The Meaning of Life

It was a kind of penguin that laid two eggs every year but only raised one of their kids. The siblings raced to their parents, the winner lived the loser died. There was this particular penguin who was in the lead but stumbled and fell just before the goal. I'll never forget the look on its face when it stood there, defeated, watching his parents walk away with his sibling. He knew he was dead. He'd been so close to making it, but now he was dead.

I cried for the penguin, I cried for me, I cried for people imprisoned, tortured, raped, dying, sick, hungry. But again; mostly I cried for the fucking penguin. Or maybe me.

Then, I pigged out on chocolate!

16 - STELLABELLA TWO ON STELLABELLA ONE

Estelle and I have been friends for as long I can remember, if I forget about those dull years before she moved here. Our names were much the same and we both were prone to talk back to teachers and get in trouble. We were Stellabella one and two, like those bananas. She was number one, no contest, and I followed her around faithfully.

The boys all were in love with her, since she was a blond bombshell even at ten. Since then she has grown steadily blonder and bombshellier, and at twenty-five she's the bombshelliest blonde imaginable. She does the smart and tasteful vulgo thing, a bit like I do the EMO enjoying life thing. She was mighty pissed when the crown-princess named her first-born after her, she wanted no royal connotations. The royal family could possibly be considered vulgar, but certainly not vulgo.

She was smart, too, like me. Unlike me she had chosen her career with a great sense of strategy and was doing something unimaginably boring and well-paid in a bank. My mother often told me to be like her, and in many ways I was, except not in the ways that she valued.

One way in which we were alike was that we both liked to look good when partying. We were getting ready for a wild, or at least wildish, night out and Stella was looking better than ever.

"You will break hearts tonight, honey," I told her.

"Or at least balls. It's weird, I tell each and every one who wants to dance, talk or buy me a drink that I only accept if it is fine with him that we will not have sex, but a lot of them still get pissed when they don't get any."

"Some seem to think the only reason to look good is you're desperate to get laid. Some truth in that tonight as far as I'm concerned, though. That ole itch is really itchy tonight." It was, and I must admit that Peter played a part in that. I'd been rehearsing with the band, (currently called Captain Crud), for a few weeks now, and he was really getting to me. I usually didn't go for sweet, but maybe that was what I really needed. I wasn't all that sure that sweet guys were available at the clubs we went to, but then I had never looked for that particular trait before, so who knows?

17 - CHOPPING WOOD

We made quite an entrance and attracted a lot of attention, Stella with her blond Marilyn-but-taller self-confidence and me with my tough-but-cute redheadedness. Pierced and inked a bit, but tastefully. At least I think so.

You always get a lot of assholes first; the predators and the self-satisfied pricks who feel they have the first choice. We have developed techniques to cut the obvious fuckheads off. I made a small poem about some of the standard types which I will now share with you:

At home I have a shapeless hag

Who would rather nag than shag

Pity me you sweet young thing

And fuck me in spite of my wedding-ring

Don't you mind that salesman twat

Look, all muscle, there's no fat

Come with me, we'll have a ball

Here, have this drink with Rohypnol

Then appeared a hipster horde

All their talking made me bored

Since every one of them claim

To be unique but are the same

That far into my rhyming, while not listening to a bearded someone droning on about a band I actually liked and didn't want to be lectured and bored about, I met the eyes of a dark haired, tall and gorgeous guy sitting by himself in a corner. He looked manly but sweet and he looked at me with an amused smile that told me he had observed me and my would-be predators. He smiled a smidgen wider, cast a look at the empty seat next to him and raised an eyebrow in enquiry. Perfect. Him or no one, tonight.

18 - GOTTA TALK THAT TALK

Stella had met some old class-mates from her economics whatever and was crazydancing with them. Good, I could concentrate on Mr. Eyebrow. His name was Paolo and his eyes were dark and warm. He was not noticeably drunk and he was a listener. I've never before or after met anyone who listened the way he did, like every word I spoke was valuable and he must not drop a single one since they might break.

Believe you me – listening is a rare quality in a man, and goddamn attractive. Tip to you out there who want to pull a girl; listen at least as much as you talk. Guys trying to impress by telling us how great they are seldom are very impressive.

Paolo sometimes mumbled a phrase I had said, tasting it like he was tasting a fine wine or me. Sexy. Really sexy. After a while I began to ask him things and found out he was Italian and had only been in Sweden about a month.

"But," I said, "You're almost fluent in Swedish. How?"

"It's what I do," he said, "language is what I do. Language is what I love. I go somewhere and I submerge myself in the language, anoint myself with it. Now I want to saturate myself in Swedish, hear it, speak it, think it, breathe it, learn its little quirks and how to live with it and in it."

"And now my sweet one; talk to me. Tell me about what in your life and in your memory was the most Swedish. What is Sweden to you?"

"The Swedishest part of my life...I guess that would be my childhood summers. We spent them in our summer house in the Stockholm Archipelago, by the sea, on an island – my grandmother was born there, on the island, the house was her inheritance. We swam a lot. The water of the Baltic Sea is brackish, the least salty of all seas. We rowed, fished for pike and perch and herring; there were both fresh- and saltwater-fish. We picked blueberries in the forest and got all purple, lips and hands. We ate them straight away most of the time, but sometimes we had pancakes with fresh blueberry jam. Late summer and fall we picked mushrooms. I loved chopping wood. We kids slept in the attic, which was so low you could barely crawl."

"Thank you Isabelle. Dance?" He danced almost as well as he listened. Still attentive, still focused on me. There was quite a bit of physical contact. I liked it, and so did he. We got a beer each and sat down, much closer now.

"Tell me more about you and language," I said.

"I fell in love even before my memory began. Far as I can remember I have been fascinated with language, what is the same, what is different and how what is nominally one language really is a lot of languages, almost as many languages as there are speakers. And it is heartbreaking but hopeful that language is the faulty tool we have to make ourselves understood and less alone, and how badly many people wield that tool. I could never be with anyone whose speech is flat or clichéd. And it is wondrous how some people can use that same tool and not only make themselves understood but also make us understand ourselves better. In my small way, that is what I try to do; I am a translator."

"It must be great to work with what you are passionate about."

"It is. What are you passionate about, Bella mia?"

I thought about the band, but no. The band (Anteater Buffet) was nice, and a good thing in my life, but face it, not my passion. Unrequited love is sometimes the greatest.

"Archaeology. Field work. There's nothing like, at first, slowly work your way down through the upper layers and know that you probably won't find anything yet, but you have to do it properly, because otherwise you just might miss something. It's like foreplay, can be frustrating and test your patience, but you wouldn't want to be without. And you work yourself down and it's slow and hot in the sun and wet in the rain and real. It's hard work and work that tests your patience but it's worth it because any moment you might find something and you never know what that might be. A shard of pottery, a fish-hook, a tooth – anything. And this is not a thirty minute documentary on TV where you get a warmed-up helping of easily digestible knowledge which you usually forget right away. This is the real thing and you feel close to the people who lived there because their lives consisted of slow, endless work like yours right then, except with toothache and hunger and dying at childbirth."

"Wow. Thank you!" He kissed just as well as he danced. Again, not quite as well as he listened, but certainly well enough. "I must warn you right away; I cannot stay all that long."

"Good to know. I suppose it will hurt when you leave, but I think it will be worth it."

"I often cry when I leave, but I am who I am. I must seek new people to talk to, go to new countries or back to where I have to refresh my feeling for a language. Soon I shall translate a Russian novel to Italian, in a while I have to go to Russia since my feel for Russian is rusty. I can stay a week. Maybe two."

19 - TRANSLATOR ENTRANCED

Stella hugged us both, happy for me.

"Good catch darling – for a romantic-stereotype-junkie like you." she said.

"Yes. Good catch. Just too bad I will have to release him soon."

"Bye honey, do nothing I wouldn't do."

"Is there anything you wouldn't do?"

"Let's see...fuck him without a rubber...do drugs...wash his fucking socks...watch sports with him..."

I wouldn't have Paolo for long, but by God, I intended to enjoy him as long as I did. He wanted me to talk to him while having sex, sextalk turned him on. Can't say I was surprised. I've never been very vocal in bed, but since he responded so enthusiastically (what the behaviorists call learning by positive reinforcement) I found myself doing triple vocal parts; commentary, cheerleader and participant.

I won't quote myself, though. I have never seen myself as a shy person – I always perceived myself as a sex-subject rather than a sex-object – but I find that I am uncomfortable writing down the bed-talk. Or the couch-talk, kitchen-floor talk, shower-talk or leaning-against-a-wall talk. But Paolo sucked it all up like a soundsponge and I sucked him up and then down again.

Paolo loved poetry. He saw poetry as language taken to the furthest reaches. He wallowed in Gunnar Ekelöf, Werner Aspenström, Tomas Tranströmer, Karin Boye. He gave all the books to me when he left and I read in them sometimes with that wistful sad-but-glad feeling.

He only brought with him what he was currently reading or needing. All his worldly goods was in his old leather backpack. By and large he owned a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush and a kickass laptop with a satellite Internet connection. He worked via the Net and he turned out to be pretty well off. He was quick, was paid reasonably well and didn't spend much.

Sixteen languages! And soon Swedish too, seventeen. Italian, Spanish, French, English, German, Russian, Chinese (mandarin), Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Thai, Swahili, Romani and Greek.

First time I fucked a fucking genius.

I cried when he left, just like I knew I would. So did he. Then I cried for three days more. But it was worth it, by and large. How long he cried I don't know, but I suspect it was not very long. He probably found someone fascinating right away, whom he could milk for quaint figures of speech and old sayings. Passionate people are fascinating, but it's easy to get hurt when they are not passionate about you. But then, I suppose it's just as easy to get hurt when you are the object of passion. It is, quite simply, easy to get hurt, period.

BOOK THREE - BOTH OF THEM

Hi. We decided to write this last part in the third person. It took a bit of negotiating to settle whose version of truth was the truest, but we finally reached an agreement.

20 – THE HEART OF DORKNESS

The Paolo thing, him working with something he was passionate about, had Isabelle thinking about work again. She was doing enough waitressing to pay her rent and keep herself fed, but in the long run it was bloody boring. She was on the lookout for another job, not knowing what that job might be, when an ad caught her eye. Stella was with her and she did not at all understand the excitement.

"Au-pair at the Lindbacka manor? Why would you want to do that? Sucking up to the spoiled brats of some rich hag who can't be bothered to take care of anything but her nails. Do you even like kids?"

"I don't know, really. But there's a dig at Lindbacka, except they had to stop because they ran out of money. It's just covered in tarps now, but I think I could get permission to go on by myself, I got the qualifications. I could be there in all my spare time."

"Sounds wonderful," Stella said. "Not."

"You'll never understand this, Stella. But I have to give it a go. I'll see if I can get there for an interview, check out what it's like. I've got nothing to lose."

Turned out there was no rich hag involved. Just a rich dork. "Make that double-dork," Isabelle thought, "he can hardly breathe for all the silver spoons in his mouth." Barefoot with back-to-nature orange dungarees and no shirt. Playing man of the people in his new, but old, manor. Not bad looking, though. Thin, blond – a bit like Peter except totally different. Nice smile. Too bad he was constipated with money up his ass.

Lukas liked what he saw. Not only was this Isabelle girl pretty, she also seemed utterly unimpressed by wealth, unlike previous applicants. He needed someone to ground him. He did not want a whispering slave like an old emperor, but an unslave loudly reminding him of his humanity and keeping him on the straight and narrow. Except he knew that many would deem his path to be not very straight. He wondered nervously what Isabelle would think of his project. He decided to wait a little with hitting her with the full truth, hoping that if he made a good first impression she was less likely to be upset.

"Duties are not all that heavy, I hope," Lukas said. "Helping with the kids and whatever tasks there are in a home. I found myself overwhelmed sometimes. I often have...friends visiting and they help out, but it would be good to have someone more permanent."

"Would I be expected to clean all four hundred rooms?"

"Some cleaning, sure. Some cooking, some laundry, some diaper duty, some reading, playing, putting to bed, shopping and whatever. But I'll be doing the same things you do. I don't mind cleaning all that much, but I'm sick of my own cooking. You cook?"

"Pretty well."

"I like you better and better. Forty perhaps, though, not four hundred. Haven't counted. Most of them I don't use except to store the furniture that came with the house. Antiques, don't go well with children. Nor with me. No need to clean all those rooms."

Isabelle's second impression was more favorable than her first. He didn't seem to be a total dork, after all, in fact he seemed to have a need to be nice, which was a welcome change from the rich guys she'd met before.

"How many kids are we talking about? Or haven't you counted them, either?"

"Jonatan is here all the time. Signe every second week. Others are here on and off, mainly weekends. I think six at a time is the most ever."

"What's the deal with the kids, then? You run some kind of shelter or what?"

"Not really. They are, well, mine."

"Yours as in you're the father?"

"That's right."

"You got six kids? What ages?"

"A bit more than six I'm afraid. And the oldest is four. Almost four."

"How the hell have you managed to produce six kids plus in four years? How many are there?"

"Forty. Forty-one is due pretty soon. But far from all of them come here."

21 – THE PEOPLE VS. MR. RICHPRICK

PEOPLE: Forty! Explain!

RICHPRICK: I feel like I am on trial here.

P: You are, as far as I am concerned. Come on, explain! You the great white hunter or what?

R: No. Nor am I any kind of predator. At least I don't think so.

P: Ok, so you're the good guy. Just a good guy who happens to have forgotten to put on a rubber forty times in four years.

R: I'll tell you the story, then you can judge if I manage to be a reasonably good guy or not. It all began some five years ago when I was sick of my rich-boy life. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, just that I wanted change.

P: I can sympathize with that, at least.

R: I experimented with a lot of stuff, liked some of it but I did not like it enough. Then I was told by two great ladies on the same day that they were going to have my child. None of them wanted to live with me, they just wanted to be friends and that I should play a part in the kids' lives. And I liked it, I liked it a lot. I just loved to think about these tiny parts of me growing to be new persons. And I liked that my money had a purpose; providing for my children.

P: I'm with you that far – but you're a long way from forty.

R: I decided I wanted more of that, and then I found this group on Facebook, women who wanted to be mothers but did not want to live with a man. Some wanted to be single, some were lesbian couples. I, well, I sent messages to them that I possibly could help out. And that I would provide for any child of mine.

P: So you, Mr. Richprick, decided that what the world needed was a lot of mini-yous running around. Sounds to me like a megalomaniac jerk measuring his dick in most genes passed on. Talk about being a self-satisfied ego-boy blimp.

R: I think you are unnecessarily harsh, here. I provided a service these women really desired, and I added financial security, for them and for my children. I also offered to be a part of the kids' lives if the mothers so wanted. That's the ones who come here. Others want to be left alone, and then I do so. Sex was not involved, except very occasionally because we both wanted to. And I never had a kid with anyone I didn't like and felt would be a good mother. But you never know for sure, do you? Jonatan's mother got into drugs, that's why he lives with me now.

P: Are you happy with your life now?

R: Happier than ever. Some say that the meaning of life is just to carry your genes to the next generation, and they are often perceived, even by themselves, as glum cynics. But I really find a sense of meaning in this project of mine, and I think it will be even more fun when they grow older.

P: All right. I, the people, find you Not Guilty on the charge of being a fucking asshole.

R: Thank you.

P: We do, however, find you guilty of being a bit of an idiot.

R: I can live with that. There will be no appeal.

22 – LION BITING VARIOUS BUNS

Apparently Isabelle had passed the interview with flying colors, which surprised her considering all the invectives she had heaped upon him. Also somewhat surprisingly, she found that Lukas had passed her interview as well. The clincher was when he served coffee and offered her homemade cinnamon rolls with the coffee, worrying that they hadn't risen properly. They hadn't, they were pretty shitty really, hard and dry, but Isabelle had two of them, just to make him happy. It was cute that someone who could easily afford to buy the nearest seven bakeries had made an effort like that, somehow more endearing for being a failure.

A wail was heard from another room and Lukas bounded away.

"Time for your next interview," he shouted. Soon he was back with a small boy on his arm. "Jonatan, say hello to Isabelle." Jonatan immediately hid in Lukas' armpit.

"Hi, Jonatan," Isabelle said, but did not leave her seat. She went on talking to Lukas, but smiled sweetly whenever Jonatan looked at her. After a while he dared to leave Lukas' lap and went to get a stuffed lion which he proudly held up for her to admire.