It’s sickening. Just look at them, all these relatives stuffing their faces and talking over his back; smiling their fake smiles with their perfect teeth and fake lashes… The men wore fake leather shoes and fake watches. They were all fake. God must’ve put a trick on him by setting him upon this earth with these people.

His parents were like that, his uncles, cousins, everyone was fake. Even their kids, and his own too, were fake. What’s so good about being fake? He chose to remember his wife differently, although she was fake too. People are fake, that’s the gist of it, and there’s no avoiding it.

It’s Christmas and the entire family was over in his big gloomy house in the middle of nowhere. He tried to make it warm and nice with a bunch of fires; he even ordered in a bunch of flowers to hide the smell, and to put color around the gloom, but all his efforts were lost on them, their hearts were both cold and blind. All they cared about was the food and drink, which was excellent! And the valuables, of course.

They were looking at his paintings, the swords over the mantel piece, the rug that they so carelessly stepped on. All of it worth… a lot, he supposed. He looked over all the guests and found that some had disappeared in the other rooms. No doubt rummaging through the bookshelves and desks, their heart skipping a beat upon finding a rare volume. Living long enough and most thing you own become rare, but not always valuable. He stepped up to the window, looked over the wilderness and noticed someone touching the walls, perhaps wondering if it’s in good condition.

I was a free man at last, for the first time in decades.

They’d watched me from afar for so long, then one day they just stopped, they’d given up, I’ve won! I didn’t notice, of course, until a friend told me who knew about these sorts of things. He didn’t tell me for free, though. I had to give him a case of beer and lend him my ear and listen to all his grief and guilt that he couldn’t share to anyone else but me. He knew I could keep my mouth shut. He was not a good person, I can tell you that much, but then again, neither was I.

He didn’t know what I did and he didn’t bother asking; it’s always smarter to keep your nose where it belonged unless you were asking for trouble. It hadn’t been an easy decade. They hold grudges for a long time around here, but luckily there is law, at least the honor code kept me safe. They got nothing to pin me on, my work was clean. But they knew it was me, of course it was me. I’ve worked for them for so long… How could I not know about the thing? I hid it in a very good place and they were waiting for me to check up on it. I never did. I got more patience than they but I was damn near sick of pretending at one point, so much so that I had to live the lie, believe it was real. That’s what good liars and scoundrels do. The only problem was that I pretended so well that I forgot what I stole. The thing is all I remember. I know where I put it: in the western edge of town between two fields on the 7th tree… But those directions were useless now, so much had changed.

It would take a while to pinpoint exactly where I put it and farmers are very watchful of their property so I couldn’t just start digging without causing suspicion. I know Alisson would’ve loved to see what I hid, but she’s dead now. I don’t even care anymore, frankly. It’s not all that valuable, I think, at least not to the amount of effort that it took to take it. Maybe if I could sell it without digging it up? If I could somehow prove what I have… if I could keep my identity a secret… Ah, what a headache.

But at least it was exciting for a little while and I did get away with it. So that must count for something, right?

Dave goes to the bar. He has a beer every Tuesdays and two beers on Mondays. Sometimes he takes a beer on Thursdays too but never on Friday because that’s when Lena is working. She cries a lot when she talks about her life. Granted, she gives him free drinks so he’s obliged to listen.

Dave’s work takes him deep into the forest where this old man lives. The old man lives in a run down milk farm but the cows are long gone. There’s sheep and some horses grazing on his land but they’re not his. Dave helps fix the fences that constantly break even though it’s not part of his job. Dave sometimes have to stay the night to make sure the old man doesn’t put something in his mouth and suffocate. The old man pays him fairly well for this and he was decent to Dave but they didn’t speak much anyhow. The old man kept his business to himself. The only thing that bothered Dave was how the house smelled. He much preferred the old, rundown, barn. On stormy nights the house creaked. The old man had a tendency to howl when he was asleep and Dave walked into his bedroom sometimes to make sure he wasn’t turning into a wolf, which was also one of the old man’s fears. Sometimes the old man forgot that he didn’t have any cows anymore and accused Dave of stealing the milk. A stern talking often solved the issue and the old man was usually very regretful afterwards and made his signature dish as repentance: porridge, pork and green beans. It was delicious. The old man was keen to keep Dave around because he was a good worker. Dave was only a good worker because he afforded himself a couple beers every so often, at least so he said.

In truth, he preferred the animals over the old man and he would take every opportunity that he could to pet them. Dave liked animals because they were never mean or boring, but most of all, they were quiet. Dave didn’t talk much either, if he could help it. All in all, he liked his simple little life. Maybe one day he would do more important things, something only he could do. Then he would never have to talk to anyone again, or so he dreamed.

The toaster on the windshield (that I’ve had for years) suddenly shot the bread sideways. A net that was attached to the toaster caught the bread. I don’t know why I thought that was an interesting observation, but it was somehow strange to me… On the street the police was dressed in blue and had helmets but instead of batons they had big axes strapped to their belts that bumped against their legs as they walked. I suppose it was to hack at criminals, perhaps to throw at them? It was a big axe, though and I couldn’t imagine it flying very far. Do the firemen wear pistols instead? The firemen kills fires, I guess that makes sense…

There were some bars and hookers downtown. The hookers ran the bars and there were some gangsters but the gangsters didn’t bother the hookers and instead they killed each other over the scraps in the city; the liquor stores and shopping centers. I wasn’t entirely sure why the gangsters didn’t bother the hookers but the hookers shot liquor out of their breasts when they danced. It wasn’t very strong liquor but I thought it was noteworthy.

According to the news a dog named Jasper was president. He barked at the questions at the interviewer and he growled if they didn’t give him a treat every so often. He was a good dog so nobody complained much. The TV screen in front of me was round and big and flat, like a mirror. I felt like I’ve seen TV’s that were square but I wasn’t sure. There was also a bit more color than I remembered…

At least my piss is still yellow and my shit is brown. That I remember clearly.

“Shit, I’m sick of this,” he said, shivering by the campfire. His ship lay moored on the small harbour in a dead village with no one in sight; with burned down buildings and probably some dead bodies too somewhere. It was warmer on the ship, of course, but the voice of his comrade’s shrieks drove him crazy so he opted to stay on land.

He tossed the butt of his last cigarette into the fire, it went up in flames with a pleasant smell, or so he imagined. He crumpled the empty package and tossed it in too, The plastic burnt first, then the cardboard. He looked at his friends, who were also shivering.

They shook their heads. “I’m out,” his friends said.

The mist was heavy but the fog was eaten by their campfire and they could see each other, and the ground around them, clearly. It felt safe that way. The light from the fire gave a murky, sort of sickly glow to the air, mostly green and yellow but there were also other colors.

A wounded cry echoed from the ship, sounding like a broken trumpet coming out from the doorway. “Who left the door open?” he said, patting his rifle by his side. It felt safer that way.

His friends shrugged. All of this was of course tolerable if they just had some more cigarettes to smoke.

In my small town I got nothing to worry about, except get up in the morning, head to work, and go to the pub after. I go to the pub every day to see my friends and nothing really happens beyond that. There’s some small drama, sometime, a fight, a squabble. Nothing serious, not like in other towns. The town has a beautiful beach that nobody uses. We aren’t too keen on sunbathing but we do take a dip or two when the weather permits. The town is sandwiched between two castle ruins that overlook the ocean. The town is old and important back in the day. Some say king arthur had his court here at one point but I don’t believe it, I don’t wanna believe because I want to keep things as they are, quiet and unassuming. Of course, because of the rumour, we get a visitor or two.

We don’t mind strangers as long as they leave eventually. We might not be the most friendly folk but we don’t chase people out as some people say. We give them a curious glance and that’s it. Maybe that makes people uncomfortable, all the better! It just means less people are coming. We are fiercely suspicious, however, it comes with the territory.  

I find they look very strange, the visitors. I don’t fancy their clothes or their speech, it’s… odd, unfitting, somehow. Once a while some of them stick around for longer, despite the looks we give them. The castles might be a bit mysterious but the town is in all regards quite boring. It shouldn’t suit their tastes at all! But eventually they all leave.

We had one stranger who didn’t talk to anybody, didn’t even try to be friendly. He was like a ghost, ignoring and being ignored. That got a few of the boys quite miffed because usually they are the ones doing the ignoring, me included. But what pissed us off even more was that he spent is time at the pub everyday! So it was impossible to ignore him! His face was buried in his books and he was writing something too, which is alright with me. He wrote feverishly for a couple seconds, pause, then then write some more. Some days he didn’t even touch a pen.

It got to a point that he became the town gossip and we were worried that he tried to settle in. Honestly he’d been staying so long that many people didn’t see anything wrong with it. He minded his own business which was how we liked it. One day, he suddenly started singing. Now, his singing wasn’t good, not like ours. His notes were inharmonious and disjointed but I had never heard anything like it before. It had a quality I couldn’t describe and I knew the boys felt the same way but were too afraid to say anything.

He hummed softly, then he became loud before lowering his voice again and then he was back on the pencil. We were all down right dumbfounded and we didn’t know wether to grab his wrists and throw him out or let him be or join in. The stranger kept singing and writing until his glass was empty. He only had the one beer, then left. That particular night, (I don’t know why I felt it, I had no reason the believe) but I felt like this would the last time I ever saw him so I stopped him at the door and said. “Friend, where did you learn such a beautiful song?”

His face suddenly turned scarlet as if he’d been caught by his pants down and he said in the most broken English. “I was singing?!”

© Christopher Stamfors