The Hakkapirelli Life
by Kjetil Jansen
|
Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
As the slide began to get serious, she heard a dissonance in the flow. She raised her head. The upcoming sections were clean and dry. A short refusal before she realized. One of the partitions was missing. She tried to break her progress with her hands, but she was no match for the current.
Desperately seeking a solution, she turned the stream off at the source, even as she knew the effect of this action would not reach her in time. The gap widened. A dirty waterfall was ready to spew her down the cliff. The cold water had made her dizzy enough to accept any faith. Her demise or her survival or a journey into something else.
As she braced herself, a mighty thud. The clothesline, minus its base, bridging the gap. Only just, one by one lines began to snap. She managed to turn and slide across the pole on her stomach. It fell, and for an instant she was suspended midair before her momentum tumbled her to safety.
Nursing a numb elbow, she followed her escaped fall with her eyes as the waterfall started to dwindle. She was looking at dry land. The ocean had retreated. She had read about that. Some people finding this phenomenon worth exploring, others fleeing to the hills.
She shifted her gaze. Incoming. A tsunami. Not water. A wall of mist careering into the bay, shiny and white. Merciless and triumphant. Riding the edge, a familiar shape. Unrooted, the pride of Arensand, the pool turning her way, leering at her. From it a chain of dark yellow dots trickled out. Jellyfish. The kind that burns you.
On the balcony rail, Fluffy made a stand, a ball of anguish. With an effort, Marie undid her. No more suffering. The wave hit. The two buildings seemed to dance together for a moment, before the impact tore everything apart. Debris reaching for the sky joined the remains already at the bottom of the cliff. The fog retreated into a crescent wall, giving her the full view. From home to rubble.
She heard a swirling sound. High above, the outdoor antenna. A busy sky today. It was on a course to hit her. She found no reason to move. Yes. Maybe. No. It crashed down on the last section before the drop. A good fit, it settled down. Red splinters from what used to be a house began to slide. The largest one began to talk.
“Greetings, lucky finder. Yours to keep, a piece of the International Space Station. With compliments.”
That voice again. “I saw where you came from,” Marie said.
A slight pause. “Fun aside, you couldn’t resist, could you? Your species, obsessed with reckonings and raptures, you had to invite it back to cross your threshold.”
Some static as the splinter spun around in a rivulet of cloudy water.
“Invite what?” Marie asked, as she looked at the wall. “The void? My other, for sure. She is angry I killed her, right?”
“Come on, Marie. You know better. She is gone. You haven’t listened to me at all.”
“Why take advice from you, soul-eater!”
She had never screamed at someone, or something before. It felt liberating. Behind her, she sensed a presence. White fingers of fog, caressing her hurt elbow and battered back.
“Yes. Expanding and exciting times. Growing a backbone, are we? I have seen the lot. Individuals going from prudence to rampant egotism. Every excess. I bide my time, but sooner or later, as I feel obligated to do, I tell you about the void. You fled during my initial approach in the shack, and I don’t blame you. As you have shown, you were not ready. Not then, not now. People with a conscience, you are the ones ending up embracing the retreat. This difficulty in balancing what you may call a delusive reality, I found it interesting, amusing even. Now I find it troubling. In Venice you brought the void, but I put it in your head.”
The mist whispered sweet nothings in her ear. It played with her hair, soft as summer.
“Your other, her drunkard brother, he told her their parents, her ex-husband, everybody, thought she was a coward for not trying to have another child. Even not believing him, he struck a chord, motoring her withdrawal from the world. You do see where I am going with this.”
Marie reluctantly shredded her coat of void. “All ears.”
“Man moves from created to creator. With a responsibility to his creations. Retreating to the void, your world tears itself apart. It will not be pretty.”
Something stirred in her. “A creator.”
The splinter was playfully near the very end of the slide. “Stabilize your reality, save your creations. You cannot set them free, but you can help make them less dependent on you.”
Marie wrung her hands. “How?”
“I assume you are familiar with the Forbidden Fruit Approach?”
“Say again?”
* * *
A New York speakeasy. Hatton and Sidney at a window table. Street life tonic to their happiness. Insert of a spectacled man with comb-over hair. Placing stacks of money on a counter in front of clawed, manicured hands. A giant blackboard chalked with names and numbers as whistles blow.
The pair sip coffee as a sea of police officers barge into the building across the street, truncheons high. The sign says “Bookmaker.” Sidney brings out a cigarette from her purse. Hatton lights her up with a Zippo.
It was all about family. The young greaser admitted to Hatton he had hired out a set of wrenches and a crowbar to a masked man already before departure. Equipment capable to sabotage the engine. They were never used. With all the delays, there was no need. The investigation also helped the culprits. Two brothers. Two wastrels, with a father getting wise and tightening their access to his fortune. Having placed a ridiculous late arrival bet, the supposed missing brother hid in their cabin, never to be found by anyone bar the unlucky maid.
Hatton got suspicious when the older brother wanted to abandon the search. His eagerness to do so seemed out of place. He was, of course, only concerned about the bet.
Hatton asks for the check as the police march out the defeated duo. They spot him, and he lifts his cup at their scowling faces. Justice has prevailed. Hatton and Sidney kiss. Iris fade to black.
“What a splendid solution!”
“That plot was as watertight as the ship turned out to be.”
“We had ending suggestions of our own written down, and I am happy we heard you in time to eat them.”
“Yes, ladies. I have an announcement. Again, I will not be among you for a while, but you are free to watch films without me. Can you do that?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s settled then. In my hand, I have the only copy of the greatest movie ever made: The 39 Steps to 27 Dresses, starring Laurie Zimmer and Donald Pleasence!”
“I am lost for words.”
“Pinch me slowly with a chainsaw!”
“I hear you. Alas, fearing tape destruction, this is the one movie you must never sample. If you do, you must leave this place forever.”
“Yikes!”
“Harsh, but reasonable.”
“So sorry. Be good. Peace and Marie out.”
* * *
She stepped out of the sun into the stable. A sheath of sunlight illuminated the naked floor. Unbroken by particles of dust, she winced at the sight, feeling the loss but, for the first time, also the longing, which was the reason she had kept this building. Perhaps she should continue with a cat.
The boy stood by the large window overlooking the sea, bent and concentrated, pinning a piece of paper to the wall as he scribbled away with a black felt-tip pen. He lifted the pen above his head to tell her he was aware of her presence.
“Thomas, what are you drawing?”
He smiled and showed her. A cone of scribbles, creating a funnel.
“It’s Mommy.”
“It’s a whirlwind.”
“It is her whirlwind. She is inside it.”
“Who is the figure in the corner?”
“That’s you!”
“Am I holding a wand?”
“It’s your bassoon. I like it. You should play it in front of me.”
In the horizon, clouds were forming, still small enough to be playthings for the upcoming sunset.
“Yes, maybe I should. Would you mind keeping Jasmin company? She is weeding the cauliflowers.”
He hesitated. “Is it fridge-worthy?”
“Very much so. You can place it yourself.”
She stood by the window for a few minutes without seeing. She went back out into the field. Jasmin was on her knees among three rows of white skulls.
“They are coming around nicely,” she said.
“Where did the boy go?”
“I said he needs gloves.” Jasmin bit her lip as she dug out a root. Marie sat down beside her.
“How are you doing? Still afraid of open spaces?”
“I’m all right.” She put down her tool. “You are frowning. Is something up?”
“I wonder if it’s time. To tell him about the world. I suspect he already knows.”
“He is at that age. When they begin to speculate about how everything connects.”
Jasmin looked up at the blackened sky. “Are you going to make it rain tonight?”
In Paris, the crowd was pleasantly surprised when one of the models did a cartwheel before she took a bow.
“It might get windy.”
Copyright © 2022 by Kjetil Jansen
