John Lindqvist - Harbour

A woman in a white dress with black spots and a man in trousers, a waistcoat and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up were playing croquet in the hostel garden.

The mallets hit the wooden balls silently, inaudibly, and they rolled through the hoops or past the hoops. Apart from the lack of sounds, the only strange thing about this scene was that the man and woman never looked at each other and were never facing him. The match continued until the woman's ball hit the wooden peg at the end of the course.

The man and the woman picked up their balls without attempting to say anything to one another, and turned back towards the hostel as if in a choreographed pantomime, where the only requirement was that their eyes must never meet.

Just as the man's body turned towards the hostel, towards Anders, he felt that powerful surge in his chest and found himself standing at the bottom of the steps watching the man and woman walk up them, open the door and disappear inside the building.

It's just me.

Everyone else on board this unreal island was caught up in the pantomime, and was behaving exactly as they should. Only he was a deviation, a disturbance that Anders had to be moved around with force so that the dance would not be interrupted, or collapse.

It must be that way.

If all the people who were walking around here really were seeing different things, different worlds, then it was also essential that they never looked at each other, because then they would see something different, and the illusion that was being presented only to them would shatter.

The narrow gravel track leading down to the Shack was edged with lily-of-the-valley. Anders crouched down and grabbed a bunch, stuck his nose into them. Nothing. There were no smells here either. He put one of the poisonous berries in his mouth and chewed. Nothing. He could feel the berry on his tongue, so that sense was still intact, but there was no taste.

He came out onto the rocks and there stood the Shack, just as in the other world.

No…

Anders closed one eye and looked along the length of the straight pine tree. The house was no longer crooked and warped. He hail always thought the house looked ugly with its uneven slant, wished he could do something about it. Now he had his wish. The house was straight, and of all the things he had seen so far, this frightened him the most. The fact that the Shack was no longer the Shack. It was a well-constructed summer cottage situated in the most beautiful location.

Cautiously he walked up to the door and opened it. A colony of fly pupae hatched in his chest and began to fly around, searching for a way out and making his chest quiver inside. It was no longer the day when Cecilia had given him a lift. The interior of the Shack came from the time when he and Cecilia had lived here and been happier than ever.

Because that's what I want it to be.

Trembling, he walked across the rag rug Cecilia had bought for ten kronor at an auction, or the image of it. Everything he could see was taken from inside his own head. He walked into the living room, and as he noticed that the door leading to the bedroom was ajar, there came the first sound he had heard in this place: an irregular ticking that seemed to be coming from inside his ears.

He put his hand over his mouth and realised his teeth were chattering. Not even this silence could swallow internal sounds. He crept across the floor of the living room, even though creeping was meaningless here.

The ticking changed to an agitated knocking as he reached the door and looked in.

There she was.

On the floor next to her bed sat Maja, digging into the bucket of beads. In front of her lay small piles of different coloured beads which she was busy sorting. He heard her humming to herself without actually hearing it. He knew she always hummed when she was preoccupied with something.

A few strands of her thin brown hair lay across the back of her neck, some were tucked behind her slightly protruding ears. She was barefoot, and had on the blue velour tracksuit she had been wearing under her red snowsuit.

Anders' legs gave way and he fell silently and helplessly to the floor. The back of his head hit the thick floorboards, and flashes of white seared his retinas. Before the flower of pain had time to come to full bloom, he raised his head so that he could carry on looking, afraid that the image would be ripped from his grasp, torn away from his eyes if he lost concentration for even a second.

The pain filled his skull, but Maja was still there. His head throbbed as he turned over so that he was lying on his stomach, with his face only two metres from her back. The small fingers picked out the beads, sorting them neatly one by one into the right pile.

I am here. She is here. I am home.

For a long time he just lay there looking at her as the headache eased. His teeth were no longer chattering. He had travelled such a long way to see exactly this. And now she was sitting there, two metres away from him.

And he couldn't reach her.

'Maja?' he said. There was no sound. She didn't react.

He wriggled across the floor, over the threshold until he was right next to her, he could see the milk stain on the knee of her tracksuit. He sat up and placed his hand on her shoulder.

He felt the soft curve beneath the fabric, not much bigger than an egg. He stroked her shoulder, enjoying the sensation in his hand, and squeezed gently as silent tears poured down his face. He stroked her upper arm, and the tears ran into his mouth. They tasted of salt. They were coming from him.

But she didn't turn around. She didn't know he was there. He was just a pair of mute, weeping eyes, watching her.

'Sweetheart. Maja, sweetheart, little one, I'm here now. Daddy's here. I'm with you. You're not on your own anymore.'

He hugged her back, rested his cheek on the back of her neck and carried on weeping. She should have turned around, she should have complained: Daddy, your stubble's all scratchy and I'm getting wet, but nothing happened. As far as she was concerned he didn't exist.

He sat like that until the tears dried up, until he could weep no more. He let go of her and shuffled half a metre backwards, letting his gaze roam over her back, the contours of her spine protruding beneath the material.

I will sit here forever. When she gets up, I will follow her. Like a ghost. I am with her, as she was with me.

He closed his eyes. He felt brave enough to close his eyes now.

Would she experience it the same way? Like the vague, elusive presence of another person, following her wherever she went? Would it frighten her? Could she be frightened? Could he have any effect on her at all?

With his eyes still closed he reached out and touched her back. It was there. The feel of the soft velour against the palm of his hand was there, even though he had his eyes closed.

Can I…

He shuffled forward and to the right as his hand slid over her back, over her shoulder. He moved around her on his knees, still with his eyes closed, felt her collarbone beneath his fingertips. He sat directly in front of her and followed the line of her throat up to her face. There it was. Her face. The round cheeks, the snub nose, the lips that moved as she hummed.

He opened his eyes.

His hand was resting on the back of Maja's head, and he was sitting exactly where he had been sitting before he started shuffling around. He had run his fingers over her lips and she hadn't noticed a thing. He didn't exist. He wasn't even a ghost to her.

He leaned back, stretched out on the floor and looked up at the ceiling, which was not stained with smoke or marked by cobwebs, but was a beautiful white ceiling of carefully laid tongue and groove. Exactly the kind of ceiling he liked best.