The post posttruth journal
All your favourite distortions from here, there, everywhere and nowhere.
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She likes to sit on Jo's bed since she left. Scan the room. Remember. Wait. Dark pink linen curtains. Swaying slightly. Shimmering midnight sun beams on the wall that some years ago after Sigrid had crept in Jo told her were the old gods staring at them. Look, there’s your friend Loki making all his twisted babies. Like Fenrir. Yeah. He’s there. And there’s Baldr. Which one’s Baldr. What’s he look like? Baldr’s the one everyone likes. What happens to Baldr. Oh he dies and then all the gods get mad and kill each other and the world ends. What Loki too? I don’t know. I think he messed up or killed Baldr or something. Anyway he was cool. Nobody could tell him what to do. Just like you. Silver music stand. One sheet suspended sideways like a freeze frame image. Solveig’ song. Pencil markings: SOFT!!! It’s sad isn’t it. Yeah it’s supposed to be. Downstairs when a door slams. Jo wraps her arms around Sigrid and gently leans her chin on the top of her head. One photograph pinned to the wall. The garden. Long grass. Squinting Sigrid in pigtails, mickey mouse shirt. Arms wrapped around Jo at the waist. Jo in a white sundress, puppy Fenrir in her arms. Why wouldn’t she take this with her? A dark wooden desk, empty and clean except for a black jewelry box. Sigrid wanders over to open it again, as she has done multiple times these last weeks. A little ballerina spins. She closes and opens it again and again, there her mind's eye sketches Jo’s frozen grin.
No flute.
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She knows nowhere places. Places with no sea, no cool waves, no sand. She knows the never ending roots of a nothingland tree, the serpent that eats itself, the missing eye. She knows war. The pauses of breath that last too long. The clicks of imperfectly oiled keys, that silvery sound sharpening despite diaphragmatic resistance. She knows bloodsoaked places, sees over all nowhere worlds, knows mistakes before she makes them, knows that e to d flat, e to d flat, e to d flat still won’t get that fourth finger moving without a lag when it’s crunch time. Knows that body betrays mind regularly, and that mind rarely forgives. She watches a gentle god bleed, and the venom of winding serpents drip down majestic walls. She tastes wolf mauled giant flesh, sees the nowhere tree shudder, hears Odin’s endless questions that are met with no comforting answers. What if he had never asked the old witch how things would go wrong? The nothing gods shoot barbs into her darting knuckles as the fingernails of the dead float like blurry notes on the page. Does she know why are they always so far away when she needs them? She sees hot stars tumble, a blackening sun, an unleashed wolf, and an old witch hang her head and sink into oblivion, pulling the whole nowhere world with it. She knows nowhere places, but she knows somewhere places, too. Places with sea and cool waves and sand. Places with this tree, and that tree, and they all stand tall and smell good, and offer shelter. Places without self-eating serpents, but tiny little wobbly green blobs your sister finds in the garden and gently places on your nail, and you shudder a little bit but she tells you they don’t bite and that one day they’ll explode from a cocoon looking really cool. Places with simple major scales and arpeggios, and all the old songs you once learnt that flow so effortlessly despite all the wars you once waged against them. Places with loud, incessant barking, and a wolf’s tail that wags so enthusiastically it nearly capsizes you. Places where a door slams shut and a girl screams, ‘I’m never going to get this right’, and then an old witch rises from the earth holding Odin’s dripping, missing eye (it was probably never really his anyway) and says; “uff da. Better luck next time”.
Jo prepares for her flute recital, inspired by old norse end of the world myth 'Völuspá and the Red Army Choir Crowds heaving. White smog floating, stinging. Ding. Shattered ticket machine. Kale salad and pumpkin seeds. Enter. Ctrl-alt-delete. Enter. Canisters and bricks on disgorging streets. Sun’s lacerations. All you fight fans. Ctrl-alt-c. Ctrl-alt-p. Ctrl-alt-delete. Gleaming structures, towering shadows, shuffling reflections. Shadow boxers and entwined torsos. Toes darting, ropes bouncing, bodies capsized. Mouthguards in. Me against me. Arms up. Thuds and tussles. Taste of metal. Tap. Purple elbows. I said tap. You against me. Two. One. Three. Three. One. One. Don’t let him take your back. Psshh. Clanging barbells, swinging bags, bloody knuckles. Keep moving. Psshh. Psshh. Gloves dripping. Dash. Sandy sweat, glittering water, swam so far everyone’s a speck. Dash. Adapted to survive hostile environments. These coffee rings, I just can’t read. Meat cleavers? Ctrl-alt-c, ctrl-alt-p, ctrl-alt-delete. Bleeding Newsfeeds. Ding. They just like to play. Crazy baby girl, there ain’t nothing. Parry. They use us to play each other. Dash. Catch me if you can. Me against me. tap. Bodies in motion. sideways. Sprawl. Sprawl. Hands off his t-shirt. Sinews gleaming. Tires hurtling. Get him to the ground. Plates crashing. Me against you. Keep it Simple, Stupid: don’t take street fights to the ground. Better go now, curfew in an hour. Ding. Philosophical questions: What’s a red line if it only wobbles? What is another word for fear? Dash. Ghosts layered on ghosts layered on ghosts. Dash. face so pretty you don’t see a scar. Which proves. Ctrl-alt-delete. Dash. Ding. Easy. Oss. Head high. One two. Fake. three. Push kick. Push kick. Stop. Hold. Swivel. Side mount. Trap his ankles, trap his ankles. Fingers wrapping forearm. Forearm pressing bicep. My boa constrictor body. Elbow pushing elbow. And squeeze.
Tap. I said tap. Tap. This gorgeous, gleaming, electric city. And everyone got what they paid for. Inspired by that Hong Kong summer, 2019 Once upon a time, Sigrid went to school. She didn’t really like it very much, mostly because it came with the sensation of having something that lived inside her that would press itself violently into her chest at random and without provocation. Once upon a time, Sigrid watched her sister through the small window on the door of the music room. She thought she might stop to say hi, but that thing inside her told her to keep walking. Once upon a time Sigrid’s mother was sent a letter prohibiting either of the girls from bringing the family dog onto the school premises and to consider putting him through a ‘behavioral readjustment’ program that might curb his enthusiasm for biting minors. “Uff da,” said Sigrid’s mother, pushing her hair behind her ear and watching the letter fall into the bin.Once upon a time Sigrid found a pot of paint in the janitor’s closet which smelt very strong and nice and made her dizzy, like she was diving into nowhere. It made the thing inside her stop doing its thing for a bit. Once upon a time, there was a Sigrid before the Sigrid we are hearing about now. She lived in the same town as Sigrid does now, however this Sigrid lived a couple of generations before our Sigrid, long before there were hazy classroom hours and easy-to-access cans of paint. We do not know much about this Sigrid at all, just that she was very bad. She had more babies by more men than anyone was supposed to know about. In her photograph, she wears a dark corset and high collar. Her hair is pinned up high on her head, pulling tightly at her forehead. She stares straight into the camera, her hand rests on her sister’s shoulder. If she had her own thing inside her, it was also invisible. Once upon a time Sigrid lay down alone between the oars on the deck of her little boat in the middle of the fjord, took in the misty snow-capped mountains and jet black sea, and closed her eyes listening to the gentle lapping waves. This felt good too, like freedom. Like diving. Once upon a time, Jo rolled her eyes as she brushed her hair, watching an oil-splattered Sigrid trying to work their grandfather’s old chainsaw from the window of her bedroom. Once upon a time, Sigrid knelt down and looked straight into the eyes of the dog as if to remind him that best friends don’t hurt each other. That was good, too, knowing that he saw her and understood. Once upon a time, Sigrid went to school but failed all her exams and didn’t feel like going back. That thing in her chest made her write down all the wrong answers. Looking back, there were only two things she would miss: The way the janitor left clementines for her by the tins of paint he knew she was tucking into, and the sound of her sister’s arpeggios spilling into those echoing hallways whenever that soundproof door opened and let the outside world in. Like Sigrid, Jo had discovered diving routes of her own. Lucky for her, her method of transport was one that met widespread approval.
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