Sten-Thule

"Trolls are theoretically immortal, but as they get older they get bigger and slower and tend to be more inclined to sit and think. "

Första gången jag mötte honom var nästan trehundra år sedan. Jag hade aldrig mött ett troll innan. Sten-Thule, en varelse av ödmjukhet, lugn och ro. Stor och kraftfull, men aldrig någonsin arg, har aldrig någonsin sagt ett ord i vrede. Skygg. Undviker normalt människor, precis som de flesta troll. Sitter så gott som alltid vid sin lilla damm och bara tittar på fiskarna som lever där. Och ler. Som han älskar sina fiskar. Första gången jag såg honom var inte vid dammen, nej, han visade den för mig långt senare. Nej, första gången jag jag mötte honom var tidigt sjuttonhundratal. Det var en brand i några gårdar på en avlägsen del av Hisingen. Jag försökte hjälpa en familj som var instängd där, men elden hade spridit sig för fort. Vi såg på hjälplöst och visste att två barn var kvar i det övertända hemmet. Då, ut ur den närliggande skogen kom Sten-Thule lufsande. Han rev upp väggen, plöjde in i branden med sin stora kropp, och försvann in bland lågorna. Människorna som var samlade där förstod knappt vad de just sett. De blev än mer förstummade när han kom lufsande ut igen. Hans mossiga, fuktiga kropp ångade av eldens hetta, men i sina armar höll han de två barnen samt huskatten tätt mot sin kropp för att skydda mot eldens giriga lågor. Väl ute satte han ned dem och tittade förskrämt på människorna. Mer rädd för dem än vad de var för han skyndade han åter till sin skog. Den dagen visste jag att jag och Sten-Thule skulle bli goda vänner för lång tid framöver.

Häromdagen gick jag till han. Det var första gången på flera decennier. Ni vet hur det blir när man reser. Först såg jag han knappt. Jag trodde det var en mossbeklädd sten. Han satt vid sin damm. Två strilar av fukt droppade långsamt från hans granitlika grå ögon. Han rörde sig inte alls. Jag tittade på dammen dit hans ögon evigt, gråtande var fixerade. Den är död. Alla fiskar är borta. Marken är sur. Förgiftad av avgaser, gifter och rester av mänskliga framgångar. Sten-Thule sörjer en värld som inte längre finns.

Pakter

"As long as there's been something in the corner of your eye, or creaking in your house or breathing under your bed or voices through a wall."

I skogens mörker kan jag ana rörelser när jag vandrar hem. Skogsväsen. En satyr, för länge sedan oinskränkt härskare och beskyddare av dessa skogar. Han är rädd. Darrar. Senaste månaderna har maskiner skövlat skog och explosioner jämnat berg för att ge plats för nya hem. Hem för erövrare. Människor. En gång fruktade människor hans sort, nu är hans folk så rädda för människor att jag kan känna doften av hans fruktan på femtio stegs avstånd. Han är nyfiken på mig. Undrar vad jag är. Gamla minnen påminner honom att sådana som mig inte är människa. Jag har inte mycket med mig, men jag var i butiken tidigare ikväll. Jag lämnar lite bröd, mjölk och en flaska sötad sprit vid skogsbrynet. När jag går därifrån sjunger jag på en sång. En sång om gamla gudar, eder, försvunna färger och kärlek. När jag slänger en blick över axeln är maten borta. Gamla pakter. Gamla väsen. Människorna gör framsteg, snart är vi alla borta.

Ett möte

"A man is the sum of his memories"


Delar spårvagn med en gud. Inte Gud, men en gud. En gammal och bortglömd gud som ingen längre tillber eller minns namnet på. Man kan förstå att han är bitter. Arg. Några ungdomar misstar honom för en uteliggare och retar honom. Hans röst är som två klippblock som tungt släpas mot varandra. Hans blick är eld och ett löfte om vrede. De lämnar honom ifred. De skrattar, nervöst. Jag går igenom min ryggsäck. Jag kanske kan ge honom något. En fjäder jag ryckt från en ängels vinge? Ett mynt av sten, gammalt, kraftfullt. Ett minne av en sång kanske? Nej, han har ingen nytta av mina ikoner. För honom är det simpelt taskspel. Jag går fram till honom. Han ler, känner igen mig. Jag ger honom ett namn, men namnet går förlorat. Han skrattar. Ett obehagligt ljud. Omänskligt. Min hållplats nu, så jag går av. När jag vänder mig om ser jag att han fortfarande ler. Mina simpla trick har roat honom. Det är en sådan dag.

The Arena

"The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends."

I have no energy left. When I wake up I still feel tired, so very tired. The grey dark walls close in on me. There is no rest here, at least no real rest. All we have is our hope to one day be free. To one day earn some kind of freedom from the horrors of the Grand Arena. While my mind is fighting my aching body, forcing it to get up from my bed, I suddenly hear them, the cheering crowd. Calling out for the next bloody sacrifice to be thrown out into the Arena. They are never satisfied, I know. I have walked out there countless times. I always return here, but I am not sure that makes me a winner.

I look at my reflection in the water from the cup next to my bed and I feel a sadness when I realize that I look just as tired as I feel. I cannot go out there again. I know I will not make it back alive. I do not have the strength, nor the will.

I can clearly hear that the crowd is now calling and chanting my name. There is no way to avoid this. No exit, but the one leading to the Arena. How can I go out there, knowing the challenges and horrors that await. For the crowd it is all good fun, but for me... it is my life. And it is such a tired life.

I shower quick and pull on my clothes. The sound is almost deafening. "Why?" That is what the voice inside my head carefully whispers. "Why even try?" The voice is right, I have no strength for this. It will only be an humiliation. Perhaps it is better to remain here, and be punished quietly for not entering of my own free will. But the crowd chants my name and the Grand Arena demands its sacrifice. The pull of it all is almost beyond imagination. I have to go out there. I don't want to. I want to stay here, where I can feel some measure of safety. But no.

I put on my coat. Tie my shoes. I walk out the front door from my apartment house. Life. The World. The Grand Arena.

Tears roll down my cheeks...

The crowd cheers!!!

Every day...

"A life filled with love must have some thorns, but a life empty of love will have no roses."

I reach out to you, and I close my eyes.

A moment passes, and in my mind I feel how a moment without you feels. I feel lonely, like only the constant, passionate touch of you could make me feel whole. And without it I am empty, alone and utterly without meaning.

In my mind a minute pass, and with it the feeling of falling into an abyss. Even a short time span like this feels impossibly long and not unlike torture when I do not see or feel you. How cruel life can be, how strong the human emotions can grow and how like the love of the Immortals themselves the love of two soulbound being can strengthen and root itself.

An hour apart, it seems almost impossible in my mind, but I know the feeling. An hour without you takes my breath away in a deep sigh of despair, but it is all too familiar. How one wishes the other always could be there, but such is not life. How utterly meaningless every task feels when the soulmate is not there to share the instant. Life together is life soaring high above all life's troubles and hindrances but apart every obstacle feels insurmountable.

A day? I feel my heart tighten and hurt. A day without you? The thought makes my body shudder and cringe. These things happen. Even the most loving couple has to part for a day or more every now and then. Such are the paths of destiny, and even though time apart truly makes the heart grow fonder, well, it is not a method anyone who truly loved someone would recommend. No, a day or a few apart and the breathing grows harder, that is what any person who has truly been in love will tell you. Such is love, and without you by my side, it feels like I cannot breathe.

When I could not see you for a month, I was lost. I will be honest. There is much I do not even recall. It was like truly living in a nightmare. Truly. So much I cannot even recall. How did I get here? What should I do? Eating felt meaningless, sleep was without vigor. It was like living in an abyss of longing and despair. My life is with you, how can I have joy without you? How can life have colour and meaning when you are not here enjoying it with me?

A year went past. So they told me. It could have been a moment of eternal darkness; it could have been an age by itself, the age of gloom and disheartedness. When you live in sorrow, how can anything but pain have meaning?

I keep my eyes closed just a moment longer. Just a moment, because even though the moments are agonizing it is easier when you take it moment by moment. Maybe I can feel some relief between the ticks of time.

And when I open my eyes and remove my hand from your grave, you are still dead and I am still alone...

It was always you...

"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."

It was always you...

Remember that feeling of loneliness that you feel sometimes? It is deep, and feels almost ancient and like a wound. Like it has always been there with you. It has. Let me tell you a story. It is the story about you.

This is a long time ago. There was no matter in the universe nor energy, so time was without purpose and non-existent. There was only thought. One thought. You. You were all that existed. The loneliness of this existence I cannot fathom, nor will I try. I might learn it soon enough, or never. Each would in its own way be a blessing.

Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was planned, I do not know exactly, but I think it was a conscious effort. Much tells me so. All out mythology talks of the first being consciously creating the universe. I guess it is the one lead we have. But somehow you turned thought into energy and the energy burst out uncontrolled in a great explosion and turned to matter. Here you could finally forget all loneliness, for in time sentience would appear. At last you could interact and feel the presence of other beings.

How small we must have felt. How useless and brief. How insignificant our philosophies must have seemed to a true immortal like you. I can only guess. But I know it was not enough for you. To make it all bearable you started living among us. Truly as one of us. Forgetting yourself. To make it bearable I guess. Sometimes I have seen more than one of you. Maybe times has no meaning for you and your different existences here among us just happen to occur simultaneously, maybe you are too great for a single body and dissipates out among many. I do not know.

How utterly disgusting we must seem to you. I have watched you. You are always drawn to yourself. Never to us. Do you even know it, that those beloved, your lovers, those kindred spirits you find and live happy with, do you even know it is yourself? Is that why you believe in soul mates? Because it is your eternal, immortal soul seeking itself? Is it some subconscious part of you trying to return to itself and its former shape? Are you trapped here? With us?

I have come to understand that something most likely went wrong. Maybe you simply lost control of the world, maybe you never had control. Maybe it was when you trapped yourself in flesh. But you no longer shaped the world. It shaped you. Was it your way of escaping the loneliness? To forget your true self? Shakespeare once said: "This above all. To thine own self be true." Well, I guess you said it, to be honest. Maybe you tried to remind yourself of something.

It started out as simple pattern recognition. I noticed you, and then I could see how you differed from us. I could see you reflected in the others of you. How you did not recognize it yourself. I had to meet you. Did you know? Could you see I was different? Did you notice time has less meaning for me as well? That I could see you for what you are? Do you even have the ability to recognize any of this anymore?

Maybe it would be easier if I ask you this: Am I in your head? Do you wonder why I am different without knowing why? Do you ever look at me and think "what is up with that guy?". Maybe you do. Maybe you realize that I watch the world with different eyes. Maybe some part of you recognize this. It is not really important. What is important is that you are the one true sentient creature in the entire universe. The rest of us, as real as matter and energy feels for us, is just an illusion, created to keep you company.

Albert Einstein once said: "Reality is merely an illusion albeit a very persistent one". He was right. This is all in your head. You are alone, and all we see, our very universe, is merely in your thoughts. We are the hallucination you created to not go mad. This is the source of your infinite sadness. We are your distraction.

I cannot abide that. What if you get bored and decide to start thinking about something else? What if you merely decide it was better to be alone. No, I cannot abide an existence based on your mere goodwill and thought. But while you are trapped here in your own creation, in your own thought experiment. Here I have a chance. A true chance. While you have lost yourself here, in your toy, you have lost control of the universe. I have noticed that still odd, weird, mystical and sometimes extreme circumstances seem to happen near or around you, but that is simply subconscious eruptions of your will.

But I have watched and learned. I have stayed close to you. Smiled. Observed you and taken in every change you make around you. I have become your friend to get closer to you. You are slipping. I am grabbing. Every day you sink deeper into this hallucination, while I learn to make small changes, control things. You see, I want it all. I want eternal thought. I want immortality. I don't mind the loneliness. Because my only other alternative is oblivion.

We are on a battlefield, you and me. It is called Reality. The winner will exist. The loser never was. I need to fight for my very existence, and to do so I need to fight the most powerful sentience in the entire universe, for my very survival. It was always you... and me!

This is our great dance. Our first fight. Our final battle.