John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

'Yes,' Elvy said. 'Something has happened there. Something bad. I think… someone drowned.'

'Mm, yeah,' Flora said. 'He was going to jump from the boat…’

'… and then he hit his head on the edge of the wharf,' Elvy filled

They had not checked if they were right. They knew. They spent the rest of the afternoon swapping stories. The Sense had come to both of them in their early teens and Flora's pain stemmed from the same source as Elvy's at that age: she knew people too well. The Sense told her the exact state of mind of the people around her, and she could not accept their lies.

'My dear,' Elvy had said, 'all of us lie in some way. It is a precondition for society to function, that we lie a little bit. You can view it as a form of consideration. The truth is, in a way, very self-centred.'

'I know, Grandma, I do know that. But it's so… revolting. The air sort of stinks around people who… you know?'

'Yes,' Elvy sighed. 'Yes, I do.'

'You don't have to be out in it. You interact with, like, Grandpa and the old ladies at church. But at school, there are like a thousand people and all, almost all of them, are unhappy. Some of them don't know it themselves, but I know and it hurts. It hurts. All the time. When some teacher calls me over and wants to have a serious discussion and tell me everything that's wrong with me…I just want to throw up because while he's talking he just reeks of different stuff. Anxiety and worry and he's afraid of me and has a lousy life and he's the one who is telling me how I should act?'

'Flora,' Elvy said. 'I know it's no comfort now, but you will get used to it. When you've been sitting in the outhouse for a while, you don't notice the smell anymore.' Flora laughed at this, and Elvy went on. 'And as far as the ladies in the church are concerned, I can tell you I wish I had a clothes peg sometimes.'

'A clothes peg?'

'To put on my nose. And Grandpa… we'll get to that another time. But there is no way to turn it off. You should know that. If you are like me, then there is no clothes peg. You have to get used to it. It's purgatory, I know. But you have to get used to it if you want to live.'

The positive result of the conversation was that Flora stopped cutting herself. And she started visiting Elvy more often. Even in the middle of the week, she would take the bus to Taby Church, going back to school the next morning. She volunteered to help care for Grandpa, but there wasn't much to do. Elvy let her feed him his porridge a couple of times so that she could feel involved when she wanted.

Elvy started hesitant conversations about God a couple of times; but Flora was an atheist. Flora tried to play Marilyn Manson for Elvy, with the same unsatisfactory result. There were limits to their friendship. But Elvy could tolerate the horror films, in modest amounts.

When they returned to the living room the television had got louder. Flora tried turning it off again, but nothing happened.

She had received the Gamecube from Elvy on her fifteenth birthday. There had been heated discussions with Margareta, who claimed that video games made teenagers switch off from the real world. Elvy thought she was right, which was the precise reason she had bought the game. She herself had been fifteen when she started to drink: to switch off, to dull the emotional antennae. From that perspective, she felt that the game was a better option.

'Let's go out for a bit,' Elvy said.

They couldn't hear the television from the garden, but the air was still and the heat oppressive. All the surrounding houses were lit up, dogs were barking and an aura of foreboding hung over them.

They walked to the guardian tree: the apple tree planted when the house was built, to stand beside it and keep the household from harm. Hundreds of green fruit peeked through the dark leaves, and shoots that had not been pruned back during Tore's years of illness splayed up toward the sky.

I'll get the shotgun, walk up the stairs and shoot the dogs. 'Did you say something?' Elvy asked.

'No.'

Elvy searched the sky. The stars were pinpricks of light against the dark blue, unimaginably distant. She saw them loosen, become needles that flew down and pierced her brain, throbbing and aching.

'Like an iron maiden,' Flora said.

Elvy looked at her. Flora was also staring up at the sky.

'Flora,' she said, 'Were you thinking about a shotgun just now and… dogs?'

Flora raised her eyebrows, let out a laugh.

'Yes,' she said. 'I was planning what I was going to do in the game. How…?'

They looked at each other. This was something new. The headache was increasing in intensity, the needles pressing deeper; and then, in a sudden gust, it was over them.

Not a leaf moved, not a blade of grass bent, but they both staggered as a great force blew through the garden and for a second was over, around, inside them.

sa… rack… me… j… i… tess… st… kla… rm… kss

It was as if a radio had spun through hundreds of frequencies, filling their heads with voices; only staccato half-sounds, but nonetheless they could hear that the voices belonged to people in a state of panic. The strength drained from Elvy's legs, she fell on her knees on the lawn and mumbled, 'Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we… '

'Grandma?'

'…forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil..'

'Grandma!'

Flora's voice trembled, and with an effort Elvy pulled herself away from her faith, looked around. Flora was sitting wide-eyed on the lawn, staring at her. A beam of pain pierced Elvy's mind, so sharp that she feared she might be having a stroke and she whispered, '… yes?'

'What was that?'

Elvy grimaced. Everything hurt. It hurt to move her head, it hurt to open her mouth. She tried, and failed, to form the words inside her head and then… it was gone. She closed her eyes, breathed. The ache simply switched off, the world fell back into place, took on its normal colours. She could read her own relief in Flora's face.

A deep breath. Yes. It was gone. Over. She reached out her hand, took hold of Flora's.

'I'm so glad,' she said. 'That you are here. That I was not the only one who… experienced this.'

Flora rubbed her eyes. 'But what was it?' 'Don't you know?'

'Yes. No.'

Elvy nodded. Of course. In a way it was a matter of faith.

'It was the spirits,' she said. 'The souls of the dead. They have been let out.'

Danderyd Hospital 23.07

She was his wife, how could he be afraid of her? David took a step closer to the bed. It was that eye, the one eye, and how it looked.

It's impossible to describe a human eye; all expectations end up ghost-like, paintings and photographs acceptable only because we know they are frozen moments of time. A living eye cannot be described or recreated. But we know all too well when it is not there.

Her eye was dead. It was covered by a microscopically thin grey membrane, and it might as well have been a stone wall. She was not switched on, not…present. David leaned over, whispered, 'Eva?'

He had to hold onto the steel bed rail in order to keep himself from recoiling when she looked straight at him-

there are diseases that do that to the eye

– and opened her mouth, but there was no sound. Only a dry clicking. David ran over to the sink and filled a plastic cup of water, held it up to her. She looked at it but made no attempt to take it.

'Here, my love,' David said. 'A little water.'

Her hand swung up and knocked the cup out of his hand. Water splashed over her face and the cup landed on her stomach. She looked at it, put her hand over it and scrunched it up with a crackle.