prequel to Vampire Waltz reprise (Going Loko) (of the JM muse chronicles)edited

~even tragedy needs some comic relief~

As Jörn drives I take out my phone and text Gerald;

Text to Gerald: I need to stop by to see you

Jörn pulls into a parking garage and looks at me,

“are you all right?”

“How did you know I went to Central Park?” I ask him

He turns his profile to me. I see he grinds his teeth; watch his jaw flex and knot as he looks out the windshield and steers the van around a corner to move up a ramp

“Were you following me?” I ask him

But then I hear part of the conversation behind me of the two men questioning the guy

He says,
“I swear I don’t know who he was!”

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Jörn calls back to them and says, “I was watching on the surveillance camera at the Starbucks and they know him in there, according to Jasper they back up his story.”

“Who’s Jasper?” I ask

Jörn gives me an unreadable look and parks the van. He gets out and walks around to the passenger side then opens it. He glances to the back of the van then at me and gestures with his head to get of the van.

I slide down the side and he shuts the door

He says,
“Come, let’s go around the corner to get water, you thirsty?”

But he does not wait for my reply. He takes my wrist and starts to walk me/pull me up the ramp out of the parking garage,
“Are you all right, min lilla duva?—how’s your ankle? Can you walk on it now?”

“It’s better, I think,” I say as we step out ....how am I.... ?? oh just slightly freaked out, no big deal.... as he drags me up the street as another anxiety attack is inevitably hitting me. I begin to hyperventilate

He waits until we have nearly cleared the corner and says,
“No, I was not following you, I got a call—shit, what time is it?” he looks at his watch. Again, I watch him grind his teeth, “shit, we cannot be late for the performance! Mama would string me up by my toes—shit-shit!” and does not finish this explanation, no, he just leaves me hanging and he starts to tug me along urgently to the store. I mean in the scheme of things it is good to see how well he has his concerns prioritized; he dreads his mother’s anger over some death threatening mugger

He takes out his phone to make a call and then suddenly looks at me as if he forgot I was there

He digs into his pocket for his wallet and takes out some money which he presses into my hand,
“can you get me a water?— and buy something for yourself,” he says before he says into the phone, “Pappa!”

Get him a water....

I go to the cold beverages and find the water. I only get one for him. No, for me, on impulse, I grab a Four Loko Black —why?because I am attracted to the color of the can? Yes but mostly it’s the 14% alcohol proof printed on the label

I bring both up to pay and as I wait in line, I watch Jörn standing by the door entrance having a Swedish conversation  on his phone with his father as if expostulating with heated, emphatic words. Then I hear Gerald’s text reply come and I reach to look onto my phone screen

His text: Did Jörn tell you about his dream the other night? Is that what this is about?

There is just one person in front of me now and I text back: what dream? When?

I watch the dots of him begin to reply. I keep watching. I start to get more anxious

The person at the register shouts at me because I don’t notice it’s my turn. I go up

“ID....” the guy asks me

“Are you serious?” I shake my head but start searching for my license

“We ask everybody,” he says

“Do not— they never ax me....ax everybody my ass, I come in here every day and they done never ax me....” some lady behind me says

I find my ID

The guy takes it and looks at it skeptically and turns it over looking at it

“Here’s twenty,” I say and hand him the money Jörn just gave me

“Where’s this from?” the guy looks at it like it’s a counterfeit

“It’s— it’s from Michigan— it’s still valid, do you see the year?”

“I see the year....” he says and then my birthday out loud. Actually Real Loud. Not something anyone likes advertised. And he repeats the year twice and shakes his head.... he looks at me, “.... and—why do you have a Michigan license?”

“Because I lived there! but I don’t think you need to know that,” I say

Jörn comes over,
“we have to go, what’s the problem?”

The guy says the year again like some idiotic broken robot

Jörn looks at me and shakes his head,
“Four loko black?” But then says to the guy, “she’s not a minor, I know she looks like she’s in high school but she is not—I can vouch for her,” then to me, “come on, let’s go.”

I watch him take the bag from the guy with the drinks in it but I grab a straw

We go outside and Jörn starts to look for a taxi

“Why aren’t we going back to the parking garage?” I ask Jörn

“Because the performance is in less than two hours and by the time we get across town it’ll be another fifteen minutes, we both have to shower, get dressed....”

I open the bag he’s still holding and remove the Four Loko Black. Pop the the opening and stick the straw in.

I drink half down before Jörn realizes what I’m doing

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks me

only I don’t have to answer because Jörn says,
“Oh here’s a taxi, you need to get rid of that.”

I take the bag, hand him his water and return the Loko back inside the bag. He pulls me to the taxi and pushes me inside.

I hear him say the address as I lean against the window sipping the Loko through the straw

“Why are you drinking that? It has alcohol, mon lilla duva, why are you using a straw? Maybe you should give it to me,” he reaches to take it from me

It makes the sound when I’ve reached the bottom of the ‘tall-boy’ can.

So I let him take the (empty) can .... hmm alcohol.... 14 proof is not bad— I can barely hear the meaning of what he seems to be saying to me, in fact

I lean against the cool window because the motion of the car seems to be bothering me suddenly

At some point we must have gotten out of the taxi and then through the apartment lobby

I hear him mumbling something to himself over and over as we go up

It takes awhile before I realize he’s mumbling in English

He’s saying over and over,
“let’s hope they’ve already left, let’s hope they’ve already left, let’s hope they’ve already left....”

“Who?” I ask

“Mama! All of them but mostly mama!”

“Why?” I ask and start laughing now

“Duva..... because you’re in no shape for her scrutiny, do you understand me?”

“No.” I say

The elevator opens and he pulls me out by my wrist and half drags me to his door. I realize he’s pressing his ear to the door as if trying to hear through it

I decide to make it easier and knock on it for him

“Why did you do that?” he puts the key in the lock and opens it.... then swings it shut again and pulls me back out into the hallway, “shit, they’re all here still....”

I lean against the wall,
“I’m going back to the penthouse....” and I start to turn

“No you can’t because we have already said you are doing the waltz with me,” he says

It seems like he says this. Or it could be the Loko. In which case it is actually funny. I start laughing because it is such a mad thought

“Why the fuck did you just drink all that?” he seems quite angry I slowly realize

“Because the mugger....” But I don’t think what I said sounded as clear as ‘mugger’

It might have come out more like ‘smugger’ or ‘sugger’

I think he, at this point was holding me up —but by my face and— looking at me like a headmistress at a convent school ready to use a ruler to punish me.... why that thought should come to me then I cannot really claim to know but it evoked some twisted ideas never the less

I look back at him and notice something in his eyes. That same something that makes me think of the pirate and then —the text message from Gerald that now repeats its alert

“Oh....” I sigh because I realize the scale of what this Loko has done to the evening

I repeat,
“the mugger....” this time more clearly

Central Park Film Noir/part 2

The attention that it creates when Jörn tackles the hooded person to the ground causes Jörn to shout at everyone watching,

“this is nobody’s business— this is a personal matter!”

“I was calling 911–“ a jogger tells him

This is when Jörn goes over to the jogger and takes his phone and ends the call. But he does all this dragging the hooded mugger who looks no bigger than a high school freshman and when I catch some of his features, he looks about that age

I see there are now two others who have showed up. They seem to know Jörn and they don’t look like they are native New Yorkers. Their features and manner of dress suggest otherwise and their accents I cannot place; not Swedish, not Northern European either

“Lemme go!” It is a young kid with a thick Brooklyn or Bronx accent, “he gave me a hundred bucks!! Idunno who the fuck he was— see?” he unravels the bill which is crisp and new looking

Jörn looks at me,
“are you ok?”

I realize I am still on the ground and actually stunned about what has just occurred and watch them in a daze as if watching a performance on stage

When he asks this I start to wonder too. My ankle.... I rub it and try to rotate it but it hurts. I stand up,
“Ouch....” I say and force myself to walk on it

“Show me the note, min lilla duva,” Jörn reaches his hand so that I may place the note in his hand

The other two ‘gentlemen’ seem curious about me and study me subversively

“He’s just a kid,” one of them says

I see Jörn’s expression when he reads the note

“Let me see that,” the other one says

“Can I go?!” the kid tries to shake off Jörn’s grip

“No, you’re coming with us,” the first one says and slips a handcuff around one of the boy’s wrists. He closes the other cuff on himself but he does this whilst looking around to be sure no one sees

I wonder where they are going

“Can you walk?” Jörn asks me when he sees me hobble

“I think so— of course it had to be my bad ankle,” I say

“Here, lean on me,” he says and puts his arm around my waist and lays his hand on my hip for support

We start to walk and I manage to keep up their pace through the park

There is a dark blue van parked adjacent to the Plaza that says “Laundry Services” in white. They open the back door and push the kid through as they follow inside. I notice there is no laundry inside; before they shut the two back double doors, I catch a glimpse of some complicated electronics inside and several monitors showing live footage of what looks like side streets

“Come,” Jörn motions to the passenger side of the van

The others are all in the back

“”Where are we going?” I ask but he just opens the passenger door and waits for me to get in before he shuts it and goes around the front of the van looking around to see if anyone is watching and then he gets into the driver’s seat beside me

Central Park Film Noir

I go to Central Park to get away from the electrical dangling live wires of Jörn’s family as they shout at each other and prepare for this evening’s performance

but I cannot take it. It is too much for me

There was a dream again last night that bothers me— it was one of those dreams.

I hear music — in my dream— the whole time

 I hear Jörn’s music .... there is the vision of the strange light of the sun over a frozen horizon. It is strange how sometimes it is like flying. I see from up above at times and it lays out like a map; and then I swoop down when something pulls me to attach to the land. It is the crashing sea; the sound as it hits the rocks; and it is the vision of the shoreline. It lays itself out like a painting to me. The blues and grays, the sand and foam; the rocks and driftwood.... and then the smell of the sea....Yes I dream in color and all my senses too .....and always have, actually,  as that is where most of the ideas for my paintings come from. Like Wavegirl did

and while I also can smell things I find things that turn out to prove true.... but only some things; specific things that hold relevance. Like ‘messages’

This dream last night was so disturbing but in a way that I cannot clearly pinpoint. Not based on any event that takes place in the dream

only the emotions

There is a ship. I watch it first from up above it then to the footprints in the sand as feet run. I watch a woman fall to the ground when a man chases her.... then she is left there

I watch red mix into the sea water like colors running across a canvas.... and see a pirate with a sack of swords walk to her and end her life

I know this had been the mother. The one who she did the rituals with 

and then ..... I remove from here; from this memory scene.... as time, like a spinning globe, moves fast to another scene 

this one of a beach when he watches the priestess girl in the moonlight .... this one is strange because it is like the Matrix because I fall inside her and see him through her eyes 

....and see the pirate with the vampire eyes 

from her eyes 

It is the emotions I feel in connection to these events that make the vision disturbing —a knowing that is a memory-like knowing mixed with so much feeling. So that.... upon waking there is an emptiness which is smothering and so heavy ....

it has left me so deeply troubled

I walk through the park

It is an hour later when I’ve crossed over the bridge that something hits me and I fall to the ground —my first reaction is that I think it’s a mugger but instead of taking anything something is pressed into my hand

I hear Jörn behind me shouting and the mugger takes off — I watch....

I watch Jörn chase him and throw him down to the ground....it is surreal

I look down at what was pressed into my hand. It’s a folded note which I open. It is a printout of a pasted together note that says,
“you expose me and I will finish you!”

nocturnes Electra’s dictionary; shattered glass retrospective

It is when I tip toe back to Jörn’s amidst the throes of an opera solo of his mother accompanied by Josef and Andreas —playing violin and clarinet respectively.... so, I manage to sneak by unnoticed. I hear Jörn by the recording equipment emphatically explaining something over the music with frightening exclamations —punctuated with his tossing various sheets of music everywhere with angry emphasis

I wonder what all that is about....?

Only I have been with the builders and Joanie for hours and ....

I keep thinking about my late nephew who passed away last month

because one of the workers was playing a deth metal band and it was a band Michael always listened to —and I become sad realizing again in a day for the one-thousandth time that.... it was not a nightmare; he is gone from our world....

So my head is in the deep morass of turmoil. It makes me think of all the sticky  webs that wrap around .... our family history

from my recent late 19 year old nephew and back to the life long conflict between my sister and I —which has never made sense to me

except for the fact of who her father was

.... and who my father was

obviously

We are worlds apart


it makes me think of how she always calls me “the black sheep of the family” to everyone she introduces me to.... how the soot gets all over me when I am too long around her universe

What a chaotic mess it all is. So on top of this, I speak to Chris the other day. Always a mistake. He always hurts me. He says he does not want to stop knowing me, even though we are not together he wants me in his life but— why? Is this a healthy idea? And then—when he tells me that my Electra complex is at the source of why my daughter won’t talk to me.... I think ‘oh, that’s why, he wants a whipping boy!’

he always hurts me....

And why should anything he says matter? If he never really saw me....

he says to me just the other day: he knows me better than anyone but.... he’s wrong! he never saw me! ....so why does it hurt me to hear him tell me these things....? These things he has no business telling me

He says, going on about playing his Freud theory
“you know, you write about it all the time; your whole Electra thing....” he says with that superior laugh he does and says, “well, that’s at the center of your issues with her— she told me....”   !

She told him? I realize now she talks to him. She talks to him. Why? ....and not me? when I can’t even look at a playground without crying

he is only her step father

was— or what are we? We’ve been apart so long now but once we were a family

Why does he still want me in his life?

my trail of exes seem to wrap barbed wire around my ankles and tether me thus —they don’t let me go, I don’t understand it

but Chris.... I spent the most years with and it is too bad he was always too inebriated to hear a word I said but claims he knows me better than anyone does

fuck him

So I decide to take a bath and shut Jörn’s bedroom door. Immediately inside the vacuum cocoon as the sound is sealed

I don’t want to think anymore

I think emotions play war games with my intellect and vise versa and both sides are hampered with their own bias

My mind goes back to Jörn’s reference to Barcelona

because that was right after the conversation I had with my mother that got overheard— right after the biology assignment that revealed my blood type did not fit my family. He took off on a sudden business trip and my mother started saying something about his not coming back and they might be getting divorced

—the past has a fucked up way of holding on to you.... it haunts and repeats

when you don’t know who you are —it makes everything uncertain

It makes you search for what defines you

it forces you to prove yourself to yourself over and over .... I’ve stared for hours at my reflection looking for my father who made me Electra searching for meaning in a self made dictionary— a voice? When I can hear his voice on the Internet because there he still is accessible and how strange is that? This mystery who was my father is known on the internet and in history books but not really known to me. I can stare at his famous pictures and see my smile in his.... so I stare at my reflection in search of him and wonder about DNA memory

I think more gets passed on than the genes —I think obsessions get passed down too; those unresolved dark horses hidden in the attics

I think of my discussions with Nigel about DNA memory

and my discussions with Gerald about the infinite memory of a soul

I think about

     what it is about Jörn..... what is it?

what is it about him that I am so compelled to....

it feels like some blind knowledge pulls me —it was like this from the moment I saw his eyes. Something about him. Something I see inside his eyes that I cannot look away from and seems to make everything else irrelevant

That is the real reason I went upstate

 I was trying to —I guess run away.

Because I don’t trust normally

and I don’t want to start —I know it is a huge mistake to ever trust anyone especially if he makes you feel like this. It is a mistake .... how do I stop myself ....how do I step back and wrap Mithril armor across my heart? I should not trust him. Besides that he’s a confessed spy —his family doesn’t really like me. Because I’m feral, isn’t that it? Well, his mother doesn’t like me.... she thinks I’m a wild fox. And Josef thinks I’m a stray cat

only I like Josef. I like Andreas too. And, no—I do like his mother, she just scares me and.... doesn’t like me

I go under the water in Jörn’s bathtub and look through the waterline above me

I see Jörn come in and he walks over to me and I see from under the water

I emerge from under and blink out the water. Still, of course he’s blurry because I am blind without my glasses so I squint up at him

“Are you drowning yourself again?” he asks me

I’m not sure if he’s serious but he says,
“the little mermaid....”

 then says,
“we’re rehearsing but no one is listening to me— I had to step away for a bit.... I brought you a glass of wine,” he hands it to me after he takes a sip and then when I take it from him and sip it I feel his hands move over my shoulders; strong fingers find tension and I let out a cry, “why are you so tense?” he asks me

I tell him a little but he gets annoyed about Chris,
“why do you still talk to him? I think you want the pain,” he says

I down the rest of the wine

He gets up and steps out of the room

“Jörn?” I call him

because I think now he’s cross with me

But he comes in lighting candles and arranges them around me by the tub. He shuts off the light so just the glow of the candles light the bathroom

He says, crouching down to me,
“I’d so much rather stay in here with you — and join you in there.... but tomorrow’s the performance.”

“I know.”

“Which you are going to,” he tells me

I don’t answer

I lean drunk back against the back of the tub that is contoured stone

“Don’t worry about Mama,” he says

“She can’t stand me,” I say

“No, she’s jealous,” he says this without a doubt

So I sit up and look at him even though I can’t actually see him

But he stands now from the kneeling position and says,
“it shouldn’t be too much longer. Do you want music?” he asks me

But I am still drunk

and I forget to answer him

Soon I hear music .... and he says something and then leaves

Some time after this I add more hot water as it has grown chill

It is awhile later that I get out

He’s reading something on his laptop and sitting in bed. He wears a black Henley with his running sweats and looks up at me. I like it when he wears his glasses to read; it changes his face so much

“Did you resolve your differences for tomorrow’s performance?” I ask him and look for something to put on as I am wrapped in a towel

“Who knows....” he shrugs, “it will have to be whatever it will be—at this point I don’t care,” he tells me and watches me as I find his navy blue long sleeved T-shirt and put it on. It fits like a dress on me and the sleeves fall past my hands

“Come here,” he says

He has put his laptop on the table next to him

When I come to him he motions for me to come closer, so I climb into his lap or start to because he wraps my legs around him and runs his hands up the back of me, under his T-shirt that I wear

I say to him,
“I don’t imagine I will be allowed to wear the opera coat.”

“Please forget about Mama, min lilla duva, I think you need to be distracted.”

“She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you— I told you what it is.... yes, you definitely need to be distracted, be quiet and open your legs.”

“I cannot do those two things at once though, Jörn.”

He laughs at me

My Vampire/the mindfuck

....and so, I wonder what life is about

   ....is it about memories we save somewhere in a soul’s database


   are they forever?


....and so I think of this later ....after the stress of facing the firing squad of a family

   

It was something in his face before ....

    I stared at him and saw an image lay

     overlay

   like his fingers the first time they lay across my hand

like the day in his kitchen with the coffee cup.... the first time I became conscious of

   the strangeness between us

it is a strangeness that is

    so familiar

I know things innately about him that I don’t know why I know— but I do. I know every crease of his face as if I put it all there myself.... I watch him at the piano, with his hair loose and mad.... he has such a wildness in him that is kept just tame beneath his surface

but his mouth on me.... it comes out in his passion.... like some monster gets unleashed when no one is around.... he is so different when it is only us.... the private den of his mind that he pulls me into. How with just his eyes he enters me; gets in my head and in my sex.... he does this

His bedroom is soundproof too. Still, he puts on his music.

It is that piece he wrote

the one we danced to.... that night....when he taught me how to waltz. It is like this with him. First he begins with the mindfuck; because he knows that is the only way into me,

the only way in


the only way inside the morass

but he is the only one who

is this way too.

He kisses me in this way.... with his mouth he fucks me,

I have never known anyone to kiss me this way. It is subtle but intense because he waits for me to.... he waits for me to....

well I should not say because.... it’s a secret between us.... but he is such a tease

so, I always get him back

I go to the penthouse later to see the disaster going on .... I sit by the window in the ruined dining room that are full length. Sit down on the soot of what’s become the floor and just watch that segmented snake outside

the long stream of lights of traffic.... how remote life sometimes is

to me

now

I don’t feel it the way I should. I see blood on my skin and don’t remember feeling any wound so.... I wonder about life as I look out the window there

The girl and the smeden ....

It seems I have always longed for him but I never could place where .... so what is the purpose we should meet now.... what purpose do we serve in each other’s lives.... something he needs from me? Something I need? Something that goes beyond life and time?

Electra’s dictionary/Nobody’s daughter*

I see Josef reach inside his sweater pocket. He takes out a pillbox and absently clutches his heart

“Are you ok?” I ask him and go over to him

He looks at me and smiles,
“I just realized I forgot to take these....” he makes a face at his pillbox and gives me an ironic smile as he moves to the counter. He reaches for a clean glass and says to me,
“don’t get old....” and chuckles

“Well, too late for that,” I say mimicking his tone and smile back at him

I realize I have forgotten about the coffee. Jörn’s instructions.... I go over to the carafe and push it down slowly


He mumbles,
“gryning.... första ljuset på dagen,” mostly to himself so I don’t answer or search for meanings....

Josef then says,
“....den lilla duvan....”


he comes over now after taking his pills and helps me with the plunger as he sees me having some trouble with it— the top part has come loose and....

He fixes it and does it for me but asks,
“do you know what Carl Jung said about names?”

I immediately say,
“how we are all destined or doomed to become our names?”

He actually laughs when I say this and searches my eyes. He pats my shoulder and nods,
“very good.... hmmm....” then looks at me with a curious smile, “you must have been a good student....”

I smile,
“top of the class and always teacher’s pet.... not in math though....”

He seems to think about this before he continues....“I would not say we are necessarily always doomed— do you know—for instance, dawn — which could be interpreted as ‘the quest for knowledge’ or.... ‘the quest for enlightenment’,” there is something of a Yoda quality to him and his veil is dropped when he looks at me now. He sighs with a kind of defeat but—no, it’s not that exactly,

“his mother worries over him,” he shakes his head in the direction of the other room. But now suddenly he shouts across when he hears something is off and criticizes a note has been played wrong and says, “again!” but then goes back to talking to me hardly missing a beat, “we’ve seen our son struggle with some—“ he stops here to look at me with a kind of agony, “demon..... inside him.... for years— sometimes I think he has a deathwish .... no, more that he is sometimes his own worst enemy. So restless.... always searching for some .... illusion.... like he is chased by some demon or .... is it more —he is ‘haunted’?”

He shrugs and looks seriously at me and for the first time I see something in his eyes that is like Jörn. Up till now I only saw his resemblance to his mother but now.... as Josef looks hard into me, the cold ice blows a Nordic chill, “he can be so reckless....” he shakes his head still looking at me. “You know that I don’t just mean about the intelligence work— pftt!” he throws his hand like one disgusted, “he thinks he’s James Bond —he’s an artist; a musician, what is he doing dealing with the scum of the earth playing their war games.... that is a worry.... but more than just that. Other things he’s done that —well.... are worse for their consequences.... I mean, you know, the women.... he has a trail of shattered women—he’s —well— it is like the devil has been on his back..... as a father it’s painful to watch his son unable to find peace; the family and home.... as I see what it’s done to his life; his family.... We always hoped he would get back together with his wife.... his mother worries because—time is going by and the good years .... but I don’t know if you are able to understand—for you it is different, your apocalypse has already, hit you hasn’t it?“ he looks at me oddly 

and stops —what is that? 

He seems to change his mind. 

Instead he says, 

“I hope you won’t be offended if I tell you that Jörn has confided to me about you. As I got curious about the music because —there is something there in it I have never heard from him.... A parent knows their child—he’s a grown man, of course, but he’s the same as he was as a child. So.... he always liked the stray cats, you know— the ones that had seen some trouble....” he studies me, “you have been married twice and you have a daughter.... but estranged....?”

It does not take a genius to figure out the dichotomy at work here .... only I am too emotionally worn out to find the emotional-intellectual ability to empathize to the extent he speaks of

I just cannot.... do it

anymore

Still I nod but the stab goes deep inside me. I feel it at my core. I fight the dizzy sensation and hide the feeling I am about to faint; instead I grip the counter behind me and just nod

I know how to wear the armor. It covers my face like a veil

My eyes blur,

“perhaps you think I am a demon.... And maybe I am. I had no resources for having a family; I was emotionally bankrupt and I think now looking back that I should have never become a mother. I did not have a good role model and .... I think I was too damaged to be any good at it....” my eyes stream anyway, they run down my face but my voice stays steady, “but I wanted her and loved her and did my best.... “ I hold it together inside. Forge onward; steady the course because somehow it seems necessary to define for the sake of my defense; my only shred of honor left, 

“my second husband and I are not together anymore but are too lazy to get divorced,” the bravado I fake rings like brass in my ears. I go on with that sense of jumping off a cliff, 

“in our last conversation do you know what he said to me? He said ‘you are a deeply damaged person, banged up and damaged goods....’ “ 

now I laugh and try to continue .... but I suddenly realize that I cannot continue what I meant to say.  I feel my throat tighten and —far worse.... I hear it exposed in my voice so I know ....he can hear it too. I don’t say what I had started to

“What is going on here?” Jörn walks over and looks at us

But Josef stares at me for a long moment; the cold fjord blue gaze searches me ....but then I see he is moved by what I had told him. Neither of us notice Jörn there for a moment because I am finding myself stunned for ever revealing so much to him. 

What made me do that? I don’t know, 

but it shakes me; it rattles my necessary armor with dangerous bells of alarm

but he takes hold of my shoulder and bends over me to say into my ear....

he says,
“do you know how a pearl forms? Jörn has always had the uncanny ability ....to find a hidden pearl....”

(*Courtney Love song)

A touch of family Royal Drama

“Feral....? Hfffmm....” this part of conversation trickles through the air and out of context it seems to hang there frozen.... the next comes out in staccatos “....en vild räv.... vansinnig.... crazy like a fox....” it is Elsa’s voice

But the words are chevron patterns in my mind;

it is instead, something like electric shock

that strikes through the air waves that seem able to tackle me

We step out of Jörn’s bedroom together and he says from behind me,
“Mama!”

Should I follow any of this?

I look in the direction of Elsa who is by the coat closet brushing off the opera coat with a valet brush. She sniffs it,
“har någon använt det här?”

Now I hear Jörn make angry sounds I’ve never heard before—a kind of spit but it’s more like from his throat and he then shouts something.... but I don’t have any idea how to spell it....

I get a chill that goes all through me.

I am stopped with a dreaded feeling in my center— like as if frozen on the spot

and look up at Jörn..., then

instinctively I back up and look around

Why is everyone looking at me?

I want to sink through the floor.

I hear a sound come from my vocal cords that belies my courage but thankfully no one else hears this; it sounds like a strangled mouse

Andreas looks uncomfortable I notice— his face visibly flushed and I hear him mumble something at her but only for her ears. He stands near her

Only Josef looks at me now.

His white-gray brows tightly woven as they stare at me with one eyebrow raised at me to tell me...? What... ? what is that?

I see his hand sort of wave at me conspiringly but I don’t understand the context. Then he does a gesture with his head to Jörn behind me as his eyes look at him

I look back at Elsa

She holds the opera coat and looks at me. She forces a funny smile and sniffs it again. She looks at me now thoughtfully

Jörn says,
“Mama,” again but this time his tone is softly appealing; entreating

After a tense moment she says, looking at me,

“What scent do you wear?”

I look at the opera coat and start to realize what she is talking about

“Yes, I borrowed it,” I say

“She borrowed it, Mama,” Jörn says even though it’s obvious by now

I say,
“Caylyx.”

She makes a face that is hard to translate, she arches a brow and sniffs thoughtfully,
“and patchouli?”

it feels like all the pores of my skin are burning with her sting and I don’t know why

but .... I get that inadequate feeling

I half want to turn and run back to Jörn’s room because of the sting in her eyes. I feel stung and I feel my eyes burn

“It’s— lovely....” she sighs

“Hanna outgrew it years ago,” Jörn concedes —he means the coat because he’s trying to change the subject

“Ja, ja.... yes, of course she did....”

She says, looking at me,
“your father has a street named after him?”

I don’t know if that’s a challenge

Oh God....

I look up at Jörn and he takes hold of my hand and yanks me along towards the kitchen,
“I’m making coffee,” he says and then looks at me

I start to realize I am in a drama. Is this what he meant?

Shit. I’m not good at this

Then we are in the kitchen. Jörn starts barking orders at me. He points to the kettle to fill as he starts searching his cupboards

Andreas starts playing something ominous on the piano and Elsa walks over to me. She smiles,

“you have very lovely skin....”

“Oh....!” I find I stammer, “you do too....” ?

Well she does.....

I look for Josef hoping to get a possible hint or cue and when I spot him he is looking at me. He walks over and makes a secret hand gesture to me that I am clueless over. I lack social cues anyway but it seems worse without my Swedish app

His cheery eyes dance mercurially as he suggests,
“shouldn’t you and Jörn do some more practice? I’d like to hear the new ending the way I suggested...?”

Elsa throws him an arched look and walks past us to the piano. She calls,

“Jörn!” through her nose in that way that sharply reminds me of Jörn’s text tone for her

Jörn speaks into my ear softly—but it’s actually another order he’s barking at me. He says,

“when the water boils— pour it into the carafe,” but sharply adds “ —but don’t push down the plunger!”