Back into the Deep Morass; (jm muse chronicles) Electra’s dictionary film noir/The medallion factor

 

I find myself utterly lost in thought. 

I am sitting there. I even forget ….where. For a moment. And…. well I don’t know if it’s ….the puzzle itself that has my mind going 

     I like puzzles; labyrinths ….knots, I’m like a cat but I’m a fox but I’m like a cat this way —curiosity —you know the saying 

Anyway I convince myself that it’s the need for intellectual connection that I realize I 

    don’t suddenly want to go home 

or do I? it’s confusing 

Haile Selassie….because it sets off the memory button in me —I cannot let him sense the wire he’s tripped. Trigger. 

I melt into the seat. 

Try not to hyperventilate 

He was given a medallion by the Emperor of Ethiopia. So many photos of him wearing it. But then it was stolen. Disappeared

I catch my breath and cover my face because I feel the blood drain from my head. I’m so dizzy. 

If Jörn knows the source of my code methodology ….?

I now look up as he had gone outside to take a call and he walks in from the snow like a Viking. He does not feel cold. He’s Swedish. He brushes off the snow from his open trench coat and glances at me as he re-ties his hair back and sits back down in the seat before me. 

He studies me without saying anything.   

Openly. 

How is it that we can go months without seeing each other but as soon as he’s near me ….i forgive him everything….? no—not this time 

I got caught in the Nordic kryptonite that can be as cold as that sea, so cold, like ice and I do not like to freeze 

“What are you thinking?” he finally says as the waiter places down two coffees 

“I thought we were going,” I say 

“Going?” Jörn asks as the waiter disappears “going where?”

“What has Gerald been saying about my nightmares?” I finally ask

Jörn leans back and stretches his long arms and holds his head from behind as he slumps low in the seat casually looking at me; shrugs; scratches his head; reaches for coffee ….

Says,

“you know Gerald…. he’s all about ‘eternal soul’ and all that ….”

“Well what does he say?”

yes, the nightmares have been horrible lately. Worse than ever

“No—well….” Jörn is openly uncomfortable now. He looks right at me and reaches for my hand, “Duva …. some omen or what do you call it—a vision —he got or concern for your wellbeing and it’s not really my field but he mentioned —he mentioned Retnuh Nivek and —his timing to tell me coincided with his reappearance on our radar so…. it caught my attention, let’s say, he’s been helpful on some of my other cases, by the way….”

But I hardly hear that last part….

Still lurking out there. Free as a bird 

I shudder. Slide my arms inside my coat that I’d shrugged out of in my seat after the first shot warmed me up now over an hour ago ….it feels I’ve hiked a mountain and think 

We never get closure in life. 

And ….that is what this is about ….what’s been haunting me all my life and …. I realize ….that is what is on the tape —my session with Dr Rothschild. I remember parts of her regressing me ….because the memories flooded later —past —and— present lives. Sometimes as if mixed as one but about memories of my father —my real father ….memories I was told never happened 

That is what has been haunting me. Because we talked about becoming a family, out there on the beach …. so many times…. it was the three of us ….the restaurant on the water where I fell asleep that time too. On the seat. The window overlooked the bay where his boat was parked; memories I could not have invented and within the snug interiors of his boat which I always fell asleep on….we planned memories together, the three of us, he carried me on his shoulders—no one else ever did that; I didn’t imagine those days which were later full scale denied; torn up in a diary like tiny snow flakes falling …. a hope lost and replaced by an unexplained emptiness where once was the escape from that horrible life in the yellow house ….with the man with the set of Baly leather belts ….but in the eggshell mind she once was, it was always going to happen and she never stopped waiting….but then it ….never did….ever happen so I think that chip got stuck in my brain; in my mind there is a part of me, still there….like actually still waiting for him to come like he’d promised and 

If this is a key

to that part of mycelf —my key

it must be valuable for someone like one of Jörn’s terrorists. And as none of it was solved really, so much covered up—why do I think the lost medallion Halle Selassie gave him is somehow ….

I’m staring into my coffee cup as if it were tea leaves

“He wants you to wear this Buddhist medallion—“he holds up a chain with a pendant that dangles 

“What?” I look up when I hear medallion as he says this at the very moment I think of the missing one

But if this is a key to the breadcrumb trail back I may have to go into the deep morass 

JM muse chronicles/Electra’s dictionary and film noir;cracking the dawn

 

“Do you know who Haile Selassie was?” 

“Of course.”

“‘Of course?’— no, not many know whom he was,” Jörn says 

And do we find ourselves at the usual impasse 

The Mexican standoff as gramps used to say 

There is one part of me that wishes to get up, run and not look back. 

I hate emotions 

“So, I know whom he was….?” and I know this is some kind of hitch to cause me to suddenly blab but I’m bored. I’m bored with his game. It’s not hostility. Just bored. Instead I want to throw rocks so I say, “what has this really got to do with terrorism? Just tell me, Jörn I’m really so not in the mood for a quiz, ok? I mean…. that was Jamaica and Rasta mostly or ….”

“Ethiopia,” he says simply 

“No, I know that. I know he was considered the messiah to his Christian followers,” and outwardly …. I shrug. Outwardly I pretend it means nothing. 

Only inwardly do I analyze 

We are still at the bistro 

“How is this to do with terrorism?” I ask again 

He gives me an exaggerated indulgent sigh,

“try,” he says 

I think. Ethiopian messiah. And ….my biological father…. I want to be bored of this game

I give him my pat answer,

“If I were a terrorist I don’t think that’s the figure I’d pick.”

“But that’s the code.”

I look at his eyes now. He looks right through me 

Shit.

Jörn. 

You have cracked me.

    after all…. 

 …..one part of me finds this is strangely a turn-on

I didn’t think even he was that clever

…..to be continued 

JM muse Chronicles & film noir more code/ & the dancing bin men

 

“For the longest time I felt I could not be myself…. And it feels like I wandered away from who I am—or was ….but can I go back to the me I was before? I….wish I could. I want to. But —I can’t find her….” I look at him now to see if my words have any impact 

I cannot tell

I say,

“do you know how strange it is to forget what are the things you do between sleep and awake? Not hounded every second, censured thoughts ….. and end up like you feel like you have becomea zombie …. a stranger to ….myself ….you don’t know what I mean; I can see that by how you are looking at me —it’s like, even the books I once loved feel …. I’ve lost all connection ….i cannot find my safety inside.it feels —I am empty inside, a shell shock soldier and…. I’m trying so hard to …. find my —or any footing …. that feels real or solid or safe. What is safety to me? When everyone, people I think I can trust all ….turn out to be frauds and ….it all is so ….terrifyingly random and I am tired of dodging bullets.”

“Come home,” he says 

Those two words are incongruent 

…. you know, I mean in particular to whom who says this to me

How dare he?

“And where is that exactly?” I ask with some leap of an invitation he might be privy to information I’ve not myself come across

Home?

“Last I checked….” I open my purse and take out my driver’s license, “look, says here I’ve got one of those —so …. thanks!”

“You know what I mean….” he says and —when I look at him sat hunched over a cup of hot coffee I notice how small his tallness makes everything around him seem as his large fingered hand cups the little mug

then, I notice that furtive glance around he does 

“Is this really home, duva?” and looks around again 

“It’s honest. No strings attached. No overhead manipulations or euphemism expressions that demand acts —like empty trades for shelter—I’ve been trapped by enough of you predators ….” but I say this much more quietly and stare out the window, “really, what the fuck do you want?”

“You,” he says, “and your conversation—I miss your thoughts …. you thought I wasn’t listening but I was —and ….”

but I know better.

“Than why not say? Why not let me know? What purpose is it to listen only and not be willing to be as part in the experience of knowing the whole of all I am? I cannot believe anymore and that is —too bad. But it is not possible to will a feeling you don’t have and it is not possible to put faith into something that is a fraud.”

just using all  the lines, I was not born yesterday. Tell me, what does it all mean? I’ve lost the will to believe 

“Wasn’t there a code you mentioned?” I shake my head, “you are so full of shit. My conversation?” but I use the distraction of my phone to escape his conversation and happen upon a funny thing on YouTube 

Jörn pulls away my phone in annoyance and forces me to look at him, holding my face by the jaw,

“yes— you are witty and clever and a brilliant artist and some men —one I mean— who really are worth your time can see that,” but I avoid looking up into the bolts of kryptonite

I agreed to meet at somewhere public. There is a nice cuisine down the road from me called Latitude 44 Bistro so ….I agree to meet 

the drape from the window …..winter in the mountains; it is a horizon of cartoon Frozen and polar and fleeing geese which harkens its limp Charlie Brown appeal; the swell in my heart expands. As…. I nearly choke with its joy.

But it’s me. Like consider it is only just a mood, like how I worry for the world but by now I see, it’s not really needing that; it is a habit I must break. it is not my war. and allow what has thrown a dark cloud upon me to will it to go away. I must stop caring so much. Stop feeling. Stop searching for things that are simply not there and never were

“I do recognize and value there is so much more to you than —oh, I don’t know, some kind of a —sexbot,” he says this and drops his head down and says, “unlike—who is that guy you know —why do you?—you should know he is screwing his married coworker!” he tells me

I feel smarted as if by some blow

but I am confused 

“What are you talking about?” I suddenly feel that vertigo and cover my face and from inside my hands I say,

“Jörn, what …. Are you insinuating you are monitoring my calls?”

Spies

they dig up and throw in your face. I shake my head and look at him. Did he really come all this way just to …. to ….hurt me? in this state of frenzy I reach for reasons for such a motive—what reason ?

“No—but why are you here? You do realize the Barn house and old farm house are about twenty minutes from here?” Jörn now tells me 

Is it? 

well, maybe by car 

He hired a car to bring me to Latitude 44 Bistro

I feel like I want to go home 

     and once again I feel that chill because I don’t know what Home is. What or where. Bereft of whatever props that requires 

“Another?” the waiter stops by to ask as he takes my empty glass 

Home?

After the waiter evaporates I say,

“you know, I should have known you’d reappear—pop right back into my life when I saw that article about a Swedish airplane hybrid being tested at my local airport here—it’s like—you had to be behind it! Some excuse to disrupt my life again!”

Jörn looks over his shoulder. A habit. Because the restaurant is empty behind him. 

But then he says,

“yes, because I know the nightmares have returned for you —and—yes, there’s a code only you can crack because ….” and here he seems almost in physical anguish before he says, “there’s a taped session of you that just surfaced….its from one of the sessions you did with Dr. Risa Rothschild which only they seem to have possession of and —this code was created as use for what we consider terrorist purposes.”

But I laugh. Only not at first. I keep replaying what he said. About the fifth time I laugh. 

But stop. Because I replay part of what he said again.

“How do you know about the nightmares?”

I notice the snow has started again. 

Slowly, I raise my eyes to him. 

I get a chill. Like I know before he says it.

“Because Gerald has been in touch with me. He’s worried.”

Worried?

Now I say,

“can you Venmo me money to Uber home now?”

“No—wait….I should tell you ….I was sent part of the tape so—I know what it is about.”

That sick taste. It rises up. And I feel sick. 

I look at him and search his face and wait but —I feel as if I already know 



 

across the tracks again

It was long past, shoved within a tight carriage of the train, it happened 

  it was like the first time, now so very long ago when she looked up from placing her gloves inside her pockets 

as the other train was going the other way 

he looked up at that very moment from within his train’s carriage and—like before they saw each other 

it was a breath away and then gone 

without a trace —just the heat of breath evaporating on the window