Standing Firm

Nedanstående innehåll är skapat av Mimers Brunns besökare. Kommentera arbete

Detective superintendent Chew left his home early that morning. His boss had called him and woken him up. A young boy had been murdered, and Chew was assigned to the case. He got dressed and went to his kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread and a soda pop. He went outside to his car. Before he jumped in, he stood and looked up to the sky. Like fluffy wads, clouds were dancing around the blue ceiling. The sun peeped out behind the white covering, and he felt a stream of light touch his face. He thought of it as hope. The belief in a brighter future filled him. Even though terrible things happen, there is always hope. That is why I manage my work, he thought. Because there is always hope. He shot a last glance at the sky, stepped into his car and drove away. While driving to the crime scene he recalled the conversation with his boss, and the story of how the body was found.

An old lady had called the emergency service centre at 6 am the same morning, the 9th of May. During her morning walk she found a dead body in the wood close to her home. At first, she thought it was something else – maybe an emptied sack of garbage – but as she stepped closer, her eyes filled with dread. She felt weak in her knees, and tried desperately to pick up her cell phone from the handbag. When she called the emergency service centre, she couldn’t speak. At first, she couldn’t make a sound, and when she could – it didn’t sound like anything understandable. She was calmed down by the telephonist, and in a shrill, sobbing voice, she managed to give the police her location, and simply, almost despondently, she asked them to send a police patrol at once. They had asked if she could wait by the dead body until the police arrived. She had told them she could not. She had said that she could stand at the edge of the forest and, when the police came, show them the exact location. She had said very firmly that she could not wait alone with the corpse in the forest, because what she had seen was “absolutely unusually appalling”.

Absolutely unusually appalling.

Chew had been working in the criminal division for more than twenty years. He thought he was prepared for the worst. He had seen dead bodies, killed in the cruellest ways. But when the constable led him into the forest and to the dead corpse, he could not believe his eyes. The sight of the boy lying in front of him, made him feel sick. Chew saw long black hair wriggle out from what had to be the boy’s head. He looked at the rest of a face, smashed into the bone. Nothing was longer in its proper place. Where the mouth was supposed to be, he could only see a deep, gaping, red black hole. The nose lay flat against the cheek. The face was so mushy that he could not find the eyes amongst all the red flesh. Chew moved his eyes and saw two hands. A wallet. A huge pool of blood. Most of the blood had been sucked up by either the boy’s clothes or the grass. The rest had coagulated. He noticed some parts of the blue jeans the boy wore, which were still clean. He looked at the middle of the body, where a belt was supposed to be – if he wore any. Near the boy’s waist he saw a bit of a shining, black belt. Where the belt was supposed to be fastened, he spotted another silvery piece of metal, shaped as a skull. With evil eyes it glanced back at him.

The detective superintendent thought that the boy seemed to have looked like any regular teenager; slim body, not very muscular, dressed like anybody his age. He could be anyone. The murderer as well, could be anyone; it could be one, two or even three people. However, it did not explain the question he asked himself mostly: Why did this boy have to lose his life in such an apparently appalling fashion? Chew had another quarter of an hour before the forensic team would arrive. He went down on his knees and put on a pair of plastic gloves. He searched carefully and systematically through the boy’s pockets for possible clues. In the right pocket he found a cell phone. It was still on. He unlocked the keypad and read on the display.

7 missed calls. He pushed the “no button”. Then the display said something else: 1 message received.

Chew sighed. With the cell phone in his right hand he looked around. He saw the high trees, surrounding the spot where someone had died, as if he had been slaughtered.


*


The conductor handed over the railway ticket. The boy glanced at it. It said “Approved”, with deep blue letters across the time stamp; 10:22 May 08 2006. The boy turned round and stared out through the window. He was on the train on his way to school. Sparse woods and grey industries past by outside. He sat on a green grey foam rubber-filled seat. As usual. Just as any typical day. Except for that it was not. All because of what happened that morning. If he had not complained. If he had not quarrelled. He sighed deeply.

If they had not quarrelled. It was not only his fault. She had also brawled. The boy took out his wallet from his pocket. He dug out a tiny photography, a little bit smaller than a credit card. It showed a smiling, blonde girl. She had long, curly hair and deep, light green eyes. She looked very pretty. A typical girl who elder women would call sweet, and pinch in the cheek. He turned the picture and read the text on the back silently.

I wrote your name on a stone,
but the water took it.
I wrote your name in the sand,
but the wind took it.
I wrote your name on a tree,
but the fire took it.
I wrote your name in my heart,
and it will always be there.
Alice

He sighed again. He averted his eyes from the picture and peered out of the window. After a while he closed his eyes, and the scenes from the morning played like a movie on the inside of his eyelids.


*


“I do not know what you should do. I cannot help you,” Alice said. “And please talk about something else. You mention that every time I see you nowadays.”
“So what? Should I just let it be? Let him destroy me mentally?” Joe asked in a loud voice.
“Is it really so bad – so bad that he destroys you, mentally?”
“Do you have to be like an echo? It really annoys me,” he said huffily.
“I will not. If you stop shouting.”
“Why do you care if I shout? There are more important things.”
“Yes, I know. You for example,” she said simply. “But if you have not noticed it yet, I am on your side. You do not need to be angry with me.”
“No, I have not noticed that.”
“God, Joe. What is wrong with you?” she asked irritably. “You came here yesterday, a bit depressed, but I did not want you to be depressed. I wanted you to be happy. I tried to cheer you up, and I thought I succeeded. But now it seems as if you forgot the past twenty-four hours since you are going on all over again about your problem with Chris mocking you.”

The two of them stood in her entrance hall. They were just about to bid farewell after spending the last day of the weekend together. But before Joe left, he started to complain of his problem in school about Chris bullying him.

“Well, I do not exactly get any support from you,” he said snootily.
“How can you say that?” she screamed. “I am not the enemy. I am not. He is. You should be angry with him. Do not fight with me. Fight with him.”
“So you suggest that I should fight with him?”
“Yes. And not with me.” She struggled to regain control, but she could not. She was both angry and enraged. “Seriously, it is just stupid to let him win,” she cried. “Stop being such an idiot, and stand firm instead of running to me and complain every time he is mean to you.”
“Hah. Stand firm? Really? And do you think I am a burden who runs to you when I have problems? Someone who is just in the way? Well I can stop coming here if you like. In fact, I can leave at once.”

She was too agitated to think of what she did. Without hesitation she said:
“Then leave.”

Sooner than she could say another word he ran out of her house and slammed the door behind him.


*


Joe’s school day started with history, but he did not like it very much. The only thing they did was listening to the teacher, who held long and boring lectures. Joe usually sat in the far back of the classroom, writing nonsense on a sheet of paper from his notepad.

Before the lesson began, the teacher said:
“Please turn off your cell phones and other devices that might interrupt our lesson.”

Joe picked up his cell phone and put it in the mute mode. The teacher began the lesson. He spoke about the Enlightenment. But Joe did not pay attention. He was taking notes of a different kind. He wrote what he should tell Alice when they spoke next time. Some minutes later he was done. He was satisfied with the result; a little manuscript of possible phrases to open, continue and end a conversation with. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.


*


When Alice had lunch, she started to regret her earlier behaviour. While she helped herself with some boiled fish and mashed potatoes, she thought about calling Joe. She felt repentant for what she had shouted to him. What she regretted most was that she had told him to stand firm. She thought it was really dumb of her. She decided to call him and tell him that she was sorry, and perhaps suggest that they could see each other the following day.

Alice called Joe when she had finished her meal. But he did not answer. Of course, he has it muted, she thought. He must have a lesson or something. In the hope of being wrong, she called him a few more times, just to make sure. When he did not pick up the phone, she determined to write a SMS-message instead.

Hi sweetheart. I tried to call you, as you may have noticed. I just wanted to apologize for what I said. You know, about standing firm and such. It was really stupid of me. Can we meet tomorrow? Watch a movie or something. So we can talk. I love you.
Kiss, Alice


*


After the history lesson ended, Joe had his lunch break. Then he had mathematics and geography. Geography was his last lesson for the day, and after discussing the possibility of the greenhouse effect, he left school to go home. When he left the school area on the way to the railway station, he realized that he was late. He crossed a little wooded area, in order to make a short cut. But when he was halfway through the wood, he met Chris, who strode straight in his direction.

“Look who is here,” Chris said when he caught sight of Joe. “It is my little friend Joe, is it not?”

Joe tried to avoid him by marching rapidly diagonally to the right. But Chris ran after and caught him. Chris threw Joe to the ground. Joe landed on his stomach. Chris jumped down on him, and took Joe in a tight grip around his throat. He started emptying Joe’s pockets. But after searching through his left pocket, Chris stopped. He had found something interesting. Not Joe’s wallet, he had already taken the money inside and thrown the wallet to the ground. What he had found, and held up in the air with triumph, was a folded piece of paper, which his fingers swiftly had unfolded. He looked at the sentences as though it was in a foreign language, then he roared with laughter, as if the world’s funniest joke was written on the paper.

“Seriously Joe,” he said, still chuckling, still holding a tight grip around Joe’s throat. “Who is this for?” He read aloud. “‘My dear precious. I am sorry for what happened today.’”

When Joe did not reply Chris asked:
“Is this… for a girl? Oh no, sorry, it cannot be for a girl. It has to be for a boy. I mean, a guy like you can neither have a girl friend, nor a friend who is a girl.”

Chris faked a high laugh, which echoed through the high standing trees around them. Then he continued to read.

“’I will not let him fuck with me anymore. What you said was right. I need to stand firm.’ Oh, is this meant for me?”

He smiled scornfully.

“Well, Joe. Stand firm. What should you do now? Kill me?” he asked ironically.

Joe felt the arm around his throat. But he also felt something else. He felt a gigantic rage growing inside him. Adrenaline mixed revengefulness pumped in his veins. With all the power that he could muster he struggled loose from Chris’s grip. He was on feet quick enough to unleash a kick in Chris’s chest. At...