Jönköping

She sits at the curve of Vattern’s frozen belly, while a flock of swans beat at the dark blue waters, trying to simulate their summer frolicking. She smiles. They play in vain. There is no cure for this weariness, this dreary half-waking.

She sighs, a cold breath. The lithe swans scatter as wind cuts through their ranks, a punishing executioner’s knife, covetous of the youthful and lively. She thinks of her childhood, of King Magnus, and days nearer the beginning of things. Perhaps it was as cold then, she couldn’t remember. Too many pillages and burnings, their ravages do their damage. Tighter now, she pulls her clothes over her hoary body.

Harder the wind blows. Sometimes she leaves her icy seat, go down to that part of town where more people linger, more people move. Too fast, really, for her slow eyes. Quick, ground-devouring strides, their legs like motor, a technology she still can’t quite catch. Perhaps that’s just how it is nowadays. Everything everyone is moving on, and she’s just there, waiting for something to give. Some kind of technical fault, error message, virus. Of course in the end nothing gives, nothing except her.

Sometimes she feels like the poor china that people are too embarrassed to set on the table when important guests come. Or a poor relation that people want to forget. They zoom past her with their eyes down, hands in their pockets. She likes to pretend they still think of her sometimes, on the warmer days, when the wind is kind, or when the sun shines a wee bit brighter. Those times she dons more colours, hoping to catch a glance or two, or if heavens allow, someone to stop, take a breath, take a picture.

God, it is cold. She strikes a match, looks at the flame. Such a fragile holocaust of warmth; so quickly alive, so quickly dead. She strikes another match, lights up her smoke, and watches the fumes travel out over the frozen waters. It’s been her weakness since middle age, when the machines came. The fights wore her down, but their smoke gave her comfort. Maybe she’s still paying for that betrayal, but it’s been too long past for that to matter. It’s been too long past anything really.

Now she rises, white clothes gathering about her. Her hands and heart are ice, but her eyes lukewarm as she looks out towards the lake’s horizon. Vattern is melting, yes, there is always that. Perhaps an early spring and maybe, just maybe, another chance for green.