above the shoreline. There must have been hundreds of them, all crying, the sound rising and falling, louder than the thunder. For anyone listening, their cries were like panting, like a pulse, a fervour, filling the night.
The gulls went silent when the sun rose, and the rain was brief.
The corridor was so long that it seemed to end in a point of darkness. But the whole length of the corridor glowed with the greenish light that permeated the night outside and flowed in through the open doors.
She loved thunder, but this lovely storm was probably too quiet, it never really reached her.
What is it that cuts across the breathless, brief, and occasional periods of sleep as a very tired human being dies? It cannot be merely the tormented need for more air, for water, or because everything slows and chokes as it rushes towards dissolution, towards the implacable and utterly alien transformation of the body. The old woman was visited by images, events from the life she had lived or dreamed. Everyone was with her, maybe not only those who had loved her and lived with her but also those who had slipped away, the opportunities she’d lost. There is no way to know. We know nothing but try tofind explanations in a smile and a few words that come from far away, from another world, more real than reality.
Death can be a stopping, simply a going quiet. To listen to the sound of breathing for a long, long time, to laborious life fighting to continue, to life forced to continue and to run through tubes and catheters until suddenly none of them are needed and they can all be removed and hung up on their hooks and rolled away on rubber wheels. The one who dies is utterly clean, utterly silent, and then, from the grey mouth, from the altered face, comes a long cry. It is commonly called a rattle, but it is a cry, the exhausted body that has had enough of everything, enough of life and of waiting and enough of all these attempts to continue what is finished, enough of all the encouragement and the anxious fussing, all the loving awkwardness, all the determination not to show pain or frighten those you love. Death in all its variety has a million forms, but it can also be the death of a long and very weary life, a single cry, an articulation of finality, the way an illustrator completes his work with a vignette on the final page.
The thunderstorm gave the parched landscape only a quick shower.
The big rain came several days later. It started raining just before dawn, across the mainland and across the islands. Wells and water barrels filled, there was a rustling and roaring on every roof, and the rain went on and on. The soil was so dry that it was crisscrossed by cracks, and the moss came away from the granite faces in hard plates. Now all the earth, all the moss, all the roots filled withwater. The rain dashed down over the whole countryside in a blessed overabundance, and inside the houses people lay listening and thought, This is good, and then turned over and fell asleep.
Blasting
N ORDMAN’S BOY HAD SLOPING shoulders and large, nervous hands. His wrists were unnaturally slim. He rarely said anything – but then neither did Nordman. The trouble with the boy was that he couldn’t stop working his mouth – a small, uncontrollable mouth that he tried to hide behind his hand. His eyes were much too large – astonishing, huge, Byzantine eyes in an anxious face. He tried to hide them, too, but it wasn’t possible. Every time Nordman went off to do some blasting, the boy stood behind the alders and watched them load the boat. “Aren’t you going to take him along sometime?” Weckström asked, but Nordman thought the boy was too little.
Now, this autumn, they had a blasting job a long way out in the islands. It was windy, and the trips home could eat up a lot of time. What with one thing and another, Nordman decided to do the whole job at once and spend the nights in the coastguard hut on Sandskär. The job could take at least two
The gulls went silent when the sun rose, and the rain was brief.
The corridor was so long that it seemed to end in a point of darkness. But the whole length of the corridor glowed with the greenish light that permeated the night outside and flowed in through the open doors.
She loved thunder, but this lovely storm was probably too quiet, it never really reached her.
What is it that cuts across the breathless, brief, and occasional periods of sleep as a very tired human being dies? It cannot be merely the tormented need for more air, for water, or because everything slows and chokes as it rushes towards dissolution, towards the implacable and utterly alien transformation of the body. The old woman was visited by images, events from the life she had lived or dreamed. Everyone was with her, maybe not only those who had loved her and lived with her but also those who had slipped away, the opportunities she’d lost. There is no way to know. We know nothing but try tofind explanations in a smile and a few words that come from far away, from another world, more real than reality.
Death can be a stopping, simply a going quiet. To listen to the sound of breathing for a long, long time, to laborious life fighting to continue, to life forced to continue and to run through tubes and catheters until suddenly none of them are needed and they can all be removed and hung up on their hooks and rolled away on rubber wheels. The one who dies is utterly clean, utterly silent, and then, from the grey mouth, from the altered face, comes a long cry. It is commonly called a rattle, but it is a cry, the exhausted body that has had enough of everything, enough of life and of waiting and enough of all these attempts to continue what is finished, enough of all the encouragement and the anxious fussing, all the loving awkwardness, all the determination not to show pain or frighten those you love. Death in all its variety has a million forms, but it can also be the death of a long and very weary life, a single cry, an articulation of finality, the way an illustrator completes his work with a vignette on the final page.
The thunderstorm gave the parched landscape only a quick shower.
The big rain came several days later. It started raining just before dawn, across the mainland and across the islands. Wells and water barrels filled, there was a rustling and roaring on every roof, and the rain went on and on. The soil was so dry that it was crisscrossed by cracks, and the moss came away from the granite faces in hard plates. Now all the earth, all the moss, all the roots filled withwater. The rain dashed down over the whole countryside in a blessed overabundance, and inside the houses people lay listening and thought, This is good, and then turned over and fell asleep.
Blasting
N ORDMAN’S BOY HAD SLOPING shoulders and large, nervous hands. His wrists were unnaturally slim. He rarely said anything – but then neither did Nordman. The trouble with the boy was that he couldn’t stop working his mouth – a small, uncontrollable mouth that he tried to hide behind his hand. His eyes were much too large – astonishing, huge, Byzantine eyes in an anxious face. He tried to hide them, too, but it wasn’t possible. Every time Nordman went off to do some blasting, the boy stood behind the alders and watched them load the boat. “Aren’t you going to take him along sometime?” Weckström asked, but Nordman thought the boy was too little.
Now, this autumn, they had a blasting job a long way out in the islands. It was windy, and the trips home could eat up a lot of time. What with one thing and another, Nordman decided to do the whole job at once and spend the nights in the coastguard hut on Sandskär. The job could take at least two
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