I get off the phone with Ben, and drift off into a dreamless sleep, praying the rain won’t continue through the night, making my walk to work more of a swim. Of course it does.
Bergen in the rain has been compared to a zit by a Norwegian author. There is this pressure coming from all angles, so everything is moist. It feels like the city is about to burst. This author got a lot of flak for it from the inhabitants of the city, and also from the rest of the country. Most people did not really appreciate that one of their oldest, most beloved cities – filled to the brim with iconic landmarks, caught between seven mountains, and with a glorious coastline – was compared to a pus-filled boil ready to burst.
I don’t think the people on the streets, the prostitutes, the homeless junkies and mental cases, were heard though. They would have agreed with the author.
As do I.
If rain only fell a couple of times a year, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s more like a couple of hundred. My shoes are already soaking, and my toes feel disgusting. This is one of those days where I wish I brought an extra pair of socks to the office. But who does that?
A smarter man than me, that’s who.
The cobblestones are slippery in some places, I have to watch my steps down the narrow, steep and winding steps into the center of Bergen. People often ask why a life-loving protestant like myself would ever convert into Catholicism. I want to tell them that I do not in particular love life. I want to tell them that I eat to comfort myself and my jokes never make me happy. Instead I talk about the angels and the saints. Which is also true. The appeal of having someone real to talk to was one of the reasons for my conversion. And the order of everything. How there was a system to their religion, a saint for everything, and all situations. I struck a cord in me that brought me back to my childhood, because while I never managed to keep a clean house or office, my mind was spotless. My writing grammatically correct at all times. Systematic to a fault, some would say. Like the saints, which brought me back to why I converted. I needed someone real to talk.
And the saints were real.
I usually don’t go into the deeper reason though, because as with most things of any meaning and substance I struggle with them. My wife would tell me time and time again to listen, and I would tell her that I did, but even I knew I was lying about that. She lasted a long time, 12 years in fact, but then she’d had it. She took my daughter as well; the single thing that made my existence worthwhile. The only being with whom I did not feel insignificant or useless, and I did not even bother trying to get an arrangement going where I could see her on a regular basis.
I just said I would come visit her often. Tromsø isn’t that far away, with a plane at least. I figured going to court to get a proper agreement for seeing her would be traumatic. This made me come off as a nice guy. Instead of weak.
But I did that for myself.
I haven’t seen her in 5 years now. She would be 16 this September.
My umbrella gives in after a gust of wind. I shove it halfway down a trash can outside of grocery store. One of those days. One of many.
Seventeen. Fuck. She’ll be 17 on the 5th.
I reach the office soaking wet, before 8’o clock. Even if my life is shit, there are still things in it that keeps me going, I tell myself. One of them is the sale on baked goods in the local kiosk: Buy a cup of coffee, get a chocolate croissant.
The other one is answers.
Of Monsters is written by Magnus H. Blystad and Robert Bishop.
This is their first publicly available collaboration.
Robert Bishop’s other works can be found here.
His first book, Awakenings: The Fall of Noman – Book 1, is for sale over at Amazon!
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