straight at me, and when I screamed that I didnât want to go to the front, Kostiâs father appeared and said that I must behave myself, that I had no choice. I had to go to the front and the plane that would take me there was about to take off.
I woke up before boarding the plane. My anxiety was like a spear thrust through me and I was soaked in sweat. When Iâd gotten out of bed and had my first cup of coffee, I knew that I had to get myself to Mervas. Not because it was âthe frontâ or to escape âthe frontâ â I wasnât yet in any shape to analyze the dream. It was more of an insight that had come to me, a voice that the night had stripped bare, and this voice knew. I had to go to Mervas. Iâve known it the entire time; thatâs how it has to be, thatâs what has to happen.
December 31
We actually parted as enemies, Kosti and I. Thereâs no other way to describe it. Perhaps love creates in us an obsession of wanting to be loved completely and entirely, into every part of us, every corner of our being. But when I became increasingly determined to drag Kosti into my darkest, worst stinking nooks and crannies, he turned away from me. He immediately became hard and impenetrable. I had crossed a boundary and his otherwise mild demeanor changed, and he became dry and barren and harsh. A stony desert. And he forced me out of his life; there was never a way back. His very words pushed me away. He didnât have to raise his voice, didnât even have to scream. The harsh and dry way he spoke to me was enough. He drove me away from him with those words, out of the apartment, the little dorm room we had shared. That was all it took. I was already crushed.
I slept in my car that night, and the following day I moved to my sisterâs. I didnât dare return to him; I was afraid to hear that voice. To see the lack of love in his eyes. I couldnât take it, not from him, from Kosti, who had seen me, received me, and renamed me. I was also afraid of being held accountable, of being reminded of the person I didnât want to be, the one I wasnât. To meet myself in meeting him.
We argued that night. It was worse than that; it turned into a scene. But before we started arguing weâd had a really nice dinner together. It was actually our celebration dinner, the last in the apartment. In a few days we were going to the Orkney Islands and before that we had to pack, move out, store our things. This was the last peaceful night at home before the big moving and traveling chaos would begin.
After dinner, we were sipping the last of the wine and fantasizing about the upcoming year weâd spend on Sanday, an island northeast of the Orkney Islands. We talked about the ocean and about the fall and winter storms, about the uninhabited skerries and the megalith burial sites we would study. Everything seemed so incredibly exciting. We hardly dared believe that we would be there in a few days and then stay there an entire year. We were both hopelessly romantic. We described images to each other of how the raging storms in a kind of violent act of love ravaged the flat, rocky islands with their sparse vegetation. Roaring, the storms would press and wail against the tiny houses, which mostly resembled orderly stone cairns. We described how the wind held the island landscape in its grasp out there, how it scraped and tore at the yellowing grass. The salt would penetrate the cracks in the small cottages, become mortar in the stone walls, and glisten like crystals in the curly wool of the sheep. We could see ourselves there, walking close together through the storm, struggling to stay upright and screaming to each other to be heard over the din from the sea. Finally, weâd have to throw ourselves down on our stomachs and lie there, pressed to the ground, with our lungs completely filled with air while the hard wind kept moving through grass and twigs.
Both of us started
I woke up before boarding the plane. My anxiety was like a spear thrust through me and I was soaked in sweat. When Iâd gotten out of bed and had my first cup of coffee, I knew that I had to get myself to Mervas. Not because it was âthe frontâ or to escape âthe frontâ â I wasnât yet in any shape to analyze the dream. It was more of an insight that had come to me, a voice that the night had stripped bare, and this voice knew. I had to go to Mervas. Iâve known it the entire time; thatâs how it has to be, thatâs what has to happen.
December 31
We actually parted as enemies, Kosti and I. Thereâs no other way to describe it. Perhaps love creates in us an obsession of wanting to be loved completely and entirely, into every part of us, every corner of our being. But when I became increasingly determined to drag Kosti into my darkest, worst stinking nooks and crannies, he turned away from me. He immediately became hard and impenetrable. I had crossed a boundary and his otherwise mild demeanor changed, and he became dry and barren and harsh. A stony desert. And he forced me out of his life; there was never a way back. His very words pushed me away. He didnât have to raise his voice, didnât even have to scream. The harsh and dry way he spoke to me was enough. He drove me away from him with those words, out of the apartment, the little dorm room we had shared. That was all it took. I was already crushed.
I slept in my car that night, and the following day I moved to my sisterâs. I didnât dare return to him; I was afraid to hear that voice. To see the lack of love in his eyes. I couldnât take it, not from him, from Kosti, who had seen me, received me, and renamed me. I was also afraid of being held accountable, of being reminded of the person I didnât want to be, the one I wasnât. To meet myself in meeting him.
We argued that night. It was worse than that; it turned into a scene. But before we started arguing weâd had a really nice dinner together. It was actually our celebration dinner, the last in the apartment. In a few days we were going to the Orkney Islands and before that we had to pack, move out, store our things. This was the last peaceful night at home before the big moving and traveling chaos would begin.
After dinner, we were sipping the last of the wine and fantasizing about the upcoming year weâd spend on Sanday, an island northeast of the Orkney Islands. We talked about the ocean and about the fall and winter storms, about the uninhabited skerries and the megalith burial sites we would study. Everything seemed so incredibly exciting. We hardly dared believe that we would be there in a few days and then stay there an entire year. We were both hopelessly romantic. We described images to each other of how the raging storms in a kind of violent act of love ravaged the flat, rocky islands with their sparse vegetation. Roaring, the storms would press and wail against the tiny houses, which mostly resembled orderly stone cairns. We described how the wind held the island landscape in its grasp out there, how it scraped and tore at the yellowing grass. The salt would penetrate the cracks in the small cottages, become mortar in the stone walls, and glisten like crystals in the curly wool of the sheep. We could see ourselves there, walking close together through the storm, struggling to stay upright and screaming to each other to be heard over the din from the sea. Finally, weâd have to throw ourselves down on our stomachs and lie there, pressed to the ground, with our lungs completely filled with air while the hard wind kept moving through grass and twigs.
Both of us started
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