Thin Ice

by Mikael Engström

  ‘I never miss,’ said Niklas. ‘This morning I shot a wagtail at thirty metres. And that’s a very small bird. It’ll be okay, as long as you hold your big ears in.’

  Mik stood in front of a large oak tree and held the can as far away from his body as possible. He tried to make his arm grow, stretched it so the tendons clicked.

  ‘Good,’ said Niklas and walked ten long paces away.

  He broke open the rifle, loaded it, lifted and aimed. Mik stared at the rifle barrel and felt sweat attacks pump through his skin. His knees shook. Niklas lowered the gun.

  ‘It’s too close. Too easy.’

  He took another ten long paces. Lifted the rifle and aimed.

  Mik tilted his head back and looked up into the leafy branches of the oak tree. The shaking spread from his legs up into his whole body.

  ‘You have to look at me, not up in the tree.’

  Mik thought Niklas aimed directly at his face. His throat tightened. There was a rushing in his head. Did he need to pee? No, he mustn’t need to pee. Rather a bullet in the face than pee his pants. Niklas lowered the rifle and took another five paces.

  ‘From this distance,’ yelled Niklas, ‘you have to aim a little higher. A bit above. Really you should have the can on your head. That would be exciting.’

  Mik had stopped breathing. His field of vision shrank. At first everything took on a pale green colour, which then shifted to red. It was as if he had zoomed in on the rifle barrel. The rushing in his head grew to a scream. His pulse felt like pressure waves through his body. The can weighed a ton in his hand. He was going to be blown up.

  ‘Stand still,’ shouted Niklas.

  My eye, thought Mik. He’s going to hit me in the eye. The shot rang out and he collapsed in a heap.

  The sun filtered down through the leaves of the oak tree. Green transparent leaves rustled in the wind. Mik lay spreadeagled on the ground. He filled his lungs with air. Shut one eye – it worked. Shut the other one – that worked too. But something worse had happened. His trousers were wet. Niklas leaned over him, holding the can.

  ‘Look. Bullseye. But you’ve peed your pants.’

  And off he went with his rifle.

  Hi Tony,

  Scientist Michael Rockefeller from New York was on an exploration trip to New Guinea. He fell in the water, swam ten kilometres and dragged himself ashore where there were cannibals. Since then no one has seen him. I feel like Michael Rockefeller, except I can’t swim and the people here aren’t cannibals. Yesterday I made a poster for my room, which said Dog Turd King, but Rickard took it down. But no one can take away the dogshit smell. Obviously you can’t have that kind of poster in a functional family. What it is exactly that functions, I’m not sure. While I’ve been living here I’ve thought a lot about Mum. I’ve started to remember what she looked like. I can even hear her voice in my head. I usually think about when we went to the funfair. I can’t tell the difference any more between what I’ve made up and what really happened. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t even exist – that I’ve only made it up. Perhaps nothing exists.

  Wonder if Michael Rockefeller peed in his pants when he saw the cannibals?

  Best wishes,

  Dog Turd King.

  THE BLUE TRAIN

  The smell of dog turds didn’t bother him. They smelled, of course, but it wasn’t revolting. It should have been. Mik thought he might just as well have been lying on the floor scraping up spilled yoghurt. But brown yoghurt. Perhaps you could get used to everything? Mik stopped mopping suddenly. Looked at the brown muck.

  Used to everything?

  Had he become brainwashed? Like a prisoner of war in a concentration camp? Was he broken? Was he finished? Did he agree to everything? Had the Tormentors broken him?

  Mik sat on the floor, leaned his back against the wire mesh and looked up at the ceiling and a bare light bulb. He thought, Mock execution with an air rifle.

  Locked in with a potty.

  Dog muck and disgusting food.

  Was all this planned? Was he to be broken and become a dribbling retard? Was that the plan?

  But whose plan? And why?

  It wasn’t good to think. Everything suddenly seemed much worse than it had been. He ought to write a letter and protest. He ought to write to … well, who? Parrot Earrings? The Paragraph? Tengil?

  He finished cleaning the kennels and ran down to the lake to swim. He pushed out the canoe, even though it was forbidden, and paddled far out. It was hot; had to be the hottest day of the summer. The sun beat down and the air quivered over the surface of the water. From the shore came wild laughter and happy shrieks as children dived from jetties and boats. Some were playing with an inflatable mattress, others with a big red and white beach ball. Mik stopped paddling, lay down in the canoe and looked up at the sky.

  Imagine he was Skorpan Lionheart but hadn’t ended up in Nangijala. He was Skorpan who had ended up right in the middle of hell. He probably died there in the swimming pool, and somehow it had all gone wrong. For some, for a very small percentage, it went wrong. And where had Tony ended up? He never answered any letters. Perhaps they couldn’t reach him where he was?

  Only the white doves of Nangijala could fly across all skies with their messages, as far as they liked. From Cherry Valley and into the whole universe. But did it have to be a dove? And did it have to be white? The pigeons in Solna shopping centre were grey and scabby. Or would any bird do? And how far did the bird have to fly? How far was it to Tony? It could be an incredibly long way. What if I’m already dead? thought Mik. If I’m already dead in death. And dead in the death of deaths. Nangijala to Nangilima, to … where am I, exactly? And why has Tengil got to all the places first?

  Mik paddled back and pulled the canoe up onto the shore. He turned it upside down so that it wouldn’t fill with water if it rained. A horse snorted and he could hear the sound of hooves. Louise came riding down to the beach. Mik hid under the canoe. She didn’t see him. The horse was allowed to graze freely while she took off all her clothes. Stark naked, she walked out into the water. Mik saw it all clearly and held his breath. He was afraid, wanted to get away. He crawled out to run off.

  The canoe flipped over and hit the pebbles. Louise turned round and screamed. She ran frantically out of the water. Mik ran, but she was wild with anger and ran fast, lashing at him with her riding whip. She struck his neck, and a fierce, stinging blow brought him to his knees. Then lash after lash rained down. He crawled and she whipped.

  ‘Stop,’ he whimpered. ‘Stop.’

  But she didn’t stop. Completely naked and with a hysterical look in her eyes she raised the whip again and again.

  ‘You filthy little beast,’ she said. ‘Look, then, if you really want to. You dirty little creep. You’re all the same.’

  She started to cry. She stopped whipping him and cried with her hands in front of her face. Mik got up and walked directly into the forest.

  He walked a long way, continuing until he could no longer see the lake. Came to a road but didn’t follow it, keeping instead to the forest. Stumbled over roots, stumps and branches. He walked like a robot, automatically. His legs took one step, and one more, and one more, without knowing where he was heading.

  In the distance he heard barking. It was coming from the kennels. He recognised the dogs’ barks. The muffled one was Bas. Number Nine’s was screeching, sharp. His entire body hurt. His arms were striped red. The skin on one shoulder was broken and bleeding. Someone else would have to clear up the dog shit now. He’d had enough.

  The forest got denser and the undergrowth thicker. Then he came into an area of newly planted trees with thin, cruel branches that snagged and tore. He struggled through it only to emerge into endless bare ground where the trees had been felled and there were only stumps and brambles. Bloody hell.

  The sweat ran and the sun’s rays burned him. He climbed up a slope, chased by horseflies and midges. His stomach ached with hunger and he started thinking of food. Sausages, p
ancakes, pizza. Hamburgers.

  Mik came out onto a railway line, high up and with double tracks. It was on a long, slow bend. The rails shone in the sunlight. The electric rails hummed. There was a smell of electricity, a dry hint of burning. He took off his white T-shirt which was streaked with pine resin and dirt, and stuffed it securely into the waistband of his trousers. The sweat was running in rivers, the whip marks stung, and he was incredibly thirsty. If you’re going to run away you should have food and water with you.

  He looked along the track, first in one direction, then the other. Which way should he go? Did it matter? Best to walk away from the sun so as not to be blinded by the rails.

  Mik tried walking on the sleepers. They were nice and even but the distance between them made them impossible to walk on. It made his steps look ridiculous. Stiff and clumsy. He couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm. He walked alongside them for a while but the chippings were so coarse and rough he twisted his ankle. The sleepers were better, but nothing was good. He tried balancing on the rail with his arms held out. That went better.

  There was no shade on the railway line and the heat of the sun worked its way under the skin on his head and barbecued his brain. And that made him start thinking of barbecued chicken. No, he mustn’t think of food now. He must get away, far away, before they put the bloodhounds on his trail.

  Mik wound his T-shirt around his head like a turban to protect it from the sun. Hungry but free. It was over now. No one would tell him what to do ever again.

  Mik stood still with his arms outstretched. There was an odd feeling under the soles of his feet: small, tickling vibrations. They grew bigger and made his legs shake all the way up to his knees. The rails were alive.

  Train.

  A metallic noise. It came from behind but he couldn’t see it yet on the long, gradual bend. He remained standing on the rails, swaying, balancing.

  Was it a big train? A long one? Fast?

  The rails vibrated furiously under his feet. A monster tearing towards him. I must jump down now; I must. Wild terror flooded through him and his joints locked. His brain melted into a gluey mess and his thoughts were drawn out in long, sinewy threads.

  How close is close?

  The train appeared round the bend at a terrifying speed. It was absolutely shocking. Mik saw it against the sunlight, a dark monster with three lights for eyes. The vibrations travelled up to his head. He shook. His thigh muscles quivered. Mik felt his saliva turn electric and sour and thicken to long strings inside his mouth. He was paralysed, frozen in glass. The sound of metal wheel against metal rail rushed towards him, and blasting through the entire universe was the sound of a horn.

  The air shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Mik hurled himself off the track. The train tore past. He crept into a ball, covering his face with his arms. He was slammed by the backdraught. Wheels turned. Metal ground and shook against metal. Dust whirled through the air.

  That was close, all right.

  The train leaned into the curve and disappeared. He recognised it. The local train. The usual blue local train.

  Mik followed the railway track out of the forest. First he came across a few small houses and a level crossing. Soon blocks of flats were shooting up above the trees. He came to a station, climbed up onto the platform and waited for the blue train home.

  THE CHOCOLATE WAFER THIEF

  The tobacconist’s was no longer there. All that was left in the window was a small pile of sawdust. Mik tried the door. It was locked and there was a notice behind the glass: ‘Shop closed down. Premises to rent’, followed by a telephone number.

  From the pizzeria came an aroma that made his stomach turn over. He had no money. Perhaps there was some at home? Money for a calzone. Cheese, ham and mushrooms. Tony had money; he was sure to be home. Mik stood for a while outside the entrance to the flats. Breathed in the air through his nostrils. The smell of home. A mixture of cat piss, bricks, mortar and something indefinably stale coming up from the cellar. Quickly he ran up the stairs and put his front door key in the lock.

  It didn’t fit. He went through the keys on his key ring – yes, it was the right key, but it didn’t fit, even though it was his own front door. It had the dent from the hockey puck they had knocked about in the stairwell. And the groove Tony had made with his knife to the left of the letterbox. Everything was as it should be. He would have recognised this door out of a thousand doors. Mik tugged at the door handle and rang the bell. Silence.

  Why didn’t his key fit? He went through his bunch of keys again. It was the right one, no doubt about that. He knew exactly what the notches on his front door key looked like. He tried again. Then he understood. It was the wrong lock. The right key but the wrong lock.

  The name plate was new. There was a different name on the door: H. Stål. Who the hell was H. Stål?

  Mik wandered aimlessly around Solna shopping centre. He tried to see if anyone was home at Ploppy’s, but no one answered even though he rang ten times.

  The car showroom was finished. He went in and looked at shiny new cars until he was told to leave. Tried again to see if Ploppy was at home, but nobody came to the door.

  Everything looked the same as usual. There was Råsunda Road, with the buses coming and going. Everything seemed the same. Except it wasn’t. Everything was something else entirely.

  He didn’t know how long he had been wandering around. His brain wasn’t working. His legs and body took on a life of their own and took him to the museum. The elephant skeleton was still there, with its empty eye sockets. The stuffed tiger hadn’t moved a single millimetre.

  Mik went up the staircase and out onto the bridge above the whale skeletons. Yellow vertebrae, dry ribs, cracked skulls. The room smelled of old death. It felt good. This was exactly what he looked like inside. Someone had tried to wipe the graffiti off the biggest skull, but it had only made a mess and you could still read the word ‘shag’.

  Mik pressed the whale sound button and listened to the mournful signals. Thought about Lena, Selet and Pi. Pressed it over and over again until he started to cry.

  Someone put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘We’re closing soon.’

  Mik turned around with tears streaming down his face. It was the security guard.

  ‘Have you paid your entrance fee?’

  ‘No, but I’m going now. I’m going to go home.’

  Where was he going to get money from? Money and food. The hunger burned inside him so much he could hardly stand upright. His digestive juices were eating him from the inside. He had started to eat himself up. Mik went into ICA and hid two chocolate wafer bars and a bottle of Coke under his T-shirt. They weren’t invisible, exactly, and the man on the till grabbed him at the exit. A hard grip on his neck.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  He was made to sit at a table in a small room with the stolen goods in front of him. They asked him his name and address. Mik said nothing. He stared at the chocolate wafers and the Coke.

  ‘Telephone number,’ said the man from the till. ‘Come on, there’s a good lad, so we can get this sorted. We’re closing soon and I want to go home. Give me the number and I’ll phone and ask your parents to come and get you. That’s how we usually deal with this kind of thing.’

  ‘I haven’t got a number.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a telephone at home? No mobile?’

  ‘They’ve changed the lock and name plate. H. Stål.’

  ‘Now come on, what’s your phone number? Stop messing about. You must have parents. A mum and a dad.’

  ‘No.’

  The staff at ICA got nowhere with the shoplifter. They threatened and bargained until finally they managed to get a number out of him, but that line rental was no longer in existence. They kept him there until the shop closed. A bit of confusion arose about what to do with him. Should someone take him home with them, perhaps? They cou
ld hardly just let him go; that would be tricky too. Would give completely the wrong signals. But they thought it seemed unkind to ring the police just for two chocolate wafer bars. That’s what Mik thought too.

  But unfortunately he didn’t have a phone number to give them. Mik shrugged his shoulders and asked if he could have one of the chocolate wafers because he was really hungry and hadn’t eaten all day. They said he could, and then the police turned up. Two big men, dressed in black, with noisy footsteps.

  Mik became frightened. They had pistols and heavy boots and looked like two of Tengil’s evil soldiers. They were going to brand his backside with the mark of Katla the dragon.

  ‘Well, well,’ one of them said. ‘Is this the chocolate wafer thief?’

  Mik stuffed the last piece into his mouth. Swallowed and said quietly, ‘I was given this one, and if I’m given the other one then I won’t have taken anything.’

  ‘Yes, you have. The Coke,’ said the cashier wearily. ‘We want to go home now. The shop’s closed. We’ve finished for the day.’

  ‘Well, phone the parents, for heaven’s sake. They can come and get him,’ said the other policeman.

  ‘That’s just the problem. He’s been sitting here for four hours and he hasn’t told us his name, address or number.’

  Mik was given the other chocolate wafer too. And the Coke. He drank that while he was in the police car.

  FROM THE GRAVE

  They hadn’t branded the mark of Katla onto his backside. They found out who he was pretty quickly. That he was on the run from a foster home in Bro, and the family were missing him very much.

  He slept in a police cell with the door open. That was the first time he hadn’t had to sleep locked in for a long time. Early the following morning, Parrot Earrings drove him back. He sat in the back seat and she droned on and on throughout the whole journey.

  She said Mik had behaved stupidly and many people had been worried. They thought he had drowned. Mik tried to tell her what an awful place it was. That they were tormentors.