Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

Don’t be too hasty. You have no idea how long this water has been standing here. Every explorer knows that stagnant water can be poisonous, but in the end you scoop up a little and have a drink. It’s not good. It’s lukewarm and it tastes stale, but you have another drink. And another .

Then you put down the bucket, because you need to ration your resources .

‘ Ration your resources’: that sounds like an adventure story with a hero, but you are no hero. You are completely powerless, you cannot breathe. You curl up on the floor and wait and wait and wait. The gym is a short distance away from the school, on the outskirts of town — nobody passes here by chance .

You cannot hear a thing apart from a slight rushing sound in your ears, and from time to time a faint clicking from the heater. You get to your feet and bang on the door anyway, you shout and bang and shout. The door is thick and solid; it doesn’t move a millimetre .

Then you curl up again, but the floorboards are getting hotter and hotter. Underneath the benches there is a cement floor which should be cooler, but you don’t want to crawl in there. You know how filthy it must be. Thousands of people have sat on the benches up above, year after year, their sweat trickling down on to the floor. They have spat through the gaps in the benches, dropped their snuff, shed hairs and flakes of skin .

But you have to get away from the heat, and eventually you crawl in there anyway. You are a naked little piglet, crawling in among the damp filth beneath the benches. And it is cooler. It’s dirty, but you can breathe .

You wait on the cement floor, dreaming of a friend. A tough guy. A man who begins to realize that something is wrong. Perhaps you arranged to meet at a restaurant in town — why haven’t you turned up? You don’t know his name, and you don’t have any paper to draw his picture, but you start to conjure up this man inside your head .

He is known as the Secret Avenger. The Secret Avenger chooses not to reveal himself, he blends into his surroundings. If you look carefully you will see him there, but in a crowd he is invisible .

You know that the Secret Avenger has grown tired of waiting. He gets up from the table, pays for his whisky and decides to go looking for you. He transforms himself. He becomes the Righteous Avenger, with burning eyes and fists of steel. You know exactly what he looks like. Be careful, Torgny!

You lose consciousness, then come round .

You are not sweating as much now, but you are just as thirsty as before. You crawl over to the bucket and drink a little more water. By the sound of it there are perhaps ten or eleven gulps left in the bottom of the bucket. You drink three, then lie down on the cooler cement once more .

You close your eyes, dreaming in the darkness. Time passes. Sometimes you raise your head and you really believe that the Secret Avenger is on his way, that he has somehow tracked down the Gang of Four and beaten them up in order to find out what they have done with his best friend — but most of the time you know that no one is coming to save you .

You sleep, and you have no control over your dreams this time. Afterwards you cannot remember whether they were peaceful out-of-body experiences or nightmares, but at least they can’t have been any worse than lying awake in the darkness .

Sooner or later you are awake again, and totally dehydrated. You have no idea if it is morning, but breakfast consists of a little water from the bottom of the bucket. It is slightly gritty, with hairs floating around in it, but you drink it anyway. Every last drop .

Is that a rumbling noise? You put down the bucket and listen. No, it isn’t the Secret Avenger opening the door. Perhaps it was a car driving past the back of the gym .

You are going to die here in the sauna. You know that now. There is no more water. It is a little bit like lying in a dark desert. A night of tropical heat. Your body is gradually drying out .

Is it possible to drink sweat? It doesn’t really matter, because you are so dehydrated that you have stopped sweating — there is just a greasy film coating your skin .

Is it possible to drink urine? You are naked and you need to pee, so it isn’t difficult to test the theory, all you have to do is let a little bit trickle into your hand .

It tastes bitter, but you drink a mouthful anyway. One mouthful. That’s all you can get down .

You crawl over to the door. The gap at the bottom is tiny, but you push your face up against it and try to see out. The lights are still on. The shower room looks just the same as it always does, with its shiny tiled floor. Out there the whole world is going about its business as if nothing terrible has happened, as if the Gang of Four does not exist .

Eventually, at some point when you are almost unconscious, you slowly clamber up to the top bench and the beer can — the one that is half full of some unidentified liquid. And you drink that too. It is warm and sour and slightly viscous, but you drink and drink and empty the can. You are too thirsty to care what is sliding down your throat .

When it is all gone you swallow again, hard .

Clamp your lips together, you mustn’t be sick. You must retain the liquid in your stomach, otherwise you will die .

But by now you want to die. So why do you go on fighting here in the darkness, minute by minute?

You lie down on the floor again. Is it Saturday or Sunday? You have given up, you simply lie there .

‘Perhaps I died right there on the floor,’ Jan said. ‘Perhaps the Unit is heaven.’

Somehow he had ended up lying on the floor, with his head on Rami’s lap. He looked up at her, but she shook her head.

‘You didn’t die.’

She bent her head and opened her mouth. Jan saw the tip of her tongue and was expecting the second kiss of his life, but Rami was aiming for his eyes.

She closed his eyelids with her tongue, first the right, then the left.

And when his eyes were closed she pushed her tongue into his mouth. This kiss felt better than the first one, like a journey across the vault of heaven. He felt her upper body pressing against him. It was soft, not hard as he had expected.

Rami released his lips eventually, exhaled with a gentle sigh and looked at him. ‘But somebody rescued you in the end?’

Jan nodded without speaking. He wanted to lie here for the rest of his life; he didn’t want to think about the sauna.

At long last you hear noises through the wooden door; someone is moving around in the changing room .

You open your eyes. The sauna is still as hot, but you are shivering .

More noises. Shoes stomping across the tiled floor .

‘ Hello?’ a man’s voice calls out .

You try to stand up and manage to get to your knees, but then you run out of strength. You fall forward, straight into the door. Your arms and your forehead hit the wooden panel and you stay there, leaning against the door, trying to bang on it .

The door opens .

It happens so quickly that you lose your balance and fall down on to the tiles .

The air in the shower room is ice-cold. The shock is so great that you lose consciousness again in a dark wave of nausea; there is nothing you can do about it. It lasts for only a few seconds, because when you open your eyes the man is still standing there. The man who has set you free .

A tennis player. He has grey hair and a bushy grey moustache, and he is wearing a white tracksuit. He is holding a broom in his hand — gradually you realize that the Gang of Four must have jammed the door shut with the broom handle before they took off .