This text was written very quickly one day in 2014, and equally quickly forgotten. I recently browsed through my folders, and found it. Somehow it feels appropriate to share it as it is.
The first time I met her, she was already very old. Her skin had that translucent quality that comes with high age, and she looked very frail, sitting in an armchair in what must best be described as her studio.
I arrived very early on a September morning, but she had obviously already begun her day. She greeted me, not with words, but with a smile that somehow radiated both her many years and her youth – although old and seemingly frail she was so full of life that her presence dominated the whole room and made me feel uplifted and awed at the same time.
I didn’t know a lot about her, only that she had been living a fairly ordinary life before the ”Meltdown of Societies” (although I strongly suspected that her ”ordinary” would have been vastly different from mine). After the Meltdown, when all the seemingly strong democracies of the world had fallen and been replaced by a very different regime, she had risen quietly to a place where her home became a sort of haven for those of us who didn’t quite fit into the new order of things.
She wasn’t a favorite of the new rulers, far from it, but it seemed they couldn’t touch her, they never seemed to succeed in their attempts to stop her from helping those that they wanted rid of. It was said by some that her house was either guarded by angels or that she had cast some kind of spell around it to make it impossible for the authorities to find and stop her. I didn’t think that was the case, I thought she must have old ”friends in high places” that protected her.
Either way, a vast number of people had been helped by her and her household, people who otherwise probably would have died or ”disappeared” at the hands of the regime.
The day I arrived, I had been on my feet for nearly a week, walking from one of the cities about a hundred kilometers away. I fled because my neighbor had threatened to report me to the authorities for ”illegal activities” i. e having dinner with friends that were not approved of by our local government. The people I had dinner with were old friends of mine, we had known each other since long before the Meltdown, and they were now homeless and hungry, so I invited them in to eat with me and to possibly get some sleep. My neighbor saw it and came knocking on my door, telling me in no uncertain terms that he’d report me at once, so I grabbed a few things and fled on foot.
As far as I knew then and there I had nowhere to go, at least nowhere safe. The authorities had us all under surveillance through our electronic devices, all the laws that once were supposed to protect us from organized crime were now used to track down and follow citizens to ensure ”loyalty” to the world government. Knowing that, I left my devices when I fled to make it harder for them to trace me, but that also meant I couldn’t contact anyone or use any kind of public transport to get away. I had to walk, and I had to keep to woods and places where CCTV where less probable to pick me up.
Luckily, I used to take walks in the woods around the city, so I knew them fairly well. What I didn’t know, though, was how to use them to get to some kind of haven. I really needed someone to point me in the right direction, but since I was in fact in the woods I only met birds and squirrels, and the occasional deer.
Three days into my flight, with very little to eat and having slept only a few short hours, I came upon a house by a little lake. I watched it from a distance for a long time, not wanting to be seen. As I watched, a young man left the house and went down to the beach by the sea to get something. He was tallish, with brown hair and a healthy-looking body, and his face looked peaceful and happy in a way I hadn’t seen in a very long time. He looked so different from the people I had been socializing with for the past few years that I felt an urge to step forward, and to my astonishment, I did.
He looked up, surprised, when he saw me, and I blurted out: ”Don’t be afraid, I will not hurt you!”
He smiled at me and said: ”I know that. What can I do for you?”
”I don’t know.” I said, wondering how he could have known so quickly that I wasn’t dangerous. If I were him and someone came unannounced to my place in the middle of the woods I would definitely not be that casual about it. During the past few years I, like everyone I knew, had learned to be extremely cautious around strangers, you never knew who would report you to the authorities, or for what. This young man though, seemed to be very comfortable with me being there, when his first moment of surprise was gone.
”Let’s get you inside and find you something to eat then,” he said, ”you look like you could use some good food in that body of yours.”
To me, that sounded like heaven. I hadn’t had time to finish my dinner before I fled and had only eaten what I could find in the forest, which wasn’t much, so he was right, I could really use some food.
I followed him into the little house and found myself in a kitchen that seemed to be bigger than the house itself. It flowed into an extension to the back of the house, and it seemed to serve as both the kitchen and main living room. It had a large wooden table with six chairs in the middle of the floor, and a huge AGA at one of the walls, surrounded by cupboards and workbenches. In the rafters of the roof hung herbs and flowers, as well as onions and baskets. It looked like (and clearly was) a working country kitchen, although from long ago.
”Please sit”, he said and indicated one of the chairs by the table. I did as I was told and in what seemed like no time at all, the table was filled with food – bread, butter, cheese, milk, fruit, eggs, and a number of other things. We ate in comfortable silence, and not until he had made sure that I was thoroughly fed did he begin asking who I was and where I was going.
”I’m sorry, but I don’t want to tell you my name”, I said, ”you’ve been good to me but I don’t know you, for all I know you might report me to the government and that would be the end of me.”
”I understand”, he said, ”when I first came here I felt the same way. I felt I couldn’t afford to stay in one place more than a day or two, for fear that they’d find me. There was no one here when I arrived, the house was empty and seemed to have been for long. At first, I was planning to only stay the night, just to be able to sleep with a roof over my head and to feel at least a little bit safe, but somehow it felt like home, like I belonged, so I stayed. It’s been three years now, and no one has returned to throw me out of their house, it kind of feels like it is my job to guard and take care of it while the real owner is gone.
Over time, many like you have passed here, and I’ve been able to help them along, to give some hope in these strange times. Some have stayed only for an hour or two, some longer, but all of them have rested here and gathered some strength for the rest of their journey.”
Listening to him, I sensed that he was sincere and that he meant what he said about being a helper and giving people rest. After a short inner debate, I began telling him a little of what had got me running from my home and why I probably never would be able to go back. While I was telling him my story I felt it was a relief to be able to share my fears and my anger with another person, to not keep back and be suspicious. It had been so long since I was able to do that – even with my old friends I had to be careful what I said, you never knew who was listening, never knew what could be used against you if one of them was caught and made to tell the government about you. The less they knew, the better, and that of course went the other way as well – the less I knew about them, the better for us all. In recent years, that had made our friendship shallower, and not daring to share fears and dreams openly as we did before putting a wall between us, one that grew steadily in all directions.
I hadn’t realized that this was the case until I started telling my new friend about it, and it shocked me to see how narrow and fearful my life had become, although I always told myself I was one of those who hadn’t complied, hadn’t bowed to the masters, so to speak. In my mind, I had been the exception to the rule, the personification of resistance, and it was scary to admit how little I had really achieved, how much I in reality had conformed to the pressure from the authorities.
It had in fact been a very long time since I even dared to think freely, somehow it felt like they could read minds too, like no sphere in your life was exempt from their influence and control. What felt like black, solid grief fell over me like a blanket, and I abruptly stopped talking. My mind reeled under the new insight that I wasn’t who I thought I was, that I was just as complicit and afraid as everybody else. Maybe I should have stayed and let myself be caught, maybe this flight was doomed from the start, would fail like I had failed at everything else, maybe it would have been easier just to give in, to give up, to be one of them…
”Stop it!” my new friend shouted so loud that I jumped.
”Stop what?” I asked.
”Stop wailing in guilt”, he said, ”you are not the failure they want you to think you are, you are just tired and scared, and that is perfectly normal. They love to tell you that you are wrong, that’s how they gain control in the first place, by manipulating peoples minds, twisting their words and brainwashing you into thinking that truth is a lie and that lies are true. Don’t listen to that!”
I knew he was right, it wasn’t new to me how they worked, but it was still a shock to hear, because he spoke about ”them” not as if they where people in some remote location but as if they where inside my head, more like demons than people. I got the distinct impression that he was talking about how ”they” had tried to manipulate me then and there, like my thoughts some minutes ago weren’t mine, but ”theirs” being planted in my brain as a distraction, a way to get me to make the wrong choice, to go their way instead of the right way, so to speak.
I looked at him, baffled and he seemed to understand what I was thinking.
”You are closer to the truth than you think”, he said, ”and you are starting to understand a little bit about what has been done to you, but try not to think about that now, it’s a bit to much for you at this stage. Right now you need to rest. I have a spare room that is always ready in case someone needs it. It is yours for today, go and get yourself some sleep and then we will talk some more.”
I had no objection to that, and went straight to sleep for almost twelve hours. When I woke up I felt refreshed and strenghtened in a way that I hadn´t done for a very long time. I went to the kitchen only to find it empty. A note on the table said:
”Out fishing. Get yourself something to eat, I’ll be back after lunch.”
