lifetime in the service of drawing-room magic. Was he likely to back out now, when the very essence of the thing was at his fingertips?
Idiot. Idiot. You're going to do it, aren't you?
Cautiously he pushed open the box and looked at the insect. There was nothing about it to indicate that it was a link between the human world and the insane beauty of magic. It was fairly disgusting, in fact. Like an internal organ that had been cut out and had turned black.
Simon cleared his throat, gathering saliva in his mouth.
Then he did it.
The globule of spittle emerged between his lips. He lowered his head over the box and saw the stringy phlegm finding its way down towards the insect. A thread was still connected to his lips when the saliva reached its goal and spread out over the shining skin.
As if the thin string of saliva connecting them had been a needle, a taste reached Simon via his lips. It immediately shot into his body, and it was a taste like nothing else. It most closely resembled the taste of a nut that had gone bad in its shell. Rotten wood, but sweet and bitter at the same time. A disgusting taste.
Simon swallowed, but there was nothing to lubricate his throat, and he smacked his tongue against his palate. The thin string broke, but the taste continued to grow in his body. The insect twitched and the sore on its skin began to heal. Simon stood up, his whole body nauseated.
This was a mistake.
He managed to get a beer out of the fridge, opened it and took a couple of gulps, swilling the liquid around his mouth. A little better, but the nausea in his body was still there, and the vomit began to rise in his throat.
The insect had recovered and was now crawling out of the box, on to the kitchen table, and heading in Simon's direction. He backed away towards the sink, staring at the black clump as it crawled towards the edge of the table, then fell to the floor with a soft, moist thud.
Simon moved to the side, towards the cooker. The insect changed direction, following him. Simon could feel that he was about to be sick. He took a couple of deep breaths and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers.
Calm down. You knew about this.
And yet he couldn't make himself stand still when the insect was almost up to his foot. He fled into the hallway and sat down on the seaman's chest where he kept wet weather gear, pressing his hands to his temples and trying to see the situation clearly. The nausea was beginning to subside, the taste was no longer as intense.
The insect crawled across the kitchen doorway, heading in his direction. It left a faint trace of slime behind it. Simon knew things now that he had not known five minutes ago. Knowledge had been injected into him.
What he was experiencing as a taste within his body, the insect was experiencing as a smell. It would trail him, follow him until it was allowed to be with him. That was its sole aim. To be with him-
till death do us part
– to share its power with him. He knew. With the saliva he had formed a bond that could not be broken.
Unless…
There was a way out. But it wasn't relevant at the moment, with the insect on its way towards his foot once again. It was his now. Forever, until further notice.
He took a few rapid steps past the insect, which immediately changed direction, and picked up the matchbox from the kitchen table. He placed the box over the crawling black body and slid the cover over it. The boy on the label was marching towards a bright future as Simon weighed the box in his hand.
He clamped his lips together, suppressing the sickly feeling as the insect moved around in the box, and he felt its warmth against the palm of his hand. Yes. It was warm. It was feeling fine now, it had been fed and it had acquired an owner.
He put it in his pocket.
About the Shack
For such steeds find life difficult, those who cannot tolerate
either the spur or the whip. With every pain that befalls them,
they take fright and flee in terror towards the gaping abyss.
Selma Lagerlof -The Story of Gosta Berling
The fern (October 2006)
It was the fern that clinched it.
Anders had been sitting and staring at it for twenty minutes, during which time he had smoked two cigarettes. He was looking at the fern through a veil of smoke and dust particles, drifting around in grubby sunlight. The window had not been cleaned for a long time, and its surface was marked with uneven greasy patches, a legacy of all those evenings when Anders had stood with his forehead resting on the glass, gazing down into the car park and waiting for something to happen, something that could change things. Something, anything, a miracle.
The fern was on the windowsill above the radiator. A long frond waved in the rising heat. The leaves were small and brown, withered.
Anders lit another cigarette to sharpen his thoughts, or perhaps as reward for the fact that he had had a real thought, a clear thought. The smoke made his eyes smart, he coughed and kept looking at the fern.
It's dead.
Most of its fronds were plastered against the side of the pot, pale brown against the red. The compost in which it had been planted was so dry it was almost white. Anders took a deep drag and tried to remember: how long had the fern looked like that, how long had it been dead?
He searched his memory for days and evenings in the past when he had sat on the sofa or wandered around the apartment or stood by the window. They drifted together to form a fog, and he couldn't see a wilting fern through the mist. When he thought about it more closely, he couldn't even remember when he had acquired the fern, why he had ever got the idea of buying a living plant.
Had someone given it to him?
Possibly.
He got up from the sofa, and his legs wouldn't carry him properly. He thought about filling a bottle with water and giving it to the fern, but he knew there were so many dishes in the sink that he wouldn't be able to get the bottle under the tap. In the bathroom it was impossible to get the bottle at the right angle for the water to run in. So he would have to unscrew the shower head and…
It's dead anyway.
Besides which, he just didn't have the strength.
In the pot he found eight cigarette stubs. Some were half-pushed down into the hard compost. So he must have stood here smoking. He didn't remember that. As he ran his fingers over the dry fronds, some of the leaves came off and drifted down to the floor.
Where did you come from?
He got the idea that the plant had simply tumbled into the material world in the same way as Maja had tumbled out of it. Through a gap in time and space it had suddenly been there, just as his daughter had suddenly not been there. Gone.
'What was it Simon used to say when he was doing tricks for them?
