn’t that obvious to you?”

But then his phone chimes “OOhhhhh!”

“Mamma!” I say, imitating his accent

Starbucks Script discussion; sketching the opening scene for Electra’s dictionary


I meet with Eliot at a nearby Starbucks and he starts talking immediately,
“Why haven’t you answered me?”

“Because I’m still not sure about .... doing this....”I tell him and say ‘with you’ to myself which he doesn’t hear

He asks,
“Are you going to be using any of Nigel’s footage?”

As if....,

Instead I say,
“I told you I found his videos of me under hypnosis—did you know about that?”

Eliot looks uneasy and turns his face away scratching his ear uncomfortably

26 January 2019; dreams everlasting

 ....  he always showers after a run. He is like me this way; the neurotic hygiene obsession— in this way we are the same as it is an intimate quirk of mine or it’s not ever going to happen; to let someone that close, skin to skin....  for all his earthiness.... he is always clean.... everywhere.... and smells so good; and he says,

“I won’t be long, min lilla duva....”

I watch him walk towards the bathroom as he strips off his clothes; he peels off the long sleeves of the black Henley that still clings to his back muscles that flex with every movement he does....

the sinewy of his back and arms hypnotize me

It is when I fall asleep waiting for him

 a pathway has opened up. A passage through

This time I don’t run away,

I don’t run away anymore.... and only now I realize it has always been here where I seem to always be running back to

always running back to him....

 in those shadowy unnameable dreams.

And only now do I know.... this is what I have been hiding from. Deep within my consciousness, this person’s memories, this ancient pain that can haunt a soul. Part of a repeated theme and pattern

.... the heavy sorrow

and the dream of the pirate on the boat.

The frozen land and that unreasonable fear of the Nordic sea. And only now do i know that I have been visiting him all these years

he has been there, somewhere buried in my mind.  Haunting in my dreams.... and pulling me back to him; like the mermaid on the rock who traded her voice and dug out her guts

....I waited for him, and fell asleep

I dreamed of the enclosed hut with the fire pit, now cold and dark; I dreamed of the animal hides stacked on the floor; his familiar scent captured in the warmth of the furs that I bury my face into and watch the white of them turn blood red as I become colder and colder.... and recall that I feel such agony of longing and such sadness knowing that I am leaving him.... the pirate from the boat with the vampire eyes; how I love those eyes, with their ferocious beauty, like storms across the frozen Nordic sea

and slip into horrors, I am gone through the passage....

Time shifts; it overlaps. And runs in parallels as it rewinds and replays and plays its haunting symphony from out of time because time is not real; what ever was always is, it says in dreams. The pain never goes away, it never leaves; its memory indelible on the spine; it hits, it beats, it whips, it cuts, it tears into my flesh; it gapes apart these open wounds. There is no safety. No safety from the pain. As flesh tears away, as flesh is torn apart, as beauty is destroyed.... knowing I am leaving him as in slow measures blades carelessly carve, irrelevant of the girl’s torture as it licks into flesh; whip or bow or blade, the blood lets cascade in the laughing teeth as another takes a life cheaply. Sharply, deeply, through a passage, and through a glass starkly; the mortal blow is cast upon some cavity of an unborn child womb cocoon and doom is cast too long to last

The sadness of his vampire eyes the last time he looked....

I wake up screaming, still feeling the blade and the dead born in a flood

This time it was too real

“Wake up! Min lilla duva.... just a dream.... it’s just a dream! Wake up, min lilla duva!”

The strangeness of seeing him takes awhile to understand. He leans over me with dripping hair. It rains on me as he shakes me awake, falling in long blond streams around his face as he shakes me. It is a while before I stop confusing him with the dream, awhile before I realize she is not me. That girl is not me. She is not me. Is she....? Why should I ....?

Still

It is only because I wish never to go back to that place; not to that moment .... not want to see the disappointment there in the horror of his undead eyes that rain

I close my eyes and wrap around his neck, put my face into the pulse and tell myself: this is real.... he is real. I am here, this is now. But I am .... not sure I can believe it; I need to know

“I heard you screaming—“ he starts to say but then I am kissing his mouth, kissing him hard and throwing him back against the bed but he pulls his mouth from me and turns me over him as he moves over me to look into my face, he presses me into the bed looking wildly into my eyes, and says in a whisper in my ear, “you were having the dream.... I thought someone was here! you sounded like someone was murdering you—min Gud, shit! Was it so real?”

But I don’t want to go back there.

Instead of answering him I reach for him and pull him down to kiss him and he relents when I wrap my legs around his hips and cling to him as he says, “slow your breathing.... breath slower,” and says, “sshhhh....here, let me get dry, I’m soaking you, I just ran out when I heard you screaming....”

“Please no, Jörn....”

“Ok,” he says and laughs when I move my mouth down his wet body as I touch him with my hands to smell and taste him and put my mouth on him for the need of something real and of the flesh .... and this overwhelms everything along with the wanting that always comes as soon as he is near. The need to have him becomes everything; a kind of painful throbbing that is so urgent like some savage, desperate confirmation of life. He smells like pine and I put my mouth on him and feel his fingers in my hair as he cups my skull to him, “det är för mycket,” he says and stops me, pushing me back against the pillow on the side where he sleeps, pushes me hard into the sheets as he moves over me and deeply into me and it is only the brutality of his motions that takes away the nightmare

notes to a celf in a dictionary; Thoughts of the legend & the loss of all

What do you do when you have lost everything....?  Do I mean the homeless person who walks the streets daily because there is no where to go? do you feel for this person and can you put yourself in this person’s skin?

there is a terrible isolation to be deplete

I will not put my meaning clear; I will speak in symbols. because it is all I am able to say. but I speak of society and not really in the political sense. no. I mean it in the actual sense.

where do you go to find understanding and compassion, when there is no one who can relate, when you find yourself flung on the street and there is only street and black ahead?

Let’s think about our sad Viking with the vampire eyes because it is easier to talk of him. Let us consider a warrior who is used to cold and violence and has lived by the seat of his pants without ever stopping to feel. Because if you stop to feel.... you will crumble down. What he might have seen before he found his Siberian princess with the mahogany eyes, no doubt something turns you this way.

To consider this one aspect to know a moment’s joy from a bleak horizon —now the dead girl is left in her pirate’s arms.

If he was too late then the heavy loss would burn his soul alive .... how did he get through another day?

who would understand the loss of all and where do you find such society? The awkwardness of shame keep people away and make friends into spiteful fiends as they look for excuses to avoid you

what society is there when dragged out from Hell and you are left with your guts ripped out

the Vampire Waltz; Piano Noir

I watch Jörn after we leave Gerald’s. While we walk together and in pace, it seems he is a million miles away or lifetimes..... he is silent all the way back to our building

I know he is disturbed and hardly looks at me. I would almost think he could not stand the sight of me if it were not for the way he suddenly grips my hand when I stumble and how he reaches to wrap me in his arms, within his long, wool coat when we wait to cross the street and watch the street light and the crowds.

I see his troubled creases between his pale brows reflected back from store windows.

There are moments when I physically hurt from some inexplicable pain within my heart. It makes my lungs hurt. Like a smothered scream

I don’t know what this is but he is right. About the emotions. It is too real to be able to ignore.... but it is madness

madness to think .... how our dreams link up

it is terrible too.... terrible because this is not like some movie or romantic novel. This is too real to dismiss

I realize the pain is .... coming from a life once experienced .... by someone— or someones

and for them this was a great tragedy. This makes me sad. So sad. So sad to know that such a great passion was .... snuffed out .... before it was ready to let go

the girl who could not leave her lover’s dwelling and held on to life, for once more to glimpse at him.... for the smeden who felt his love pass as he held her in his arms

I feel this when we are stopped in front of some store window. But we do not look at the objects in it; we hardly notice what we look at. I just see his image lit on the glass of the window. Despair—and I wonder at how troubled he looks there.

Back at Gerald’s when he spoke.... when he leaned into his arms as he sat there with his face in his hands.... I heard him weep; a stifled and muffled sound in his hands and constricted in his throat so as not to let us hear

He is mostly a rational man. While artistically creative as a musician, there is always a mathematical mind to a musician that holds firmly to structure and logic. But .... he is so deeply human. He hides this about himself but it is there always lurking in his music, in his love making....and in those vampire eyes

His vampire eyes.... those electric, undead pirate gems that sparkle like midnight frost

And still he grips my hand

and

even suddenly ....grips hold my skull stopping on a street corner and covers my mouth in a devouring kiss, mindless of the city rushing by.

And I forget too. I forget everything

When we return to our building he pulls me in the direction of his entrance and away from my penthouse side. He does not even look at the doorman. He doesn’t look at anyone just straight ahead. But when we go back to his place he says,

“I need to go for a run, min lilla duva,” and flings off his coat to quickly change

“Now?!?” I ask him as I stare at him, imploring him, feeling my emotions rise wildly

He kisses the top of my head like I am a child and mumbles something in his language but says to me,

“here, I’ll draw you a bath—and I will be back before the water is cooled, I promise, I just need to clear my head....”

He has his own mind, I will say about him, he decides and he is not one to relent and I watch him and follow him as he goes through to the en suit bathroom in his bedroom ....I listen as he starts the bath for me and sit on the edge of his bed

My mind is swimming in chaos

He puts on his running shoes and ties them sitting down on the armchair in his bedroom.... long arms and legs ....long fingers that tie decisively before he gets up to reach for a hoodie, zipping up and tying back his hair

I look up at him

“Jörn....?”

He looks at me

“I’ll be right back, I swear....” he stares into my eyes and forces a smile, “come—”  he pulls me to the bathroom, to the bath, “I’ll be back before you even get out....” he starts to take my clothes off me, each layer he peels away before I ever have a say

“....but I need to talk, Jörn.... you can’t just go!” I say and my eyes sting as my throat catches

“I’ll be right back....”

......

Awhile must have passed and it is when I am aware of music playing that I realize the water has cooled

Awhile

staring into the still, clear water

I hear a piano playing.... and realize where I am. Realize this is a sound proofed apartment....

I get out of the water and reach for what is handy. It turns out to be his black kimono from his transvestite night with me. I pull it on over damp skin and it hangs long past my knees when it was much more short on him, the sleeves fall long past my hands.

I walk towards the music as I tie the robe around my waist and follow the music .... it makes my heart pound

there is something about him that .... goes to my head

it goes to my heart.... he disturbs me deeply.... he does not even have to be in front of me, it can be the scent of him or his voice.... his passion

He plays a piece I recognize—it was something he played before. It.... was the piece he had been working on.... he said.... it has that strange Transylvanian feel; a haunting

I hear him step on the bar with his foot as he plays.... the madness of the way he pounds the keys make the music bounce from the walls

when I see him sitting there, his hair has come loose from the tie and tosses madly as he plays .... it is beautiful—his music is so beautiful

still in his running clothes; except for his feet which are bare. I like his feet.... they are like his hands; works of art; like every angle of every bone; like every feature of his face; especially the irregular ones.... especially

so I go to him because

....his music is beautiful

He stops playing and looks at me.... so I go over to him

.... I move between the piano and go in between his long legs and he sits back and lets me, opening his arms as I face him sitting on the bench with him, I wrap my legs around his hips and look up into the shadows of his vampire eyes

“I wrote that .... for you....I recorded it— I recorded overdubs with the cello and piano and double bass....for you, min lilla duva,” he turns his head to the side to stare into my eyes. He holds one entire side of my face in his one hand; forehead to chin and digs long fingers into my hair, “did you enjoy your bath?”

I smile at him

He says,

“was the water still warm?” and smiles back at me

“It was—” but I don’t get to finish as he starts kissing me, pulling my legs tighter around his hips and separating the opening of the kimono, he runs his hands up my arms and stands up with me wrapped around him and still kissing me, pressing himself —there— to me; he presses himself to me and holds me snug to him; pressing into my nexus

He says breathless into my ear,

“I want you to hear it....” he takes me with him to where he has his music recorded; he does this with no effort with me in his arms and he says, “min lilla duva.... you’re so thin, I could crush you....” and breathes into my hair; he whispers, “hold onto my neck....” he puts his music on and as it begins he brings me back with him to the piano and sits to play with the music

It is like being in his very own symphony

to know that he plays every single instrument I hear

it is like crawling into his very core ....to be that close

to someone .... mind and soul ....and body.... and body

I think about something Gerald said, how people “reincarnate in clusters....”

I squeeze my eyes shut because I don’t want to think about that ....

his music is so beautiful—so intense, so deep and passionate; yet so fierce

He stops playing and lets the recording take over as he stands with me again but detangles me from his hips,

“dance with me....” he says into my ear

“I don’t really know how to waltz,” I say to him as he slides me down the length of his body. The kimono falls open. I land upon his feet lightly as he guides me down. It is the gray shadows in the Nordic blue of his eyes that dance and draw me into their glimmering den.

He takes my right hand and draws it up with his, but he is such a long way up; he puts his other hand on my waist and stares into me.

He possesses with his eyes

and this is how we begin to waltz to his private orchestra

he conducts all; me and the music, all layered in webs of notes, and I, like a prow, am cast balanced on his feet

....it is his music, the abandonment of his notes that weave their magic; how forlornly they are strung together and ....hold me; the devastating remorse

and it makes me think of the smeden ....with the undead eyes staring at the empty body of his love in his arms.... it makes me think of mourning.... his grief.... I realize his music.... this is about grief

and so now I realize ....

He needs her forgiveness; it is his soul that does

.... and I wonder is it because he feels he let her down in the other life that in this one he needs to make it right? So.... does he need to do this to free his soul?

And as we waltz to the abandonment of his notes with his eyes looking into me, we seem to spin in slow motion, as though spiraling through walls that melt out of time....as though finding something so long lost and I think of a boat and of the chill water.... of the man on the boat with undead tragic eyes that mirror the dark and deep blue sea,

It makes me remember his eyes that first time he looked at me, how they seemed to burn like a brand to scorch my soul

“What happened to you at your college, min lilla duva? The attacker,” he says this now in a kind of lulling coax while still dancing

but I shake my head,

“no, not tonight....”

“I want to know .... I would like you to tell me why nobody did anything about what happened....”

I just say,

“you know why.”

the psychic visit continued of the JM muse ‘vampire’ chronicles

“I remember the fear the most and this is what lingers most of all from the dream,” I say

It seems everyone is silent now because to process all of this seems impossible

“My big question to you— well, it’s really to both you guys is.... “ Gerald sits yoga style in the arm chair as he speaks, leaning forward, “well let me just start by prefixing all that with this: something has reached its zenith in either one or both your lives which .... for what ever reason, all the energies are lined up— if you could picture an energy force like a football game where all the key team players are set up, so you see the goal is right there and now the shot comes.... well, Jörn , you asked before if I think these are past life memories so, I should answer your question....

“In all my experiences with people I have met where they believe this is true — certain things seem to always be the big tip off of if this is the case. Like in my case when I went to Thailand and met Haley— other people I have known all experience this typical aspect in the initial meeting. First it’s the eyes. The instant recognition. The other key factor is— not to sound sappy — there’s a kind of overwhelming sexual attraction. It’s not the kind where it’s like teenage hormonal infatuation — this is more like the covenant or worship that in this dimension can only be translated sexually but it’s being directed from —actually— the solar plexus. Which I consider the seat of the soul. The sexual energy that happens is just the expression that is best communicated through physical connection but it’s .... actually doing something more. You know about Plato’s description of the Higher Self? While the soul continues to exist after death and in between life, as we get born our minds in physical form cannot comprehend so many lifetimes. It would be too much. So there’s a part of us that holds all those memories of other lifetime’s of emotions and memories.... this super consciousness.... almost like the super ego in psychology.....how all that manifests itself is this sexual energy because the mind and body can understand it through this sexual level of consciousness.... have I lost you or am I sounding like a complete guru weirdo?”

I smile and look at Jörn. He seems tense I notice.... his brows drawn.

He seems uncomfortable and stretches but stands up. He walks to the window and looks down below at the street. From there we watch him as he leans on the window frame.

He turns from the window and walks over,
“if it were not for these crazy dreams I would think you were nuts right now but —“ he hits his chest hard, “but these emotions I get from the dreams— I watch her die and it’s .... terrible! It’s so real to me that it —it’s too hard to sleep after. I can’t sleep after. I have to get up and play my music for a few hours until I can stop thinking about it.”

“So— can you describe for us —or is it too much right now?”

“You mean tell you how she dies?” he glances at me when he says this

“Yes. What happens?” Gerald asks

Jörn sits down and leans over, he runs a hand through his hair and studies the rug under his feet. He sighs quietly and slowly breathes in. He says,
“I am returning from a boat and I start to run for— it’s like how she described— a kind of hut and I run there somehow knowing.... I dread as I run because— I feel it....” Jörn lays his hand flat on his heart

“When I get to the hut I see her.... “ his voice actually cracks as he says this. He stops talking and shakes his head looking down. He covers his eyes and face. After a long pause he says, “this reaction I feel inside myself.... it’s too real to be just a dream.... “

“So you watch her die?”

“Yes.”

“Is there blood?”

“Yes....” he sighs, “when I go to take her in my arms .... I feel her pass away because she waited for me to come, she knew I’d come.... but I was too late.”

Gerald looks at me,
“didn’t you tell me that you were assaulted when youwere 18?”

I nod.

“Do I remember this right— were you left for dead?”

I nod.

Part 1 the psychic visit of the JM muse chronicles

When we go to meet with Gerald we visit him at his apartment; a modest walk up by the Metropolitan Museum. He has a lot of earthy rugs everywhere and a lot of tones of orange and red and there are a variety of plants everywhere in gorgeous earthenware pots. I notice hand made pottery is also everywhere.

Gerald is what anyone would call a nerd and he often calls himself this too, so I am not insulting him by saying this. I am also one myself so I cannot judge against this in anyone. I knew him years ago during my bookstore days, those days when people met at Borders on a Saturday night for coffee and  to watch some grunge band that would be playing live at the cafe

Back in those days when I was knee deep in Virginia Woolf and Baudelaire he did the occult section and he was going for his doctors degree in religious studies and metaphysics. You would not think it to look at him; he goes to the gym and has neatly cut brown hair and wears square black framed glasses —the same kind as me actually. He wears a very ordinary dark blue knit pullover with Levis and thick brown socks. You would not think he was a New Age Medium.

So we take off our shoes and come in

He offers us herbal tea and after making quite a ceremony of preparing it in front of us, we are only too glad to agree. He asks us if we prefer music and samples a few as he invites us to sit down

The sofas are grouped in two areas and both spots have book cases filled with books with tables. He selects some background music and begins lighting candles

He does all this as if it is simple as going to have your taxes done —only no, but that’s not really all that simple then

But, anyway, in all this time Gerald is looking at the both of us and staring, at times, at Jörn .... he seems very focused as he studies both of us

“So tell me about these dreams....” Gerald says casually folding his arms and leaning back on the armchair he sits in

Jörn looks at me awkwardly and nervously pushes up the sleeves of his thick gray sweater

“I told him about your dreams,”  I say by way of explanation as I look at Jörn’s eyes as he now looks away


....and then he looks back at me. He keeps looking into me.... he stares into my eyes but says aloud to Gerald,

“the dreams began after the first time I saw her in the lobby—no! It was before that....” he mumbles under his breath in Swedish as he thinks; drops his eyes and turns to Gerald,”they started when I began reading her blog. I had not seen her yet —did she tell you? I kept getting her mail. The damn postal person kept fucking up and so— I got curious —I don’t know—and looked her up —so I found her blog. There was her picture at the profile part and that’s when I saw her. It’s an odd picture as she is obscured. Like one who is hiding .... like the shadow of her too on the blog page. But.... the dreams .... like when they first began they were first just these chilling shadows —“ he stops and shudders, then continues, “then I saw her in the lobby that day talking to these two irritating English guys and this time I could see her eyes clearly.... it was like seeing—a ghost or.... that night I have the dream again.... this time....I see her in the dark.... obscured. The first time. Just her eyes glowing....afraid.... but this time I see her eyes —wide and scared and then always someone comes and she screams....”

Gerald looks at me,
“Are you ok?”

I feel strange. I say,
“I didn’t know that.... he didn’t tell me this.”

Gerald takes a long sip from his cup,
“usually when I get a strong feel this way about a person it turns out that a very important turning point is in the process of occurring. Usually. But in this case we have three people with similar dreams. Did Dawn tell you that I had a dream about you and I called her out of the blue—we haven’t talked since—what? Five years?”

“At least,” I say

“We’ll text sometimes—but you know how it is, she was living in Michigan for like the last ten years and.... now she’s back and — I think there’s something significant about.... why all this —and the timing —or really more while for me it’s a strong hunch but that it feels like a memory to you guys ....”

“Is that what it is then?” Jörn asks with a self conscious shrug. “Are you suggesting we knew each other from a past life?”

“Before I answer that, tell me —where you are in your spiritual belief system? Are you religious?”

He smiles,
“I’m Swedish.... we are not big on religion and for the most part I agree with that .... but.... however—there are some things I feel that I suppose you would call spiritual speculations.... about things. I mean—you know what I mean, I think?”

16 January 2019.... hauntings of a pirate

I have always known something deep within myself. Always been aware of ..... looking for someone—it never has made any sense to me but the dream

.... you see the dream? Where I go through a pathway.... I have dreamed this dream all my life. The first time I saw him.... I knew

.... it’s been he who I’ve been searching for from my dream..... I knew he was here

and I knew why

the beautiful haunting of his vampire eyes....

12 January 2019 Film Noir; the beautiful haunting of his vampire eyes (edjmmusechron)

Last night in sleep I recall somehow in the experience ....the realization of ....the knowledge I have been re-living the same dream. Flashing images that unfold like scenes and plays like familiar, long distant landscapes that trigger thoughts, like memories that hurt. Sometimes different. Sometimes the same.

…. I see his face; long and sharp as he emerges to me from shadow …. a bearded blonde warrior who ….looks like Jörn. 

I see him in the shadows; I see his eyes. His eyes are Jörn’s .... the hair longer with part of it tied with a thong, pulled back from his forehead. His face obscured. Like the shadows on the wall. The hair is longer and there is a great scar that distorts —a slash over one cheekbone, and golden facial hair that covers his jaw and chin. I recall the shadows it creates on the wall that is shadowed on smoke. And the fire pit. I recall an orange glow of metal and animal hides.... the hands are the same, elegant and strong like a craftsman; like an artist

It seems I go often there…. where is there? to visit him in sleep lately; I seem to walk through a pathway to find him.... and a feeling of seeking.... shelter. Shelter among the heap of hides

Always it seems, I watch the glowing flames and watch as metal hits metal from long arms. I realize he is a smith; smeden....

It is when we are at the Strand bookstore, when I am fishing through Anaïs Nin diaries and flipping through the purple pages that I experience a chill that floods over me. It begins with the top of my scalp and goes down my neck through my arms and spine

Jörn is a few isles away looking at something else on a table and quickly I glance at him. I don’t know if it is the words on the page or the proximity of where and how he stands there but I feel suddenly feverish.

It is something in the description of her words, something in her pace and fluidity that melds with the memory of my dream. I don’t know why. I recall his body slick with sweat as he carries the weight of metal to hammer a flat, long blade; I recall a sense of irrational lust and the memory of detail of sinewy.... the smell of the hides and the ache to have him within my sex as I watch and as those pirates eyes turn from his work to watch me

“What is it?” Jörn causes me to flinch as he is suddenly next to me and he takes the book I hold in my hands and gestures with one shake of the head towards the place to pay, “let me buy this for you—Andreas is waiting outside, I just got a text.... come....” he pulls me along, slipping his long arm around me so that I am caught up to walk along side him

We are meeting his son for lunch as Andreas has decided to find me interesting and wants to know more about who my real father was

“So he was a political leader?” Andreas asks

“In a way,” because these questions make me uncomfortable but I like his son; he’s very sweet, very charming
“I saw his statue the other day,” he tells me

Jörn looks at me with one raised, blond eye brow to tell me he is impressed. He says to Andreas,
“what made you go to that part of the city?”

“I wanted to see the statue,” he grins boyishly.... I sometimes forget how young he is. Because he looks so much like his father I often believe he’s just as wise but it’s not true; Andreas is still rather impressionable

Jörn smiles at me, with a shrug,
“he finds his civil protests interesting ....”

I nod

“But he was tall?” Andreas asks me

I nod

“But you didn’t inherit that trait,” he laughs because he likes to make fun of the fact that I can wear his sister’s defunct opera coat which is actually big on me

“Obviously,” I concede with a smile and a shrug

Later as we walk behind Andreas, Jörn, who carries my purchased book in his other hand says,
“what was it in the book that gave you such a spook?”

“Oh, you mean back at the book store?” I see his nod as blue eyes piece through me, “oh— it wasn’t the book.... it was about my dream—this one it seems I keep having.”

I see his sharp look and he says,
“I’ve heard you mumbling in your sleep. You seem to repeat something that I cannot make out. But I —haven’t told you something; I was afraid you would think this too crazy but.... no first tell me about yours....”

I feel the familiar chill along with the cold sweat that seems to erupt from my hands and through out me; I look at his eyes. I stare ....in there

I say now as I stare,
“I think it’s a memory, Jörn.... I think somehow all this time that....”

I shake my head unable to allow myself to say what I’m feeling aloud

But I see he reads me as we walk and he pulls me along and looks ahead as we cross the street, Andreas ahead as he speaks on his phone to his latest female conquest

“When I get up in the night, min lilla duva, it’s because.... lately it is because I have such a terrible dream about you,” and now he shudders

It is awhile as we walk and he says nothing more so I finally have to ask,
“what is it about?”

He becomes noticeably disturbed,
“it is a strange vision..... makes me feel so hopeless.... and I have to get up and play my music....”

“But why? What is it?”

“I don’t want to say.... it’s too morbid.... did you say your friend Gerald is a ‘seer’—a psychic?”

“In a way....”

“Do you think there’s a reason he had to tell you.... you know.... about what you told me he shared with you?”

“I don’t know.... I guess.... I mean.... yes, I think he believed this was necessary—somehow. He’s never done anything like this with me before but I do know he ..... well, has done work with people where he knows things.”

“Yes. I see. Do you think I could—we could.... not to be strange about all this but, it’s been happening a lot and now you tell me about you and your own dreams—could we meet with him possibly? I’ve been wanting to ask you....”

“But— you mean because of what you dream— what is it about?”

He shakes his head,
“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to upset you....”

“Please—this just makes me need to know more! Tell me, Jörn....”


He glances uncomfortably at me. He says,

“it is .... your death.... “

10 January 2019; codes encoded corrected & in conversation; Electra’s dictionary

smeden, Sweden; codes and conversation

Jörn laughs at me when he discovers I have been trying to learn svenska (Swedish) in secret

So he tests me; he says,
“show me what you know so far....”

He stands there challengingly with a kind of smug look on his face

“Are you trying to intimidate me?” I ask

He holds up one hand like a crosswalk cop and then does the underhanded wave, ‘come’ and says, fast as whiplash
“prata på svenska....” And raises his brows with a shrug and a nod

“....hmmm?” I ask trying to rewind those sounds in my head

He says it again,
“prata på svenska....” but still, it comes out fast like a bebe gun shooting rounds

“Ok? Uh.... how do you say slow down?” I ask

He smiles holding back a laugh,
“kan du tala långsammare....” (which he says just as fast)

He looks at me and does that wave again and walks over to me

“Ok.... kan du tala l-luuu....”

He stands close to me, and looking down at me repeats it over me staring into my eyes. So I try again  ....but he is not satisfied—he does this several times making me repeat like a drill sergeant and each time he says it again he waits with an imploring nod

It is about five or six more tries before he begins laughing and says,
“you had it right about six tries back,” he pulls me to him in an apologetic embrace and says,”but you’re fun when you are confused,” but then he laughs and says, “säg något....”

?

.....?

Covertly I reach for my phone as I still have it on me and dig into my purse mumbling “.....mmm hmm.....” and nod wondering how that’s spelled.... (somehow I figure it out).

But he sees what I’m doing. He seems to think it’s a comedy act and is openly laughing at me by now,

But once I realize what it means I know how to answer and so I say,
“Jag vill att mitt namn ska vara jordgubbe.”

Jörn takes me by the shoulders and sets me back a few inches to take my phone away. He looks at my phone and shakes his head as he says,

“Du vet att du bara kallade dig en jordgubbe?”

So I try the phrase again,
“Kan du tala l-la—“ and get stuck on the long word

“Långsammare,” he says laughing at me

But I have lost my patience for now and so just say,

“yes I want to change my name to Jordgubbe,” I tell him (because, it is—so far, my favorite Swedish word) and so I repeat it, “jordgubbe.... jordgubbe....”

I notice he puts my phone far away from me as he walks across the room to his piano. Without warning he sits down and dramatically pounds the first several bars of Bach Taccata and Fugue in D minor in rapid succession on the piano keys, then just as suddenly stops so that the last notes are still echoing in the room as he says, turning towards me from the piano bench and says to me,

“and why, min lilla duva, are you studying my language? Are you concerned my contract with the philharmonic is nearing the end?”

Only I don’t know how to answer him. I walk around the vast room and search the surfaces of the tables set at various places between the piano and the rest of the open room. He tends to prefer minimal design so there are not many objects to distract myself with. I find his phone and wallet but only to touch it and then set down

“I know so very little about your world,” I tell him, “is it strange to you that I want to know?”

“No, of course not,” he says, then taps the piano bench at a spot next to him and says, “come sit beside me.”

When I go over to him he begins to play something. He then stops and reaches around me to play with me inside his arm. I find this surprisingly intimate. He takes my right hand and places my fingers on the keys. In a soft voice he says, “you used to play, I remember you said.... play these keys....” and he shows me, running his fingertips along my fingers. We play it together, his long fingers over mine. He takes his left hand and plays something else. Then we do the same keys again. He shows me another combination in the same range and plays more at the same time with his left hand.

He is warm next to me, I feel the heat of him through the crisp linen of his shirt and the subtle scent of his body that always smells so good. And always seems to drug my thoughts. His music moves me. His passion.... I find easily caught up in

we do this awhile and I follow his patterns.... so easily—as though I read his mind.... a very intimate kind of secret conversation and.... it feels intensely erotic and strangely—almost— only.... while yes, it is erotic it seems, too, to come from some deeper place.... some higher place; yet lower too. It is powerful and somewhat.... almost dark

So it is through this music and his closeness that an image comes to me. A memory. It is another memory. A dream maybe I dreamed last night? I don’t know. But it is the forge, the fire and a memory of his hands but ....I don’t know why ....I suddenly say,

“svärd.”

He stops playing suddenly

He looks at me. After awhile he asks,

“what made you say that?”

I shake my head because I know it wasn’t something from the Swedish phone app. It wasn’t from anywhere.

He says,
“were you reading my mind? I was just thinking about something I thought about today I was .... passing ..... the Met and —you said the word just as I thought it just now.... what made you do that?”

It is so strange to me too. I am just as baffled and shake my head. I say,

“I think I dreamed it” I look up into the vampire eyes that dazzle like a pirate’s gems and hear this phrase again from my dream, “—mid..... midnattssol ....svär—dtillverkning....svärdtillverkning.... “ I say it aloud with hesitation not knowing why but somehow knowing what it means—“it was last night....you woke up again in the night and I had this dream.”

Jörn’s look within his eyes is almost spooked and he says,
“the midnight sun. I had the same dream last night.... smeden.”

9 January 2019; touch on discussionof motif; a short from Electra’s dictionary; epiphanies

I meet Jörn before his performance

He paces the hallway and then motions for me to follow him. So I do

“Is this a coat closet?” I ask him

“Nobody’s using it right now,” he says but smiles like a vampire who’s hungry for blood, “don’t worry, I’m not going to ravish you here....”

only he does not keep that promise

So, Eliot was right, but it was a public rehearsal—which I have never seen before.... a somewhat informal performance and a bird’s eye view of professional musicians

and so then.... it occurs to me as I watch him from the balcony that.... I am ascending to hell but I am looking down from the balcony

If Nigel was Beatrice then Jörn is Virgil; my guide through Hell

7 January 2019; Electra’s dictionary; sketching out the concepts to explain the indie project

It is such a surprise when someone from my staff tells me that Eliot is at the door

I’d gone out walking earlier and then it became so cold out that I turned and came home intending to write but then Eliot drops by unexpected

I’ve not heard from him in months.... not since Nigel and I....

He walks in as if he was only here yesterday and kisses me hello

“So, have you been avoiding me?” he asks

He sits down without waiting for an invitation and when Iyla comes over asking if we want coffee, Eliot says,
“Yes.”

Should I still be surprised at his presumptuous actions?

I don’t sit. I go over to the window and look out

“Don’t worry, I’m not a spy for Nigel,” he says

I don’t believe him though

“So.... what brings you here?”

“Well, I was wondering if you had been giving any thought lately about the film....“

I study him

I have such a hard time taking him seriously. The fact is: I don’t actually like his style of film making. It actually irritates me.... so, how do I tell him ‘no thank you’ ?

At this Jörn calls me .... I recognize his ring so I go over to my bag that is laying by the sofa.

“Jörn?” I answer the call

“Come meet me here....” he says in that voice

“You mean at Lincoln Center?”

I hear him laugh,
“no, I mean the Taj Mahal—where else, min lilla duva?”

“What time?” I ask and feel Eliot watching me. I turn my back

“I’ll give you time to get ready and send a car for you around seven, how is that?”

After I hang up with him I look at Eliot as Iyla brings the coffee

“Sorry, what were you saying?” I ask him now because I find myself a bit thrown off. It seems to be Jörn’s way with me, I seem to forget whatever I am doing

Eliot stares at me and it starts to make me uncomfortable

“Who was that?” Eliot asks me, “I know it wasn’t Chris—because you never look like that when.... wait—it’s the bloke from the lobby, isn’t it?”

“‘Bloke’?” I ask

“The big Swede from that day....”

“Why would you say that?” I ask him

Eliot just watches me,
“it was that look you had that day.... it was something—weird about that—and you have the same look now.”

“What look?”

He shrugs,
“like .... you just saw a ghost —rather sort of spooky—he’s kind of —not quite.... there was something berserker about him; sort of daft—it’s him isn’t it? Are you seeing your neighbor now? Isn’t that like incest? Or fraternization?”

“What?!” ....because I don’t know what else to say.... it’s not his business! And I do not need him to go tell Nigel....

“No! Don’t tell me, you are!” he starts laughing, “it’s written all over you....”

“What is? What are you even talking about?”

I drink coffee and don’t bother answering him in any more detail

“So why are you going to Lincoln Center?” he asks me

I shrug,
“oh just to go to a concert.”

“Since when are you into chamber music?”

“You didn’t think I liked classical music?” I ask

“Well, to actually go to a concert—but I am pretty sure there’re not doing one —aren’t they in rehearsals?”

“How would you know that?” I ask him

“I actually overheard a conversation on the way over on the train —what is it, Scheherazade?”

Eliot is an actor. I often forget this. Not really a good actor. So, why does he always fool me?

I start to think now about what this is about so finally I say,
“you saw me with him, didn’t you?” because I remember one day I thought I saw Eliot across the street when Jørn and I were leaving the building together but then I forgot all about it

“Well—yes....”

“It was that day—“ and remember it now as the evening of the first concert with him. So I look directly at him, “did Nigel put you up to this?”

“You did block him on your phone....” is all Eliot says to that with a shrug

I feel angry

I try not to say something. I tell myself that nothing I say will be good and the consequences even less good. I just breath hard because I feel like a dragon ready to spit fire at him

Finally I think of something to say,
“Are you spying for him now? Is this about your silly little film or about Nigel?”

“I was here for selfish reasons actually—was hoping you were not actually shagging the Swede so that I might have another go with you!” and he actually laughs

Why do I keep him around? I always thought he was comic relief but right now it feels more like he’s inspiration for target practice

“Look, I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” he stands up, “do you want me to go?”

“I don’t know....” I say and sigh sadly shaking my head, “because I don’t really know what to make of you and I never have. I am so used to people leeching on me that I don’t even notice it happening ....you want something.... of course you do; everybody always wants something from me.... it’s plain; obvious, I mean, isn’t that what was always behind your interest in me?”

“Probably—at first; but I always thought you were cute,” he shrugs, “and I’ve never had an original idea in my life so I thought I could use your ....story because—of our family connection....”

I sigh heavily. No, this does not surprise me.... I finish the coffee,
“I need to get ready so, why don’t you go now? Not to be rude —but I will say this: I will think about the film idea but only because you’ve admitted you don’t have the ability of an original thought—because maybe you can leave the thinking to me. Only the real problem is, I don’t know if I can trust you so— I need to think and —right now get ready for the symphony, all right?”