Vardøger

In Averøy I like to take a post-dinner  walk and frequent the harbourside. By following the dirt path through the patches of grass and rocky nooks, you arrive at the old wooden docks and can smell the sea spray and feel the tingling wind on your face. Here I sit (or pace) and smoke, lost in various musings and meditations. I remember those docks were once full of big boats -- sign of the booming fishing economy at the time. The wooden shacks were once bright red, like the inviting lips of a lover that drew the hearts of men at sea, after a precarious day of boating the water. But the docks are slanted and only a few wooden hobby boats remain, and the red shacks have long since faded and peeled like the men who worked them.
There was one particular evening when the wind was blowing strong and cold, and as soon as I stepped out the door, I could smell the water slip through my nose and fill the corners of my body. The evening glome had started to descend and the moss and rocks soaked in the sombre ambience as their shadows deepened, and the awakening rock trolls slowly poked their heads over the ragged boulders. It was my favourite time to go out: when the world was recreated with Picasso-blue and sullen, gentle creatures.
On the dirt path that started out behind the garden, I saw a tall man walking towards the water. I was caught off guard by his presence and noticed he wore my jeans and favourite red shirt. I was about to call out when he stopped and looked at me. In sudden horror I realized I was staring into my own face. This Vardøger didn't share my fright, for he regarded me with cool, lifeless eyes before turning and continuing down the path and out of sight. A sudden urge to follow him was swiftly muted by a numbing fear. There in the blue evening, the westward wind blew stronger than ever and my heart contrasted the rest of my body by pulsing in frantic patterns. 


My existence after this experience was one of paranoia. I was always looking for him. On many occasions I thought I saw fleeting glimpses: at the train station in Oslo; on a passing bus in Ålesund; in the dark shadows of some trees. However, looking back I can see these were far from concrete, and more likely the invention of a troubled mind.


Years passed and soon the strange sighting passed more and more from my thoughts, and I was once again able to take my evening walks without fear. On a cool autumn evening, I was returning from the docks with a strong westward wind coming off the water. It blew my hat off and carried it to the edge of the lawn by the house. Bending down to pick it up, I noticed the lights were on and two figures stood on the front porch. In the shadows I could see they were kissing softly. With startling realization, I saw it was my Doppelgänger. And he was kissing her. After thirty years I saw her again, and she was kissing a younger rendering of myself. Her hair was smooth, and her cheeks were plump with youth and beauty. Over the years I had always believed her loveliness was the fairest of all, but seeing her again showed me beauty I had once forgotten and could not carry with me through the recesses of time. I sank to my knees in an overwhelming dizziness.
Suddenly, they turned and looked at me. Their eyes flared, scolding my unwelcome presence amidst their tender lovemaking. For a second I could see into her eyes again. The memories of times past and the intimate knowing that only be experienced by eye contact were mine once more. But her eyes narrowed with his in anger, and sheer terror seized my body as I turned and ran back down the path.
I ran down the rocky hills while the wind picked up and screamed in my ears. Sometimes it was so strong it nearly blew me over. As it started to rain, I tripped over a rock and twisted my knee, but I kept running, even while my leg seemed to be doing nothing at all. I raced past the grass and howling crags right unto the dock. Strangely, it was sturdy and strong in the wind, and the waves reared upon it without mercy. I went straight to my boat and cranked the engine, which started with ease. Where I was going I didn't know, only to flee from the fear and haunted images that seized me. As I puttered away, I sat down with my back against the wall and watched the shore slowly grow distant, as my heart beat sporadically. The rain poured down. Sweat poured down my face as the waves crashed over the sides of the boat and the wind titled us to one side. From amidst the watery-blue chaos, the red shacks stood aglow once again-- bright and mighty beacons from the shore. I watched them until they were little red dots on the horizon, and in the midst of tears and stormy siege, I began to kiss her again. 
The soft touch of her lips never tasted so good.
A wave crashed through the window on my right and knocked me against the wall.
I felt myself with young bones, leaving the porch and turning off the lights inside.
I screamed as the boat was thrust to its side, where it teetered for half a second. In that glimpse of time, I saw through the open door. There, the glorious hull of an ancient fishing boat emerged from the rain and shadows. It crept eerily towards the mainland, undaunted by the storm, sailing several feet in the air above the water. I clenched her soft hand as my boat tipped over and capsized, and we held each other gently in the bed of the house.

Mother

They took my young and innocent and ripped them to pieces. I could feel the texture of their hands as I fell into their blood. What poetic horror can describe my present mind, when there on the ground, I heard them still breathing? I said, "With such an evil, there can be no God." But such an evil wouldn't be evil at all, if that were so. So this I cling to: vengeance for their blood, and annihilation for my enemies.

Club Monozac

"A life worth living," is what she called it. A life of vintage dresses, sunday morning eucharists, and idealistic revolutions inside her mind. It was a life totally hers. One of integrity in a world vanity. It made sense to her, on those cozy nights after tea, or when she gazed upon the heavens and the spirit of clouds spoke to her in their ambiguous textures. But on top of the hill, she did not see the clouds or cozy nights, she only saw Club Monozac. It was a glowing little building down below, and it seemed to pulse with every throb of the bass and squeal of laughter. Inside the bodies swayed with the thickness of palm trees, and sweat dribbled sensually down dancing bodies and turned them into silk. Hunger danced savagely in their eyes, as they groped and thrust for anyone to make love with. It was a curious thing to her -- the way people lived almost oblivious to their own fragile existence. How their thoughts never left shallow waters and their daily activities strove to feed their most basic of senses. But here on the hill, it made perfect sense. She was twenty-eight, close the dreaded thirty. "A beautiful woman" she had been called, and she gracefully accepted this herself. But she was still single, and already her face began to crack and her assets were beginning to sag. Of what use was her beauty and youth? A life of integrity -- what was that? On the knoll of the hill Death came to visit her. Filled with envy for life, it brought her to her knees. In the deepest of struggles and the complexity of existence, the most simple and primal urges can overtake us. She ran down the hill to Club Monozac and left Death and her hard-fought life on the hill. She was lost forever in that club -- or at least for many years. She joined a crowd of others who were fleeing the same thing. Wide-eyed youth running from a hollow black silence.

When the earth cools and his breathing deepens, the fear that keeps him mute dissipates into the darkness. And I can only imagine the release under his resting eyelids.

When she heaved his body from the sea

When she heaved his body from the sea
He was glowing in mysterious blue
He was covered in the deepest of green
A marriage of the most fragile hues
To be free of the man he had to be
Free of the day he fought against the sea

Fishing

There's a girl I sometimes see by the creek. She comes and dips her toes in the water and giggles. Sometimes I spy her reading a book under the tree. It's often an adventure book like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Lord of the Rings. Even more often, it's in languages that I can't understand.

She bears a curious magic, this girl. It is a very powerful magic, but I have yet to identify its type. When she reads, for example, her fingers will grow into the pages themselves (or the pages grow into her, I am not sure which way it goes exactly), so the two are seamlessly connected. When the pages turn, it's a singular, breezy movement that mirrors the simple grace of the stream. I am not sure if she is turning the pages, or she is letting the pages turn her. I say, "letting the pages turn her" because in my mind, there is no doubt that she is controlling -- or at least granting -- this strange and beautiful dance. Much like a conductor who over-watches the flowing sections that make a unified piece.

I have never seen her fishing, but I have noticed a string of fishing line tied around her ankle that carries a row of hooked fish. The line runs perfectly through the bottom of their lower lips, and they are evenly spaced. They drag and bump on the ground as she walks. At first I noticed about six behind her, but now the number has risen to a dozen. Sometimes the new ones will flop and fight the way fish do, but they eventually succumb and fade, turning into raw lumps of flesh that tear apart as they are dragged.

The most curious thing is, in my opinion, the fact that she doesn't even notice them. She giggles at bloated toads and paces with her books, but her gaze never touches the line, nor her step falter under its weight.
I have studied with fascination, wherever I could -- under the dock, by the water's edge in the reeds, in the shallows -- and now suddenly, at the end of the line behind the other fish.

September

A sort of depression hits me, when I walk outside, and the first leaves begin to brown. Even at this age, when I'm going to my retirement party -- an especially early retirement party -- I still feel depressed. Maybe it's the loss of basic elements -- mud, greens, tree forts -- the elements that fade when the world begins to die.
I stop in front of a tree and watch a leaf slowly dance down -- as if it was oblivious to the life that the tree gave. I have maybe two weeks left? Two weeks of lifeless melancholy before I scramble to find an empty seat at the back of the class. A seat away from the glares.
This is on my mind, like a damp cloth, for the next ten minutes before I come to the party. Then like the dancing leaf, my youth reaches its end and I grow up. Grow up, and fall back to the earth.

Actors and Astronauts

At five o'clock they come out. Streaming from the sewers and popping out of pavement cracks and hidden realms of the city. Young and ambitious they are, wearing crisp suits as black as their shoes. Their fragrance is subtly fresh and their hair is impeccable -- even this late in the day. Two eyeballs are dressed with glaze made from screens and papers. A drained hunch compliments their spruce appearance. What may give them away from the real thing, perhaps -- the ones who've made it -- is the trendy messenger bag hanging over their shoulder. It's a clue to what lurks behind their curtain.

They cram on the subway, hold the bar, and look wearily at the floor. Another day done.
A half-hour later they squeeze off and walk through a maze of crowds and streets -- without looking up. Their bodies are on the autopilot of instinct and repetition. Outside the apartment they may meet their significant other -- wives, husbands, boyfriends, and girlfriends -- who just came back from the same day.

Inside they make a quick dinner, for both are too tired for much cooking. As they wait for the water to boil or the toaster to warm, they sit on the couch and look at the cluttered apartment around them. There are coffee tables and stands covered with bills and mugs and magazines. The rubbery arms of a neglected plant sag over a pile of board games, as a last-ditch cry for life. Toe nail clippings and underwear lie on the floor. Today though, like yesterday, they're both too tired for cleaning.
The bright hope of tomorrow shines through at moments like this -- the day when they finally get that raise or position they've worked so hard for. Then there will be a two story house in a nice neighborhood, and perhaps a kid or two.
For now though, the apartment will do. It's cheap and it will help them get on their feet. They're still young.

Occasionally, one asks the other if they would like to go out for the night. Maybe Dante's, just down the road, or the movie theatre.
In this case the other responds: "Naw, not tonight babe. It's been a long day, and I'm just too tired."
So they snuggle on the couch and watch a movie instead. One of their favourites. Perhaps the feel-good Chocolat. The one were Johnny Depp -- an adventurous, french, riverboat pirate -- falls in love with the gypsy chocolate lady. During the movie, half the couple smiles and mumbles something when the cocoa-hating priest falls asleep in the chocolate display, and the other nods vacantly in return as he or she pokes at a cellphone.

The movie makes them warm. It takes them to the carefree and naive life of their past, when the next career move was being an actor, or an astronaut. But the city has a way of seeping into your home. It moves past the hum of the sound machine, and the drifting goldfish. It erodes through the stack of dusty records, which act as a sort of barricade, trying to hold the wall up from the things outside. All the books and GI Joe collections in the world can't stop the City.

So they croak out of bed the next morning, grab some toast, don their sharp attire, and drift out the door and into the cracks and crevices of the concrete. They scatter and dart over each other, like courageous black ants, and disappear into the ground.

Lúthien

Perhaps it was the protruding veins on her hands, or the unresistant fate of her predicament, but a quiet hatred stirred in her feebleness. It was a kind of stew that bubbled on the stove, unstirred, so the brittle meat and rotten peas were left unsuspected between straight lips and crossed ankles.
The wooden box rested on the shelf beside an ivory elephant and ancient teacups. Its factory wood glowed bright as plastic grass sat inside. Each strand was perfectly spaced, perfectly level, perfectly straight, perfectly green. The 8x5 grass patch had remained that way for years. Thankfully though, it grew blurrier and blurrier everyday -- at least from the chair where she sat.

The grass was more than her enemy, it was also her need.
Her lover from a wild night.
Her victory, as well as her death.
A final fling with passion, eclipsed with a smoking barrel roll.

Decay is foreign only to grass that is plastic.

Flowing Garden (Part II)

I put down my spade and looked into the dirt. I saw movement there. Perhaps a bug? I leaned over more and more -- searching. I went past the grass blades. I went beyond the flat, brown masquerade as crumbly mountains and valleys drew near. Closer and closer I ventured.

Until I fell in.

now
as my pen dances
this very

moment
is gone
forever

but here you are
with these
words