It’s four in the afternoon and I have a decision to make. The train is set to leave at six o’clock sharp, without a second to spare. I’m sitting on a pulled out bed that transforms itself miraculously into a couch during daytime, or rather I am sitting on a couch that spontaneously turns into a bed during nighttime, pondering as to whether or not I should follow my heart’s desire and be a silly, silly girl. I don’t have a choice, do I? A heart’s foolish desire knows no boundaries and no rationality; it is incomprehensible to the point of madness. It is getting darker and I know I am on the verge of being late. Without giving it more thought, I gather a single pair of underwear (why is it called a pair if it’s only one?) and dash out. With so little time, I know I can’t walk to the train station, so I wave for a car to pick me up. The skyline is starting to dim and the moon is beginning to shine as I make my way out with the sound of my heels trailing me, *click clack*.

I don’t know what I’m doing, let alone why I am doing it; I just know that I want to surprise him more than anything. I want to be incognito, an insect among flowers, making my way silently across the miles in order to appear before him, like a rabbit before a magician. I want to create an everlasting moment; a memory only we can share. The minute I arrive at the train station, I make my way immediately to the ticket machine in order to expedite the process. The ten foot in diameter clock that stands in front of the grand central station, hovering above our heads waiting to drop, shows that the time is 17:35. How it got this late so fast is beyond me. I have 25 minutes to get my ticket and find the lane of departure. Of course the ticket machine is out of order, so I have to wait in line like everybody else. Obviously they wouldn’t be in line if the machine had been working.

Every minute feels like an eternity as I stare down the clock, hoping it freezes itself for just a little while until I can get on board safe and sound. Once my turn comes, the lady behind the glass looks as if she is about to fall asleep any second. Her hair is ruffled as if she has just woken up from a long nap, and her mascara is starting to drip in the corner of her eyes. She seems out of sorts – probably hoping time will stop as well so she can rearrange herself. “One ticket to CITY please” I tell her. Without looking up she says “CURRENCY” as if she knows exactly what my destination is before I open my mouth. I give her my wrist to scan as my bracelet holds all my personal and financial information. She looks up at me only to give me an annoyed face. “Sorry, but we only accept physical money. The scanner is broken” she says, as if I should have known that information beforehand. I ask her where the nearest withdrawal machine is, to which she simply replies “East corner.” I take off in the East corner, without realizing that I am actually going toward the West corner. My sense of direction has honestly always been off and I’ve given up on trying to correct it. I keep telling myself that with time it will show up.

By the time I realize where I am, I know that I am too late. The clock announces the arrival of six o’clock and I feel a pang in my heart. What am I to do now? How can I get to him in time? I frantically search my brain for options that are available to me. There is another train leaving to CITY three hours from now, although I have no desire of waiting around that long, so I am left with only one other choice: a shuttle car. Having never been on one, I am reluctant with the idea, telling myself that it would just be better to pack up my one underwear and head back home. Except there is only little problem with that scenario…I just don’t want to. I want to see him more than anything. It has already been quite some time, and I don’t want to lose out on the opportunity of seeing his face once more. With that thought going on in my mind, I decide to walk outside of the station to where the shuttles are stationed. A gaunt looking man is leaning against the vehicle that has CITY marked on it, smoking a thin cigar, lost in his own world. I approach him cautiously. When I’m a few feet away from him, I ask him what time he will be leaving to CITY. “Who’s asking?” he asks, puffing out a smoke. “I am” I reply, not knowing how to answer such a question. He looks me up and down, and takes a moment before replying. “I’m leaving in half an hour. It will take five hours to get there” he says. “Is there anyone else coming with us?” I ask him, not wanting to sound scared. “No” he replies dryly, with a smile on his face. Something about the whole situation gives me chills, but I push those feelings aside and tell him I will be ready to leave in half an hour. He walks away from me.

I don’t want to linger around, so I decide to walk back inside the train station and grab a cup of tea. I sit down near a group of older people and listen in on their conversation, as I have nothing better to do with my time. “I never thought she would be the first one to go, our Edina. She was the healthiest out of all of us, constantly exercising and growing her own food. I just cannot believe she’s gone…I’ve known her for more than 40 years” one of the women says to the other ones. A man is sitting with them as well, except he doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to them as he is staring into the vast nothingness of the station. The woman who has just spoken looks down at her worn out shoes, sniffing away. They are probably on their way to a funeral, as they are all dressed in gold. The woman has silver hair with a few black strands remaining here and there. She seems tired of life; probably even more so now that she is faced with her friend’s death. It must be such a burden to know that there comes a time in everyone’s life when it’s not engagements or weddings that overflow the news vine, but friends’ deaths instead. We’re all barreling towards that period inevitably, hoping beyond hope that we won’t be the first ones to announce our death to our friends. I feel sadness and pity for these women as they are all looking at each other, wondering who is going to be next. I decide to walk away.

There is still time left until my departure so I walk around looking at the people getting on the trains; most of them tired from a long day of work, wanting to head back home to their families. I’m not sure where I am heading as I have never been to CITY, but the destination isn’t the appeal for me, it’s what is waiting for me there. Hope. With that in mind, I feel someone touch my shoulder, which makes me scream for a second. “Hold your horses there girl, I ain’t done nothing to you!” says the gaunt looking man from the shuttle, as he stares at me intently. “Ready to go?” he asks me, as I study him back intently. He turns around and starts walking in front of me. As we get out of the train station, I notice that the shuttle isn’t there anymore. I ask him where it is. He turns around and says that he had to park it one street over as that is where his boss is. He keeps on walking with me trailing behind. It’s about 19:00 and there is no one to be seen on the street as we are getting further away from the station. I turn my head to look back and get an uneasy feeling in my stomach. What am I doing following a stranger to a car that could be unlicensed or stolen? With this thought lingering in my head, I suddenly become very scared for my safety and I stop walking. He senses that I stopped because he turns around to ask me what I’m doing. “I think I’m going to head back…” I manage to say, all the while making small steps backwards, to get further away from him. “What?!” he yells out. From his reaction, I know I’m making the right decision. I turn around and start to run as fast as I possibly can. I have to get to the station no matter the cost. After a few minutes of running mindlessly, I stop to look back. He is still where I left him, cursing back at me.

Now I am the one looking out of sorts as I go back to the ticket counter to face the same woman that was there a few hours ago. Before I open my mouth, I remember that I don’t have the means to pay, so I start running like a maniac toward the East corner to get the money I need. A few minutes later, I am back in front of her window, panting and spitting unwillingly. “Ticket to CITY” I say, as I put down the money in front of her. She seems to appreciate the fact that I’m not making her open her mouth to tell me the cost. Having paid, I finally have my ticket for the nine o’clock train. Out of nowhere, the most unbearable shrieking noise makes its way to my ears. I turn around to see where it’s coming from, only to realize that it’s coming from everywhere, so I’m not sure where to focus. It hurts my ears beyond anything. The people are screaming, the projectors are screaming, and now I’m the one screaming. The pain is excruciating, unlike anything I could possibly ever imagine. Even the death of my parents wasn’t this painful.

Now more than ever, I have to get on that train.

I once had a dream. And then it became a recurring dream. In it I have a vision of boats swaying softly under a silky black sky where the only visible light is granted by the moon. The flotilla is slowly floating away toward the horizon; a peaceful setting by any means. Only one soul is to be found, and a broken one at that. He is reminiscing of better times; times when he could touch her and look into her dark green eyes. Now those eyes are gone…closed. He hasn’t slept for years it seems, and his pain resonates for miles; there isn’t a single beating heart out there that can rescue him. In the dream, he is calling out for me, yet my name sounds so strange coming out of his mouth; I can never place my finger on why it sends chills down my dream spine. “Freyja, Freyja, Freyja,” over and over he whispers.  The boats all sway simultaneously with his moans. Back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, and with each new sway, his face becomes more blurry. I can never reach him in time to see who he is, yet I always have the feeling that this man has been a part of my life for quite some time…as if he commands a certain part of me that I never thought existed.

 I didn’t dream this last night, nor anytime lately, but it constantly stays with me for days, even weeks sometimes. I imagine myself being loved to such an extent that someone’s life cannot continue without me being in it. It is such a romantic thought, to know that you are cherished to the point of madness, yet it seems that such love is in such short supply these days that it makes me wonder if there have ever lived people that have experienced the full scale of it. When I wake up from this dream I usually feel lost and confused as it is difficult for me to even begin to try to understand the power behind that love. Being raised by my grandmother hasn’t really exposed me to the kind of affection I read about in books, which makes it hard to imagine someone ever thinking about me in such a way. I like to think that one day she will open up and tell me every single detail of my parents’ love affair for each other so as to give me hope of a fairy tale ending, although in their case it’s more truthful to say “happily ever before the day they died”. Sometimes I just sit and think of what they must have gone through together when their car derailed off the bridge. I like to think that they screamed their love out on the way down. And maybe mentioned my name as well. Freyja.

If the name sounds strange, it’s because it is. No one is really named Freyja anymore, and rightly so because it is an ancient name that is associated with the Goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and death. It literally translates into the meaning of “lady” in Old Norse. I never quite understood why my parents chose to name me as such, but my grandmother likes to push the following explanation: Freyja was a Goddess who chose to give away her love freely; when your parents saw your eyes for the first time, they knew you would have the heart she did. I ponder about that explanation a lot, because it doesn’t really make much sense to me as I don’t give away my love freely; on the other hand, I keep it mostly to myself, never allowing anyone to get anywhere near my heart for fear of being unwillingly manipulated. The saddest part is that I don’t even have anyone to give my love to, as I know it would be instantly rejected. A hopeless romantic, that’s what I am. The fact of the matter is that although I’ve been madly in love with my best friend for as long as I can remember, he would never see me in a romantic light, which has shattered all my hopes and dreams of reaching everlasting happiness. All I can do is daydream about this man who appears in my dreams in the vain hope that he will make an appearance in real life.

I’ve been in an emotional bind for as long as I can remember, due to the loss of my parents, so it comes as no surprise to anyone that I have absolutely no idea how to be affectionate, which is no wonder that Daniel would never consider me a prospect. Maybe it also has something to do with not receiving any affection either. Throughout my childhood, my grandma lived in her own mind, not truly understanding that I needed her love and attention. In order to replace the emptiness of my life, and to truly cope with my loss, I chose to lose myself in someone else’s life; a bad habit to form, as I am now having trouble assessing my own life, since I constantly choose to walk in someone else’s shoes. In instances when I am faced with sudden grief, whether due to the memories of my parents or for my longing for Daniel, I revert to Greek mythology because it truly sets my heart on fire. For one, it makes me see that although my parents are gone, they left this world together united, and secondly it makes me see that regardless of my wish to be loved by him, fate will unveil its plan for me. Those are the only thoughts that bring me solace inside.

If you don’t know much about Greek Mythology, as none of us do, there is a saying that according to Plato's Symposium, human beings originally consisted of three genders: male, female, and the combination of both. Zeus, fearing the power of the combined human form, cut humans into separate males and females, resulting in a perpetual ache of separation and a longing to regain the completeness by finding one's soul mate. According to Aristophanes, "love" is the term describing the yearning and pursuit of each half to re-create the whole, a concept resulting from the split of the original body which featured four legs, four arms, and a head with two faces. Philosophically speaking, that is a powerful idea to absorb, and one that can leave us breathless. How many times have we all thought about whether or not we will ever find our counterpart, our soul mate? Many dismiss the idea almost instantly, stating that there isn’t just one person in the world for us, that it would indeed be a shame were it to be so. While I am personally undecided about that idea, I keep telling myself that once I find someone to love, I will love them forever.

From the little information that I have from my grandma, everyone in my family has found their one true love by the time they are my age. Every time I ask her for more details, she becomes a vague old woman. Every other time I ask her anything else, she rattles on for hours. The only thing I was able to get out of her was that she doesn’t consider those who found love in our family to be lucky. “What do you mean, unlucky? Considering the difficulty of finding someone who can even stand you for longer than a day, it is impressive that all my ancestors were able to find long lasting love!” I told her that day. She had let it slip that everyone in our family had found love on the first try, and that they had only been with one person their entire life. When I asked her how she could possibly know of that, she changed the subject. She must have been making it up, otherwise how would she know? And why would she think them to be unlucky? I had pondered about that for a long time, until I decided to give up, call her an old woman, and believe that she had no idea what she was talking about.
 

Although difficult, I pick myself off from my bed and drag my feet downstairs into the kitchen, hoping that my grandma is awake and making breakfast already. No such luck. During these few weeks of the year, I know that she needs time to herself as well, so I let her be. I am not one to judge, since I myself have been hiding away among piles of books in my room, which I usually tend to do around this time of the year. The “I cannot believe I am almost an orphan” time, since my parents were taken away from me next week fifteen years ago. Although I may have been only a nine year old child, the pain of their absence always consumes me more the week before their death anniversary. And the week after. Can’t even describe what the week in between those two weeks feels like. It seems as if they re-emerge in my mind in such an intense manner that I simply cannot move out of bed, out of my fantasy world. It doesn’t help either that this so called depressing anniversary falls during the only hot season that we have, which makes it unbearably difficult to move around. It is quite impressive though that on summer days such as these, when the sun is practically living upon our skin, grandma ventures outside. Personally, I prefer the dark, solitary, and cool interior of the house.

She can usually be found in the back garden, planting some more flower pots into the ground; a miracle that we actually have grass in our yard.  Knowing how much she enjoys the summer heat, I told her a few days ago that I would go visit my parents’ graves today, but she didn’t offer her company as she had in the past. I cannot even begin to imagine the hardship of losing your own child, so I won’t be the one to judge her if she doesn’t make the trip over this year. They say time takes the pain away and is a cure all, but in some cases, it seems as if time isn’t a factor in our recovery. Time is simply a reminder of how long we’ve been broken inside. The longer the heartbreak, the harder it is to return back to normal. Time makes us numb and distorts our memories, so it’s understandable that if we aren’t faced with the recollection, life is easier to handle. It must be very difficult year after year to visit your child’s grave, all the while hoping you were the one who had been taken away instead.

I see it in her eyes. I see the agony she feels every time she looks at me this time of the year. I look so much like my mother, her only daughter. My wavy brown hair falls just beneath my shoulders, my freckled skin can be seen from miles, and while my legs seem to measure longer than my entire body, I am quite short compared to the Scandinavian average body measurement. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had long lean legs, with no chance of gaining muscle. While they might not be my best feature, it seems that my eyes make up for that deficit; dark green with sparks of gold fluttering around my irises. I’ve been told by many people that they’ve never seen eyes like mine, and that I should consider myself lucky in that respect. I don’t know about being lucky, but it certainly feels nice to be complimented once in a while. Having green eyes doesn’t change the way I see the world, it simply changes the way the world sees me. Whether that means they see more beauty and mystery in me is up for debate; most of the time I wonder if people can even see past my eyes. It seems as if they barely pay any attention to what I’m saying. That’s probably one of the reasons I tend to shy away from people, because I feel inadequate. I never know if someone really enjoys having a conversation with me, or if they simply do it out of politeness due to my so called “elite” background. I’m told by many of how much they respected my father for the work he did with the communities, and what a hero he was; constantly reminding me of the huge shoes I need to fill. The problem is that I know I will never be as great, or as good as my father was, so I make myself as little as I can be; that way people won’t have high expectations of me.

So it is that due to my social awkwardness, my natural inclination isn’t towards people, but towards inanimate objects within the surrounding space. Art is what I lean on, and for as long as I can remember, painting and drawing have been my best friends (other than Daniel of course). On days when I cannot cope with life and what it brings at my doorstep, I shut myself in my painting room upstairs on the second floor and I sit on the stool for hours and hours staring at my beautiful canvas, trying hard to blend the colors in such a way that they send out a powerful message. Lately I’ve been experimenting with many dark figures, usually those that haunt me during the night. I plaster them all over my blank canvases so that they become familiar shadows when I see them in my dreams. Although difficult to forget the terror of facing life without my parents, I always feel better when I paint my feelings out, thus detoxifying myself.

And that’s all I seem to be doing these days: detoxifying myself. I quit my job at the local digistore in order to focus solely on myself, and I certainly stopped talking to Daniel for a while now. I would be lying if I said it didn’t have something to do with him being in a relationship. I guess I always imagined it just being the two of us. And since I haven’t had the courage to tell him even an ounce of how I feel, I really cannot be mad at him for finding someone. So here I am, letting go of everything and anything that has nothing to do with my painting and drawing. Complete isolation. Today is just another one of those isolating days, especially since my grandma is nowhere to be found. Being that it is getting late, I decide to start walking to the cemetery and pay my respects to my parents. I sometimes find myself talking to them during my short walk to their graves, but today I’m mostly occupied with the current news that has been unfolding within the country. My parents would have played a big part in the First Wave, as it is being called. My father, the city’s mayor, would have been entangled in the project from day one, while my mother would have been in the role of health officer during the important deployment. Apparently being a celebrated doctor automatically makes you the city’s official health officer. The reason why these thoughts are circling my brain is that my synapses have been activated by all of this information that is being thrown at me through the various media outlets. Even my watch is being bombarded with the countdown: 120 days until the First Wave. I should probably opt for a more traditional watch, being that I am not very technologically inclined. I’m more of a vintage style kind of person, even though it’s becoming more and more difficult to find objects that are not computerized. Sometimes I think I would have been happier living in a different era. Regardless, it’s impossible to escape what is happening in the world right now. In fact, my parents were on their way to the secret meeting that started this entire project, when they got into their accident.

Usually, when I start making my trek to their graves, I start dwelling upon what should have been. It should have been me and dad talking politics now. It should have been my mom preparing me for my first period and not a doctor. It should have been my mom hugging me after I came home crying from school because the girls were mean to me. It should have been my dad putting me on his shoulders so I could see the city parade. It should have been my parents by my side at my graduation. Not only do I imagine what my life would have been like had they been there all along, but I lose myself in a game of questions. Today is no different. For one, I cannot understand for the life of me why my parents chose ground transportation. From all the videos and pictures that I’ve amassed, it seems that they only traveled with their Skycar, since traffic is usually much more minimal above. They were always in a rush, so I find it difficult to believe that it was their idea to take the most dangerous path there was. As I approach their graves, I notice that once again they are covered in flowers, although significantly less so than a few years ago. My parents were very much loved by the entire city, but their memory lives with only a few today. Standing in front of their graves brings tears to my eyes, and even more questions to my mind. How is it that after twenty years, their death is still unresolved? I am left in this state of despair, wondering what on Earth happened in that car. Sometimes I wish I had been there, so I wouldn’t be left here wondering alone.