A Man from the North

I work in a factory, and it's not very satisfying really. But I have gotten used to it. At the end of the evening shift, I stand in the shower and let the warm water filter down my body and drain off the residues of carbide dust that have stuck to my pores.

Today Gunvor traveled again. I think it's good. I feel it's okay, as it is with the two of us now. No bad conscience. I feel excited when I think that I will soon meet Eira.

At the start of the shift, I sent her a message, in the short, almost laconic style, as they sometimes are, the messages that we send between us. At the end of the shift, as I dry myself after the shower, I pick up the phone, turn it on, and wait to get up a new message notification. I am a little surprised because it's not like her. She always uses to answer, at least after a few hours, but not today. I send a new message to her, a brief reminder: «Are you there?»

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I'm a man from the north of the country, and some people have wondered why I landed here, in this small, worn down, dirty, and almost claustrophobic industrial town.

It happened in the way that I started working here many years ago, and later it has become like that. It became like that, among other things, because I did not educate myself. I was at sea for several years in my youth, and later I came here and then it was natural to take the job I got here, and just now I am very happy with it. I did not want to travel north again. It was better to be here, I thought. And then there was a lady at the time as well.

I never thought it would go the way it did. When it was over with my ex, I got along with Gunvor, the partner I have now. It was perhaps a bit coincidental, and many people probably think that we are a slightly different couple, she and I, but it has become a habit. Most things that last often become a habit. We have disagreed several times, and we have had serious quarrels. But then we also got together again, reconciled and then we have many times had it okay  -  yes, even very nice, for a long time afterwards.

It helps well that she is very much away, on business trips to the capital and other places, and in that way, we do not really see much to each other.

When she comes home after a trip, she is usually quite walkable, in the sense sociable, and not very annoyed. But when she has been home for a few weeks, it can be a bit challenging. But I live well with her and the way we have it. The fact that she does not want children fits in pretty well for most as well.

I actually enjoy my life the way it is at present. Gunvor and I, we have become accustomed to it as it is. But I really do not have a bad conscience for what I do now when I meet Eira. The reason for that is pretty simple because my partner does exactly what she wants. For example, I am pretty sure that if she is given the opportunity to cheat on me, she will not deny herself anything and she probably also have done it on several occasions.

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I’m standing in the locker room; I take my shirt and trousers down from the pegs in the cupboards. I thought I heard an alert from the phone, but I can’t see anything.

I think of her, Eira, the woman to whom I have attached myself because she has attached herself to me. I put the thermos bottle in the bag, put the lunch box in the same place, lock the cupboard, take the bag by the handle and go out.

I walk across the night-black asphalt between the bathroom building and the factory gate, feel raindrops against my face. I am confused about what to do now. What I’m waiting for is a sign from her, just a few words like can tell me that everything is fine. It’s nothing else, I hope. I ask for a little hint so I can know that things are as we said.

As I walk up towards the block on the flatland, I try to clear my thoughts and recall her messages. In the period we have known each other, she has sent me many short messages in which she says things that I like to read. I like that, and the short messages make me long for her.

When I get inside the door I first walk around the room and turn on the light. Nothing is so discouraging as coming home alone to a dark, cold and empty apartment.

I check my mobile for alerts and decide to actively take care of the case. I sit down with the PC and open the inbox of my e-mail. It’s a little strange to re-read these messages. I feel that I smile when I read what I myself have written and what she reports back. She answers a little strangely, with something resembling slogans or life advice. She says that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved. She writes that the future can be planned, but we can never have full control.

I can see from what I answered that I let myself be lured into this somewhat strange way of writing, because I have written back that having loved and lost is second best. And better than having loved and lost is to love and win.

I hate to lose, but I did not write it to her. Instead, I see that I wrote three times the same three words to her, and I ended by writing something about that love and winning is the only option I see for myself.

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It is dilapidated and neglected, the old factory on the river plain, and this is how it has been for many years. The foreign owners are not interested in investing fresh capital in modernization measures, expansions, conversions and the like.

I many times have thought of the factory as a human. It’s a tired centenarian. He has seen his best days long ago, this factory. He is a dying old man at the bottom of a fjord arm in the western parts of the country.

But he gives me work, as long as it lasts. He gives me income, the money I need to keep going. So that I can go in here, feel the heat from the furnaces, see the hellish fire that burns deep inside. I can walk around here while I think of her who makes me soft and warm inside me.

Then I would rather bite into the inconvenient shift work hours, taste the fine carbide dust, breathe in the airborne dust that might give me a serious illness, what do I know? Because after I met Eira, I decided that it has become more to live with, to walk around here in the factory, stand with the broom or shovel in hand and think about life and her.

It's just that now it is no longer as it was. I feel an inner turmoil, I feel that something is wrong. Something fundamental has changed, I'm waiting for a word from her, I need to know that she wants me. I want to feel alive.

Restless, I look at the phone log, open the inbox in the e-mail program, but see no new message.

I want contact, I write a few words in the hope of getting an answer.

---

Hours go by, I feel like I’m starting to get fed up with this.

Then the night goes by and the next day goes by without me seeing anything of her. Nothing! Time goes by, she does not answer.

I cannot accept this. She becomes less and less visible. Hour by hour, day by day, she becomes more and more distant to me. I decide to take action.