John Lindqvist - Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

In the articles that mentioned him there had been a strong streak of… ghoulish delight. With painstaking care they had described the murderer's present condition and how he was unlikely to leave his hospital bed for six months. A separate factual box about hydrochloric acid and what it could do to the body, so you could really revel in how much it must hurt.

No, Lacke took no pleasure in that kind of thing. Just thought it was creepy how people got all worked up about someone getting their "just deserts" and all that. He himself was absolutely anti-death penalty. Not because he had some "modern" sense justice, no. More like a premodern one.

His reasoning went something like this: if someone kills my child, then I kill that person. Dostoevsky talked a lot about forgiveness, mercy. Sure. From society's perspective, absolutely. But as a parent to the child it is my moral right to end the life of the one who did it. That society in turn gives me eight years in jail or something is a different matter.

That wasn't what Dostoevsky meant, and Lacke knew it. But he and Fyodor simply didn't see eye to eye on this point.

Lacke thought about these things as he walked home to Ibsengatan. Once he was home he realized he was hungry and cooked up a batch of quick macaroni, ate them from the pan with a spoon, squeezed some ketchup on them. While he was pouring water into the pan to make it easier to wash up later he heard something in the mail slot.

Advertisements. He didn't care about that, had no money anyway.

No, that was just it.

He wiped off the kitchen table with the dishrag, went and got his dad's stamp collection from the sideboard, which he had also inherited from his father, and that had been hell to transport back to Blackeberg. He put the album down on the kitchen table, opened it.

There they were. Four unmarked specimens of the first stamp ever to

be issued in Norway. He leaned over the album and squinted at the lion, raised up on its hind legs against a light blue background.

Incredible.

They had cost four shillings when they were issued in 1855. Now they were worth… more. That they were connected in two pairs made them even more valuable.

That was what he had made up his mind about last night, while he tossed and turned between his smoke-saturated sheets; that it was time. This thing with Virginia had been the last straw. Then, on top of that, the complete incomprehension on the part of the guys, his realization that: you know, these are not people worth hanging around with.

He was going to leave this place, and so was Virginia.

Depressed market or not, he would get about three hundred thousand for the stamps, plus two hundred for the apartment. Then they would get a house in the country. Or alright: two houses. A little farm. There was enough money for that and it would work out. As soon as Virginia had recovered he would present her with the idea, and he thought that… he was almost certain that she would agree to it, would love it in fact.

So that was how it was going to be.

Lacke felt calmer now. He saw everything clearly. What he would do today, and in the future. It would all work out.

Filled with pleasant thoughts, he wandered into the bedroom, lay down on top of the bed to rest for five minutes, and fell asleep.

We see them on streets and squares and we find ourselves standing in before them at a loss, saying to ourselves: what can we do?"

Tommy had never been this bored in his whole life. The service had only been going for half an hour and he thought he would have had more fun if he had sat in a chair staring at the wall.

"Blessed be" and "Hallelujah!" and "Joy of the Lord," but why did they all sit there staring in front of them like they were watching a qualifying match between Bulgaria and Romania? It didn't mean anything to them, that stuff they read in the book, that they sang about. Didn't seem to

mean anything to the minister either. Just something he had to get through in order to collect his paycheck.

Now the sermon was underway, at least.

If the minister mentioned that place in the Bible, that stuff Tommy had read, then he would do it. Otherwise he wouldn't.

Let him decide.

Tommy checked his pocket. Everything was ready and the christening font was only three meters behind him from where he sat in the back row. His mom was sitting in the very front, no doubt so she could twinkle at Staffan as he sang his meaningless songs with his hands loosely clasped in front of his police dick.

Tommy clenched his teeth. He hoped the minister was going to say it.

"We see a lost look in their eyes, the look of someone who has wandered astray and is unable to find his way back home. When I see a young person like this, I always think about the Israelites' exodus from Egypt."

Tommy stiffened. But maybe the minister was not going to mention that exact place. Maybe it would be something about the Red Sea. Still, he took the stuff out of his pocket; a lighter and a small tinder cube. His hands were trembling.

"For it is thus we have to view these young people who sometimes leave us so perplexed. They are wandering in a desert of unanswered questions and unclear future prospects. But there is a great difference between the people of Israel and the young people of today…"

Go on, say it …

"The people of Israel had someone leading them. You are probably familiar with the words of the Scripture. 'And the Lord went before them, by day in a pillar of cloud,

Public interest in the police search of Judarn forest was at an all-time high. The evening news realized they would not be able to print the composite picture of the murderer one more time. They had been hoping for images of an apprehended suspect but in the absence of this both evening papers ran the sheep picture.

The Expressen even put it on the front page.

Say what you will, there was undeniable drama in that photograph. The police officer's face twisted by exertion, the splayed limbs and open mouth of the sheep. You could almost hear the panting, the bleating.

One of the papers had even tried to reach the royal court for comment, since it was the King's sheep that the officer was manhandling in this way. The King and Queen had only two days earlier inweet smell.

He had done this a bunch of times: burned saltpeter and sugar. But rarely in this quantity, and never inside. He was excited to find out what the effect would be without a wind to disperse the fumes. He interlaced his fingers, pressing his hands hard together.

Bror Ardelius, temporary minister of the Vallingby parish, was the first to notice it. He took it for what it was: smoke from the christening font. He had been waiting for a sign from the Lord his whole life and it was undeniably the case that when he saw the first pillar of smoke he thought for a moment,

Oh, My Lord. At last.

But the thought did not last long. That the feeling of it being a miracle left him so quickly, he took as a proof that it was indeed no miracle, no sign. It was simply this: smoke from the christening font. But why?

The janitor, whom he was not on particularly good terms with, had decided to play a practical joke. The water in the font had started to… boil.

The problem was that he was in the middle of a sermon and could not spend a long time thinking about these questions. So Bror Ardelius did what most people do in these situations: he carried on as if nothing had happened and hoped the problem would resolve itself on its own. He cleared his throat and tried to remember what he had just said.

The works of the Lord. Something about seeking strength in the works of the Lord. One example.