Samuel

The darkness is cool and odourless.

I walk around on what might be a floor, pecking a bit. Not because I am hungry, but because that’s what pigeons do. They fly and peck food and coo and groom their feathers and do other bird stuff.

Somewhere in the distance I hear human voices, but the words blur into a strange cackle that is impossible to comprehend.

Then something happens.

It is the exact same feeling as when the light pulls me out, only there is no light. Everything is just darkness.

Still I land in my body again.

Everything tingles and prickles and I slowly become aware of my arms and legs. Feel my hands resting against the smooth surface of the blanket. Notice the bitter taste in my mouth, the throbbing in my head and the burning pain in my nose, as if I had been snorting coke non-stop for weeks.

I try to scream, but my mouth and my vocal cords won’t obey me. The roar becomes a weak puff that leaves my lungs with a faint hiss.

I remain immobile in bed, panic clawing at my chest.

Minutes pass, maybe they become hours, it’s hard to say, because I have no real sense of time. But it’s still dark, except for the thin streak of moonlight creeping in through the window and curling up on the floor like a sleepy pet.

What if this is it? What if this is death?

Tears burn under my eyelids and a knot grows in my throat.

What have I done with my life really? What has become of Samuel Stenberg?

Not a damn thing, but I could have told you that long ago, if you had taken the time to listen.

I think of the only person I miss right now, the only one I would give anything to meet again.

Mum.

And suddenly it is almost as if she is standing by the bed, as if I can feel the warmth from her body and the scent of her lavender soap. For a moment I even think I can see the gold cross she wears around her neck gleam in the dark. But in the next instant I understand that I have imagined it all.

The tears come.

They roll slowly down my cheeks, like a gentle summer rain, as the night slowly lightens into a blue-grey dawn. And as the sky grows pale outside the window my body comes to life.

I try clenching my fist and the muscle does what I want it to – it clenches my fist over and over again. Then I wiggle my foot a bit under the blanket and my limbs continue to do as I say, as if I were in charge and not the other way around.

I turn my head, brace my arms against the mattress and heave myself up.

My head aches and the nausea lurks just under my ribs, but I can move.

Mysteriously I have triumphed over my body. Whatever disease I’ve had it’s over now, and I am not going to stay here a minute longer than I have to.

Outside the window an early bird sings, and soon another one chimes in.

Carefully, I touch my face and feel surgical tape on my cheek. It is attached across something long and thin that feels like a soft straw. Without hesitation I pull the tape off and pull at the straw.

It stings and I realise that I am holding a tube that runs through my nose and into my stomach.

I recall Rachel’s words.

Jonas is tube-fed. But you don’t need to worry about it. I take care of all that.

Panic explodes in my chest and I tear the tube out without regard for the consequences. Pull violently, as if it were a tapeworm that had crawled into my stomach. Inch after inch of slimy tube slides out of my sore nostril.

I cough and have the urge to vomit, but just as the vomit is on its way up my throat the tube is out. I toss it away, stumble over to the window and open it.

The next instant it hits metal.

I reach my hand out through the crack and feel the bars that I screwed on, testing them.

Like rock.

I inhale deeply.

The night air is humid and smells like grass and soil. The birdsong is deafening, so loud that I am afraid someone will wake up and force me back down into Jonas’s bed.

The room is at ground level and it would have been easy fucking peasy to climb out if it weren’t for the bloody bars. I am locked into a giant cage now, because I’ve been so bloody helpful.

I pull the window shut and continue to the hallway.

Everything is quiet and still.

The only sounds are the hum from the fridge and the birds.

The floorboards creak under my weight. Creak and pop, as if they were calling to Rachel to come.

I stop. Listen, but can’t hear anything out of Rachel’s room, so I take another step and grab the handle on the front door. It rests cold in my hand when I turn the lock.

But the door doesn’t open, the deadbolt must be locked.

I try again, but the door won’t budge. It might as well be made out of stone.

Disappointment washes over me like an icy wave. Slowly I slide down into a sitting position with my back to the fucking door.

Tears come again. I don’t even notice, but this time they are virtually gushing out. They wash over my cheeks and pour into my mouth. There is a sting when a tear settles by my raw nostril.

What the hell is going on?

My thoughts are like wild dogs, chasing each other aimlessly and fiercely without making me any wiser.

There must be a way out of this fucking house; after all it’s only a house, not a prison. I draw a deep breath and try to see the shit logically.

All windows on the ground floor have bars, so I can’t get out that way. The front door is locked with a hell of a lot of safety locks, so I can forget that too. The terrace doors are probably locked too, and even if they’re not I can’t climb down from there since the terrace is built over the cliff. Unless I want to risk falling sixty feet and being crushed against the rocks below, that is.

The top floor – that is the only alternative.

I can sneak up the stairs, go into my room, open the window and jump out. That should work, it’s not that high. Eleven, twelve feet tops and there is grass underneath, so I will land softly.

My legs tremble as I walk into the living room. Through the large windows I see the ocean stretch out in the dawn, like a giant leaden quilt reaching all the way to the horizon.

I take the stairs in five quick steps – the wrought-iron structure is solid and doesn’t emit any sounds to give me away.

The door to my room is open and I go in.

The bed is freshly made. The pillows are just as hotel-fluffy as they were when I arrived. My bag is gone and the wardrobe, which is ajar, is empty. There is a slight scent of pine tar soap in the air.

It is as if I was never even here, as if someone washed away every trace of me.

I go up to the window, open it and look down at the ground.

I feel a tug at the pit of my stomach – it’s higher up than I thought and here and there are rocks in the grass that I definitely don’t want to land on. Besides: Rachel’s room is directly under mine. If there is a thud, or I scream when I jump, she might wake up. So whatever happens, no matter how I fall, I have to be as quiet as a mouse.

I climb up carefully and sit in the window. Think about how to do this.

Shall I grab on to the windowsill with my hands, so that I hang straight down, and then let go?

No.

That would reduce the height of my fall, but I can’t choose where I land. The risk is high that I’ll end up too close to the wall, hit it, wake Rachel up and maybe that Olle guy, if he’s here now.

I decide to jump from a seated position and push off as far as I can so that I don’t end up too close to the building wall.

Then I close my eyes and send someone a thought, not sure who, not God in any case. I push off with my feet and hands and sail through the summer night. The ground hits me hard like a clenched fist, knocking the air out of me. A sharp pain in my ankle spreads through my entire leg and I have to summon every ounce of self-discipline to not scream out loud.

I sit in the grass and look at my foot, scared shitless that I’ll see broken bones poking out of my skin.

But my foot looks like it always does.

It has to be a sprain, I tell myself, and get up on all fours. I try to stand up, but the pain in my foot is too severe, so I begin to crawl through the grass towards the front of the house instead.

My left wrist hurts so much that I don’t dare put any weight on it.

I’m slow, far too slow, but neither my foot nor my hand is much use, so I have no choice but to make my way like a fucking one-year-old.

When I round the corner of the house the numbing heavy scent of roses from Rachel’s flower bed hits me. The delicate, dark red flowers with their thorny stems strive toward the lightening sky. There is a fine layer of dew on their petals.

I crawl around the flower bed and on to the gate in the fence.

Just another twenty yards.

My hands scrape against stones and pinecones in the grass. I have lost sensation in my knees, my foot throbs with pain.

In the distance the seagulls join the choir of birds.

Ten.

Hand, knee. Hand, knee.

I feel something slimy against my hand. When I look into the grass I see a crushed snail.

I keep going.

Five.

Hand, knee. Hand, knee.

The fence appears in front of me, from my perspective it feels as tall as a wall.

I support myself on the splintered boards, pull myself onto one leg and hold onto the gate.

A light falls across the ground. I turn around and look quickly at the house.

A light is on in Rachel’s room.

I try to open the gate, but can’t, it almost feels as if it is locked.

Fucking hell!

Noise is coming from the house; someone gives a shrill scream.

I think.

The fence is pretty high. If I hadn’t patched the hole I could have crawled through it now. If I hadn’t needed to look so bloody helpful to Rachel, I would’ve been free by now.

As if that made any difference.

What was I thinking, anyway? That I’d get to fuck her?

I look up at the fence and the realisation hits me: I’m the one who screwed on the bars and fixed the fence that is keeping me prisoner in this insane asylum.

You stupid fuck; you built your own prison.

And now?

There is only one option: I have to climb over the fence. Normally this would not have been a problem. But now, when both my foot and my hand hurt like hell, I don’t know if I am able to.

I grab onto the top of the fence with both hands and try to pull myself up. It shouldn’t be harder than doing a push-up, but my body is weak, so damn weak. My body is a hundred years old and would prefer to just lie down in the grass and die like an old elephant.

I hear a window open and hit the bars with a dull, metallic thud.

This will be my only chance. If I want to get out of here I need to get over the fence now.

I grab hold of the top again, look up at the sky and use all the strength I have. I pull until my back, shoulders and biceps feel like they are on fire with pain. Until I black out and the darkness pulls me down towards the cave again. Until the quills push through the skin on my arms and my nose becomes a beak.

You will never pull this off. You may as well give up.

But I get up. I pull it off.

I end up hanging off the fence, like a sock left to dry, panting and unable to move even an inch.

Slowly I land in my body again.

The front door opens and I can hear heavy steps on the stairs.

With one last enormous effort I heave myself over the fence and fall headlong down onto the other side.

My cheek hits the ground and I feel crunching in my shoulder, but I don’t care anymore. All I can think about is how to get to Igor’s bike which is parked next to the road.

I manage to stand up and begin to run. My foot hurts like hell, but the fear is worse than the pain.

I hear steps on the gravel path, then there’s the clinking of keys and the squeak as the gate swings open. But in the same instant I straddle the bike and fumble the wires for the ignition.

I will make it!

There is no chance anyone will catch up with me on the bike. Not even by car.

The steps approach from behind as I start the bike with a roar. I let go of the ignition and feel the thrill in my chest – that intoxicating feeling of freedom and triumph, of having cheated death itself.

The bike jerks, flies away from its spot by the pine, but stops mid-air, as if it were a duck that had just been shot.

And me, I keep going.

I fly headlong over the handlebars and land on the gravel path with a bang. The taste of blood spreads in my mouth and I spit out gravel, or is it teeth?

I don’t know.

I don’t know anything anymore.

But my brain wants answers. My brain keeps working even though my body is completely fucking out of it.

I remember the vials of Fentanyl that I stole out of the medicine cabinet. Remember the dull clink when I took them out of my backpack and threw them into the foaming waves. Above all I remember replacing the contents of three of the bottles with water and putting them back in the cabinet.

Is that why I woke up? Did someone keep me drugged until tonight?

Until I was given water instead of drugs?

Was it the man I heard, the one from Southern Sweden who Rachel was arguing with?

I recall her words:

. . . if you so much as touch a hair on his head I will call the police unless you leave my house NOW, do you hear me?

The darkness pulls at me, carefully this time, almost benevolently. Tempts with its promise of freedom from pain and fear.

But I don’t want to. Not yet.

I need to understand. There is so much I have to understand, like for instance, why I am lying here on the road and not sitting on the bike on my way back to Stockholm.

The darkness pulls at me. My field of vision is shrinking, fading away. The throbbing pain is receding.

I search with my gaze, let it sweep across the motorbike that lies smoking on its side in the tall grass by my feet.

And I see.

I see something red wrapped around the back wheel and the pine like a long snake.

The big, red bike lock I bought for Rachel.