FABIAN HEARD A FAINT buzz and felt his head turning another little bit. He had to be up to ninety degrees, or even slightly past it. Another screen was lighting up his field of vision; it also showed a black-and-white photograph of Torgny Sölmedal. His hair was just as neatly combed and his smile was just as friendly as in the last picture, but this time he was an adult.
He wanted to be seen this way. When it was all over, the pictures would surely be spread throughout the world — and, like Fabian with his head fastened to a dentist’s chair, no one would be able to look away.
But then something happened to the picture. Or was he only imagining it? No, he was sure, something was definitely happening. The space between the eyes narrowed and the nose looked different. The same went for the hair. It had grown darker and longer, and whether he was still looking at Torgny or whether this was someone else, he wasn’t sure. All he knew for certain was that the face before him was transforming.
He heard the buzz and his head turned again. By now his neck was considerably stretched and straining, even if it didn’t really hurt yet. He wondered how many more degrees he would survive, whether his neck would break all at once or if his path to the inescapable end would be peppered with several small catastrophic moments. He had no clue. He didn’t even know which he would prefer. The thought of dying wasn’t as problematic as the thought of surviving.
The face on the screen before him was still changing, and he could now decipher that it looked more and more like his son. He’d taken that picture himself last spring. It had been Theodor’s birthday and the family had celebrated by eating at the Hard Rock Café, where all he could think about was how annoyingly loud the music was.
There was another buzz and, just as it had before, his head turned another little bit. But this time it was different — he could both hear and feel the cracking in his neck.