John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

She had changed her skin. That was how she felt. What she was looking for was her old skin which should be lying there wrinkled and used up in the mossy depression.

It wasn't to be found, but the feeling was so strong that she had to pull up the sleeve of her T-shirt and check if the tattoo was still there.

Yes. Bad to the bone was still etched on her right shoulder in tiny block letters. Some kind of pride had forced her to keep it instead of having laser removal, even though it was twelve years since she had severed contact with the world to which the tattoo belonged.

'Aannaaa!'

She walked to the edge of the bog and cried, 'Here I am!'

Mahler stopped where the moss began, as if it were quicksand. He put his hands on his hips.

'Where have you been?'

Anna pointed out to the centre. 'There.'

Mahler frowned and looked out at the depression in the moss. 'I've carried everything inside,' he said.

'Good,' Anna answered and walked past him towards the house. He walked behind her, his hand brushing off her back.

'Look at you,' he said.

She didn't answer. Her steps across the roots were feather light. There was something delicate and precious in her that might shatter if she spoke. They walked silently toward the house and she was grateful that he did not start to explain her own behaviour to her, as he had done when she was younger; that he let her be.

On the table next to Elias' bed there was a packet of dextrose, salt, a jug of water and a measuring cup, two syringes.

Anna could not see any change. Mahler had spread a clean, white sheet over Elias whose old-man hands rested at his sides, two shrivelled bird claws. She was looking at a corpse. The corpse of her son. Maybe something could be changed if only he wanted to open his eyes and look at her. But under the half-closed lids there was only that hint of lifeless plastic, like a dried contact lens. Nothing.

Maybe there was a way back. Her father seemed to think so. But in that case the way was so long that she could not imagine its start, far less its

end. Elias had died. A shadow of him lay here, but nothing of the boy she had loved, of whom she held memories she wanted to cherish unspoiled.

Mahler came in and stood next to her. 'I gave him sugar solution with the syringe. He drank some.'

Anna nodded, and crouched down next to the bed.

'Elias? Elias? Your mummy is here.'

Elias did- not move one millimetre. Nothing indicated that he heard her. The delicate stuff inside her contracted, became dislodged, and the black grief towered up inside her chest. She quickly got up and left the room. The kitchen smelled of freshly brewed coffee and everything fell back into place.

She would take care of him. She would do what she could. But she was not going to entertain for one second the notion that she was going to get her boy back, did not intend to imagine in any way that her son was buried inside that mummified form somewhere, struggling to get out. That would break her for sure; that would hurt too much.

She poured two cups of coffee and put them on the table. She was calm now. They could talk. Outside, the covering over the sky was turning to grey. A faint breeze rustled the trees. She glanced at her father.

He looked tired. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than normal and his entire face seemed pained by gravity, pulled down toward the earth in folds and wrinkles.

'Daddy? Don't you want to rest a little?'

Mahler shook his head so that his cheeks wobbled.

'Don't have time. I called the paper and someone's been looking for me: the husband of the woman who… well, they wanted me to write more, but I'll have to see… and we need food and things…'

He shrugged and sighed. Anna took a few sips of coffee; stronger than she liked, as always when her [ather made it. She said, 'You can go. I'll stay here.'

Mahler looked at her. His eyes were small and bloodshot, almost disappeared into the swollen flesh.

'You'll manage, then?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Are you sure?'

Anna put the coffee mug down, forcefully. 'You don't trust me. I know that. But I don't trust you either. It runs deep. I don't know what you want.'

She got up from the table and went to the fridge to gel some milk for the coffee. The fridge was empty. When she came hack to the table, Mahler had sunk into his chair.

'I just want everything to be all right.'

Anna nodded, 'I believe you. But you want it to be how you think it should be. How you've planned, in your extremely rational way: Go on. I'll manage here.'

They made a list of items they needed to buy, plann i ng the pu rchascs as if stocking up for a siege.

When Mahler had left, Anna checked on Elias, then walked around the house and shook out the rugs, brushed dead flies From the window sills and vacuumed. As she was wiping the kitchen counter she caught sight of the two unused baby bottles. She put the vacuum cleaner away and went in to Elias. She shook some dextrose into the bottle, filled it with water and shook it until it dissolved. Then she sat there with the bottle in her hand and looked at Elias.

Simply feeling the shape of the bottle in her hand brought back memories. Right up until the age of four, Elias wanted to have a bottle of milk in bed when he was going to sleep. He had never used a dummy or sucked his thumb, but he wanted his bottle.

She had sat like this on the side of his bed countless times as he was going to sleep. Kissed him and said good night, then given him his bottle. Felt that feeling of satisfaction as his little hands took hold of it, his mouth sucked onto the nipple and his gaze grew distant. That he managed.

'Here, Elias… '

She brought the teat to his mouth. Mahler had said that would come later, that Elias couldn't manage to drink by himself yet. But she wanted to try. The dry rubber nudged his lips. He did not move them. Carefully she pushed it in between his lips.

Something happened. At first she thought an insect was crawling on her stomach and she looked down. Elias' fingers were moving slightly. Stiffly, slowly, but they were moving.

When she looked up at his face again, his lips had sealed themselves around the teat. And he was sucking. Tiny, tiny movements in the tinder dry lips, a muscle in his throat faintly working.

The bottle shook in her hand and she clapped her other hand over her mouth so hard that she felt a metallic taste on her tongue.

Elias was drinking from the bottle.

It hurt so much she could not breathe, but when the first wave of pain, of hope, had stilled, her hand reached out and she caressed his cheek as he continued to drink. She bent her head over him.

'My boy… my good little boy… '

Kungsholmen 13.45

Children, children, children…

David stood in the school yard and watched as the children poured out of the school like a liquid. Three, four, ten, thirty multicoloured little beings with backpacks ran down the stairs. Pieces of humanity, a mass to direct and discipline. Four hundred of them were stuffed into this building six hours a day, four hundred were let out again when those six hours were up.

Material.

But zoom in on one single child and there you had an upholder of the world. A child with a mother and father, grandparents, relatives and friends. A child whose existence is necessary for the proper functioning of many lives. Children are fragile, and carry so many lives on their frail shoulders. Fragile is their world, controlled by adults. Everything is fragile.

All day David had walked around as if in a dream. After the visit to the Medical Examiner he had gone to a pizzeria and drunk a litre of water, then lain down under a tree in the park and slept for almost three hours. When a barking dog woke him up, he opened his eyes to a world that had shut him out. People were having picnics, children were running on the grass. He was no longer part of this life.