The Garden of Light and Darkness - Part 8

Let me tell you a secret. I am inclined toward madness. But just as reason has locked chambers and as many faces as there are boring men, there are many kinds of madness. My senses have begun to shift. Sounds emerge sharper, filled with a growing harmonic chorus. Darkness advances to envelop me, caress me. That's why I've now staggered diagonally toward the part of the garden covered in vegetation. Strange—I'm not that drunk. It's in these moments that I am visited by gods. I sense them in the breeze. See their outlines where there is movement. The only certainty is that I don't know who I am, what this place is. What anything is or will become. I am lost in the many paths, wherever a cosmic wind may lead. Spreading myself across choices. Disappearing into alternatives. Finding myself in new places, with new faces. Once more, I take up arms in a fateful battle by a boundary stone in Wallachia. I've been here before. The riders are dragging me away, hauled behind a lasso. Hold nothing back—redemption lies in a lightning sphere. On foot, I catch up to them, the Spanish rapier raised for a final thrust.

The explosion comes from above in the form of a swirling cloud of leaves. Before my eyes, one of the fairies drops head-first and dangles there with a smile.

"HEEEY!"

"Hey."

She is blue. Blue as a bright night, clad in starlight. In vague unease, I watch the star trails shift across her slowly swaying wings. Upon her head rests a sapphire deeper than the sea.

The blue fairy raises her hands toward me. Our palms meet as they must. I bend down, she rises up, and lilac-painted lips touch mine in a lingering kiss. Giggling, the fairy hoists herself up and vanishes somewhere among the branches. My unsteady journey continues.

It must be by chance that I step into the empty communal area, the place where we took our meals like in the Gaulish village of Asterix and Obelix. Now the tables are occupied by ghosts, and retro bulbs hanging from twine create their own glowing color zones. I pass through blue, purple, yellow, and red—and stop. At the border where the colors clash, I lift my gaze. The paper fairies in the branches are bathed in an icy blue hue, their drawn-on smiley faces twisted to reveal the razor-sharp teeth rows of grinning sharks, raw mockery, or no smiles at all. They don't frighten me. I'm accustomed to evil's chill and the grotesque—how the world appears when you haven't received enough love. But just as the brave cannot fight beyond their strength, neither can the wise reverse omens or write backward. The antler-crowned male figure, cut from a single sheet of paper, is trapped in a flickering orange glow. My feet are sucked into the ground.

It looks as though he stands in a blaze of light. The stag figure raises his palms in greeting—and burns.

What I overhear from the ladies would unsettle even the steadiest soul. It's Iselin delivering the conclusion to some story I'd rather not know the details of.

"So I told him: The more you resist, the hornier Mom gets in the cunt!"

I've never seen anything like it, but the women are fighting hard not to slide right off their fur-covered cushions. The nearly empty dragon-adorned glasses slosh over, they're shaking so hard with laughter. Merriment has taken its seat here in this garden. Finally, the waves of laughter subside slightly, tears are wiped away, and they look expectantly at one another, ready for the next story... or an event here and now, where I could very easily become a victim.

Randgrid finally spots me.

"Ah! There you are! You're meant to be our cupbearer and jester."

"You seem to be managing just fine without me."

"For now. Have you been flirting with my girls?"

"No. Yes. Perhaps..."

"Be careful with them. They've just discovered their feminine power and won't hesitate to wield it against a blonde little whippersnapper like you."

She could have given that warning sooner. Eagerly, I crawl over to the mead bowl and refill my depleted Thor's cup. Leaning back contentedly, I bring the silver vessel to my lips.

"The bowl needs refilling."

"What are you talking about? It's still half full."

Truth be told, I'm shocked by how much we've already put away. With half gone, we've drunk 3.5 liters just between the three of us.

"Where I come from, we don't drink from half-empty bowls. Fill it."

My eyes close in irritation. That I can't even drink in peace from any of them.

"Do you truly come from somewhere so distant from me?"

"Yes, imagine that. North is not south."

"How much remains?" my mother asks.

I search my formidable long-term memory. What I've seen, I can often recall.

"Five mead bottles and two bottles of sparkling wine," I reply.

"Then fetch two of each, and we'll top up with pure honey should the night grow long—as it's shaping to be."

By Odin! This is madness! Do they truly intend to down ten liters of alcohol? Not even the Einherjar carry on thus. Then it's best I assist them. I could swallow a river of fine drink, such is the great sorrow in my body. Light Elf at your service! Light Elf will drink you out of house and home!

Randgrid activates the unseen mechanism on her back again. Instantly, the apparatus rises from where she sits and unfolds. The surface is smooth and translucent, and the wings vibrate like those of a dragonfly, so rapidly that they blur. A dangerous whoosh comes from the wingspan—partly mechanical, partly the rush of air. For a moment, I almost expect her to take flight.

"Do as I say, or I'll slap you with my wings!"

What was it the Greeks said? Willing obedience beats forced obedience—but with her, it's obedience either way, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, why is that, really...? So I grumble irritably and slowly find my footing.

"Then I suppose I'd best be on my way. Before your wings beat me stone dead."

It is precisely then, in that moment, that I have the strangest experience of my entire life. Randgrid swiftly turns her face directly toward me, and in it lies a total absence of irony. Humor is what elevates man above even the gods, and she... has ceased to appear human.

“YAH!” she says, and the shock of it opens an abyss. Frozen in a single frame of time, she appears as a gigantic, irrational butterfly—proboscis and antennae included—embodying everything female, long before any women existed, and a violent revulsion fills me. A terror so great that I recoil and feel like screaming. The feeling of unease transcends species or biological taxonomy. All creatures feel it. It is the struggle … against being eaten. She has dragged me back to primordial times. This is woman in her most elemental form, and what she originally did … and still does, only in a more sublimated way. When I regain my senses, I am no longer standing there, stunned before a strange and incomprehensible creature, but already hurrying to obey her command. Obey … or be eaten. The bees know it. The larvae know it. Everything that crawls, creeps, and flies in a garden.

I must forget. Erase it. Push it as far away as possible. It is a primal fear I cannot confront. Not now, not when I am preoccupied with everything else. The attempt would leave me bedridden for a month. My hands shake uncontrollably as I try to find the bottles in the liquor cabinet that has swung open.

Oh? What is this I see? I catch sight of nothing but the backside and wings of the fairy dressed in green. The rest of her body is inside one of the cupboards here in the living room. The rush coursing through me subsides, and for the time being, I set the bottles down on the bar shelf. The little lady is on her way out, blissfully unaware of any danger, when I grab her by the neck, drawing a startled scream from her.

"And what exactly are you up to?" I snarl.

“I didn't do anything! Absolutely nothing!” she gasps in response.

My movements become calm. That's how I am when anger takes hold. Inside the cupboard is a glorious mess of knickknacks, women's things, and assorted objects, along with some papers.

"I'm not from this place," I say. "Where I come from, we do this." I take her hand and grasp each finger in turn. "It would be a shame if those little hands of yours couldn't touch anything that doesn't concern you, with every finger broken!"

"She... she told me to do it! It was to gather information!"

"Who? What business do you have with Iselin?"

"You know who. We know everything about Iselin. We're trying to find information about you!"

This leaves me perplexed enough to stop and think, and she takes the opportunity to push me away and run off.

Deliver me from these spies! They're everywhere these days. If not on the internet, then here. This is at least a more organic process and might lead to something other than harassment, arrest, and forced institutionalization. How much have they already discovered, and what will they use it for? At the fringes of my thoughts, I can make out the outline of that colossal, irrational butterfly. Everyone here has wings.

Back with the ladies, I let the contents of the bottles glug into the bowl under their watchful eyes, and the alcohol level rises almost to where it was before. The bubbles build into a frothing storm like the one at the beginning, rather than merely fizzing up now and then.

Randgrid comes right up beside me. Does she know what I experienced? No, that's impossible. It is a feeling that cannot be described and cannot be translated, least of all from one human being to another, or across the distance between the sexes. And yet she fishes out a piece of cucumber and slips it halfway into her mouth, chewing slowly.

"Fetch another cucumber."

Her gaze is empty.

I find it best to take refuge in a persona, so I thump my chest and bow deeply.

"Of course, fairy godmother and wise weaver of fate's unfathomable decrees."

Once again, I'm on my way, taking the empty containers with me, a consequence of my latent instinct for order. Striding this time, not fleeing in fear. A quick glance at the living room confirms that no one is there right now and that the cupboard has been tidied. They know how to cover their tracks. Inside the fridge, I find the last cucumber bastard. If I were in the now-defunct Taliban, someone would get it shoved up a certain place. I just don't know whether the redhead should get it up her cunt or up her ass. Heh heh... which would be more satisfying? Damned if I know. In a drawer, I find a cheese slicer. Quick! Quick! The company is waiting. The ones I'm supposed to entertain.

Returning to the bowl, I kneel. Both women smile at me. Fireflies and messengers everywhere. They flit and dart through the night, wandering over twigs and blades of grass in a circle around the mead. There, they take turns swarming until their tiny wings grow weary and they must fall again, and where they hold their congregations and congresses, they let their sparkling tails be known. Flashing little glimpses that open a slit to another world where I can sense a great light. That's all my dreams are. The only thing I want, for I hope the glow from chaos will lead me there. And my antennae-clad brothers have given it to me, carrying lanterns for us all.

It's not natural. It can't be. True, we live outside the city, and beyond the city's suburbs, but this is still a fairly built-up area, with a sterile forest and extensive stretches of asphalt. Likely, wetlands, puddles, and ponds are necessary for such insects to thrive, and there are none of those here. Water, disorder, and irrationality are what a forest truly needs in order to live, not just mankind.

"These gods of yours—you must have prayed to them," says Iselin.

"Our prayer is shared," I reply.

"Then let it be so," she says.

"Honor." We turn toward Randgrid. "They do honor to the coming fey-master."

For a long while, I sit there, awed, observing the celestial play unfolding here on earth. And in respect and gratitude, I let my head sink until my forehead touches the paving, where growth from an ever-returning nature pushes through the gaps. The fireflies' flashes are momentary and thus eternal. Having seen them, my life can never be extinguished. I can always return. The universe's opening moment shall lead me there.

Our many fairies gather around the bowl forbidden to them. Even very young eyes, captivated by their own reflection, cannot help but wonder. It is a rich night, and mankind's artificial light now joins the insects', with neither party shying away. The hologenerator on our hacked net gives each fairy her personal mark. Starlight here, rainbow garb there, glimmers and glows and sparkling silver rain. Iselin clothes herself in the snow-bright peaks of lofty mountains. Randgrid dons a churning galaxy of color, and I—what do I do? The orange stripe across my eye grants me choices. Sol invictus—To the new god. Light-elf tongue—The Earth’s light. The Sun Emperor’s tears. No, too much, now in the middle of the night. I don't want to scare the insects away.

My mother has noticed my hesitation.

"Among the Norse, the moon was a masculine force. That fits well here, you who are to become a fey-master."

I accept others' thoughts as long as they are good. Distrust and obstinacy were never my afflictions, so I let my gaze wander down the menu until I find Moonlight. Immediately, a cool presence surges into a muted glow around me, gentle and understanding, perhaps without nourishment for the outer, but life-giving to the inner. The words come of their own accord, though they are not mine. Another speaks through me from some ore-laden place. The wondering gazes of the girls now turn in my direction.

The bees gather honey

all the livelong day

For me, dew is my riches

Crane flies my guides

Pathfinders

Dripping, oil-matte

Over landscapes that always

come into being

Because they are hidden

Ah, the moon's matte light!

Always I reach toward the moon

This magical orb with

invisible ball lightning

Which I embrace, stroking lovingly

Wind myself gently around

Then lay against my cheek

It possesses such a cool light

In the most wondrous way

My desire grows in matte hues

I must have become someone else, because now I look directly at the girls when I speak of desire. I would have every one of them if I could, without a moment’s hesitation.

The sun I have never seen

It's the moon, only the moon

Approaching everything

as a reflection

My crown's mysterious spire

is cold

Cold, yes, and Odin’s frost-bound milk. The ice-cold certainty that fills the body with warmth… By casting aside the notion of man as a solar force, as concocted by desert-dwellers and the peoples of the Mediterranean, I have grown stronger. My path northward has been struck into shape with a bludgeon. There is no end to my coldness and calculation, and everyone here knows it. Now it dawns on me, suddenly and without warning: They all fear me here. That is why they wield their many weapons so freely and so casually, in womanly fashion—a little here, a little there, erratic and uncontrolled. Is it truly they… who hold the power? We shall see.

As if answering my assumptions, Randgrid raises her wand and lowers it toward the bowl. I take the hint and crawl over with the cucumber I brought—the one I won’t get the chance to rape Berit, the little spy, with. The cheese slicer is put to work, peeling off slice after slice. It goes a bit too fast, and when only a small stump remains, I cut myself so that a drop of blood spurts up into the communal drinking vessel.

"OW! In the blackest, most nigger-fucked hell!"

"Virgin blood in the pool. I like that," says Randgrid.

Immediately the cry is taken up.

"He's a virgin! He's a virgin!" sings one of the fairies. The youngest and most innocent-looking, clad in soft pink hues like the northern lights at their most intense. Everything happens in the same instant then. All girlish gazes turn my way. Twenty-four eyes scrutinizing. And they see me involuntarily raising my hand to my forehead. It's enough. They've seen my uncertainty, and the laughter rolls.

"Perhaps we should call him Virgin-Øyvind," says Line. The girls' laughter becomes unrestrained.

"ENOUGH!"

Randgrid rises and stamps her foot. All the girls let out frightened shrieks and dart away in every direction. Scattered to the winds now, but they'll likely return soon. In the meantime, we can drink, and drink heavily. My cheeks remain flushed, and I must glance at Randgrid. Has she defended me? At first she only defended the girls. Have I, in my sincere vulnerability, become one of them? I now know the role she's intended for me, for thus I've been named: Fey-master.

"Full moon tonight," says Iselin, gazing at the clouds that will soon release a mighty brother.

I blink and recall a thought.

"Did you know the moon is constantly moving away from Earth, and was far larger in antiquity? This means humans will weaken in depth and creativity. My lack of poetic ability is symptomatic. It's the degradation of Suttung's mead, which is only ever diminishing."

"But not tonight," says Randgrid. "Tonight the moon is big and round, and you shall feel its power."

The glasses keep coming.

"Tell me a funny story," says Randgrid.

"Once I was a prison guard, and I locked myself out of my own prison. The inmates had to let me back in."

"Is that so."

"Once I was a nurse. I was supposed to lubricate an old woman's vagina, but I rubbed toothpaste into it instead."

"You did that."

"Once I smiled at a beautiful woman in a hallway. She grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me the other way.”

"I see."

"Once I made love to my beloved for the first time. She said: It can't get worse than this."

Randgrid falls silent.

"That's an awful lot of nonsense you're spouting," says Iselin.

Randgrid rises and touches my sorrowful, bowed head with her wand.

"All this has happened as part of the weave I spun for you. But due to your great helplessness, a god looked upon you with pity and granted a freedom few others receive. There were wounds..."

"But no healing."

"...and there are gifts."

"These are only two, and all great things come in threes."

" The weave is not yet fully spun," says Randgrid. She retrieves her lowered wand, turns, and reseats herself.

"That's an awful lot of nonsense you're both spouting," says Iselin.

I lose myself in my thoughts and my glass.

Randgrid and Iselin begin reminiscing about the time they tricked a man into masturbating his penis off. In the distance, I see Kajsa again, sitting alone on the ivy-covered swing. This time I won't be deterred. The women are occupied and don't need me. They don't even notice me rising and leaving. The moon theme concludes with a voice command. Now I wish to be invisible.