2
My black boots sink into the fall leaves as I hurry to my parents in the cemetery. I arrive out of breath, my face warm. I’m more tired than usual and contemplate whether it’s due to me skipping my medication or the sleeplessness caused by my fear of the monster.
Whatever the cause, a single glance at my mother tells me I’ve drawn enough attention to myself today.
I try to take deep breaths as I approach them.
Mum checks her watch and tightly wraps her white coat around her while inhaling the air more forcefully than necessary.
She glances at Dad from the corner of her eye, as if expecting him to say something.
By the time I reach them, my father, like the dutiful soldier he is, takes the initiative.
“Was there heavy traffic?” he asks.
I clench my fist. I was ten damn minutes late. Anyway, the person we are here for is not in a hurry anymore.
“The session ran late,” I answer, turning my gaze towards the tombstone they are looking at. I cross my arms as the grief, dormant for ten years, ignites, as it does every year when I come to my brother’s grave. I scan the curved inscription with my eyes.
Bengt Olson Lived 14 years Beloved brother, son
I simultaneously smile and feel sad as I think about the boy I don’t want to think about in my everyday life.
Ten years… ten years have passed, and I still remember his death as if it happened yesterday.
As if I was holding him in my arms just yesterday, at the age of twelve, when he collapsed. As if…
I massage the area above my heart, guilt piercing me like a thorn.
I should have waited a day before skipping my medication.
Too many emotions stir beneath my skin, as if I can’t control myself.
I swallow hard, imagining that this is all my problems need.
If I just swallow them, my stomach will deal with them.
After all, my body has been the only thing I could trust in the past years when my mind failed me.
My brother has been gone for ten years, the person who I loved most in the world.
I wish it were true what they often say about young children forgetting trauma.
I wish I didn’t remember that he was the only one who loved me.
I wish I could forget everything, even the day he died.
But, of course, it’s not like that for me.
I remember everything as if all the afternoons of play and mischief with Bengt had found a definite place in my mind, just like the guilt.
I blink hard to hold back my tears. What would Bengt be like now, at the age of twenty-four?
How would he look? Would he also be blond like me or our sister, Maya?
I remember his eyes were a darker shade of blue than mine, but mine have faded over the years.
Would he have gained weight? Or would he be as slim as me?
Would I even be this thin if I didn’t take my medication?
I ponder questions to which I will never know the answer.
“I think he would be a musician,” I speak up softly, directing my words only to my father, with whom each year we play the game of guessing what Bengt would be doing. He chuckles gently, clearing his throat at the end, the only sign that he’s also trying to hold back tears.
“I still vote for a jewelry maker.” He raises his eyebrows and points to the necklace hanging in my cleavage. I smile as I pick it up, examining the necklace I’ve worn for twelve years, which holds a ring taken from a keychain given to me by Bengt on my tenth birthday.
“I don’t think so,” I say with a smile as I look at the chain with the simple keyring on it. “He wouldn’t have enough creativity for this. I think he would have failed in that profession pretty quickly.”
“You can fail on a simple language course too,” my mother comments suddenly.
The smile fades from my face as the weather gets cooler.
She can only bring up my mistakes. Of course, she couldn’t phrase it as a general possibility of failure, she had to highlight my university major.
The medication has always suppressed my attention, and my brain is slower to memorize things.
I’m not as smart and quick-witted as my sister, Maya, who excels in Law at Oxford.
I’m stuck in my rich parents’ house in Luxembourg, settling for a simple language major.
This is exactly why it hurts when Mum only highlights my flaws, and let’s admit it, there are quite a few.
From the corner of my eye, I look at my father, hoping he might defend me, but having never done so before, he doesn’t do so now. With narrowed eyes, he looks at the grave, as if trying not to hear.
His betrayal hurts more than Mum’s words, and she glances at her watch every thirty seconds, staring into the distance as if mentally already at her workplace. As if it doesn’t matter whether she’s here or not.
I clench my fist, and hiss as the bandage covering my bruised wrist tightens.
A drop of blood falls to the ground, as if in slow motion, and I watch it reach the poison-green grass.
I close my eyes, the cemetery trembling for a moment.
My throat dries up as I think of my medication, and my tongue almost burns, longing to take some.
I grasp my wrist with my other hand, as if the touch could lessen the pain of the wound. My gaze intertwines with my mother’s, who, with her icy blue eyes, gazes for a moment at my bandage. She blinks a few times, swallowing hard. Tears fill her eyes, but her facial muscles barely move.
For a moment, I stand here like a child, waiting for my mother to smile and ask if the wound hurts.
However, Mom’s facial muscles prevail, and her tears are absorbed as though they were never there.
Her gaze shifts from my wrist to my dyed blonde-purple hair, as if she needs proof that I’m not normal.
As if she pitied me because of the wound, but then my hair reminds her of how much I am not to her liking.
From her stern expression, I already know what she’s going to say before she speaks.
“Couldn’t you find a solution for this?”
I nod toward my wrist, and as uncomfortable as the wound is, her words hurt even more.
Solution.
Because I am a problem that needs to be solved.
I don’t know why the cemetery starts to wobble again, why I see a dark fog at the edge of my field of vision, and why I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
I got exactly what I expected. It’s as though something is piercing through my heart again, but this pain is dull now, not sharp, as if it has been with me for a long time.
I feel my mouth filling with saliva, but as I swallow, my throat is dry. In the meantime, I try to hold back the anger and hurt trembling beneath my skin.
Silently, I meet my mother’s gaze. I don’t know what to say. My breathing quickens as I try to handle the situation, but there’s so much emotion inside me that I just can’t… I simply can’t.
A small growl escapes my throat, and turning on my heel, I leave them behind. I don’t even say goodbye to Bengt – he has surely seen enough from above, watching his sister fail every day. That’s how I console myself. That he’s in another world, where he’s happy. Happier than me.
I don’t even know that I’ve been running until the wheezing in my lungs stops me. I look around in confusion, not understanding how I could have made it behind the hill without realizing it.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and bow my head. I need the medication. But I don’t want to be crazy. I don’t want it anymore; I don’t want that life, I don’t want…
The wind becomes so strong that the hair on my skin stands up.
It throws me off balance. I grab onto a massive trunk and hear a piercing whistling sound.
I look in the direction the noise is coming from and have to blink to comprehend the sight.
A shadow ripples on the ground and the whistling creeps into my ear like in a horror movie.
As the shadow slowly takes shape, my eyes widen.
No, no, no, no! Not this! Why does it have to come out now?
The peculiar wind lifts the leaves, seeming to whisper silent promises to me.
Fear anchors me to the ground. The hunched shadow straightens up, and I can already imagine the sharp teeth, the skinless black skull, and how it will extend its long, black tongue towards me.
The air is forced out of my chest as though I’ve been hit.
“I’m just imagining, just imagining, just imagining,” I whisper to myself. I dig my nails into the rough bark of the tree, a cold bead of sweat slowly trickling down my neck. I can’t run away. Even if I tried, I wouldn’t be faster than it. I have never been faster than it.
The shadow straightens up, black smoke enveloping its face. The smoke slowly dissipates, but instead of the ugly, black skull, a silver-haired, gray-eyed man stands in front of me. He is perhaps the most beautiful being I have ever seen.
I open my mouth in surprise as we gaze at each other.
The man’s eyes are like storm clouds; gray and misty, as if centuries of wisdom are concealed within them.
Yet, due to his smooth face, I guess he’s only towards the end of his twenties.
Maybe thirty. His mouth, barely open, is dull.
I immediately imagine the tingling sensation his touch would leave.
I’m surprised that such thoughts come to mind in this situation.
I don’t understand what’s happening to me.
The man’s skin is snow-white – even paler than mine, which is hard to surpass.
He is so tall that I have to lift my head when he approaches.
He is entirely dressed in black, and thin tattoos peek out from under his dark T-shirt, winding around his muscular biceps.
His sculpted physique resembles that of a leopard.
He looks like a predator, evaluating every moment.