A Woman in the Bed

It's dark in the room. The night hangs down outside, at the other side of the curtains.

I stand in the middle of the room, in front of the mirror. I stand completely still until I hear her breathing. She is lying on her back. The nose sticks up, the chest lifts almost imperceptibly. The duvet over the body moves regularly, up and down, up and down.

I walk quietly across the floor and into the bathroom. I close the door before turning on the light.

After the bathroom, I walk across the living room floor and stand by the balcony door. In the west, behind the high birches, I can see a bit of the sea. When I turn the other way I see the treetops on the hill to the east, where the sun will soon come and give us a new day.

There is a small glimmer of light over the landscape that warns that the day is on its way. I look towards the barn, where the owl uses to sit during the day. Now at night she is out hunting for small rodents, mice, lemmings and such small creatures.

I see nothing of the big owl, and I turn and walk towards the bedroom door. I open the door carefully. She should not be awakened.

On the way across the floor, my gaze is caught by the shadow in the large mirror. I know I'm that shadow. I'm the man in the mirror, a middle-aged man, the beginning ring around my stomach, my hair cut short but still in disarray. I have just gotten up from bed, have been the obligatory trip in the bathroom. And when I come out of there, my gaze is captured by that man there; he who stands in the mirror and looks at me, half-naked, in only his panties. The face in the mirror is severe, may appear almost a little sour.

I dislike what I see in the mirror. I turn my head and look at her. I only see a little of her, the woman lying in my bed; she is a big dark lump. She is this unknown woman who is no longer a stranger. She is the one who has let me come close, the one who has opened up to me, after a somewhat difficult start.

I feel something soft and warm inside me. I look at her, the one I have won now, the one I finally won this time, after a rather grueling battle.

Was that how it was? Or was it something else? She and I. The woman lying in bed, and the man standing in front of the bed, the man from the mirror.

She looks at me. When I do not see her I feel that she looks at me. I do not see her eye, but I know. She looks at me when I do not know. When she thinks I do not know. I try to imagine what she sees, when she secretly looks at me. I try to imagine her feelings, the colors in her heart, how her lips live and move. I try to imagine the shape of her mouth when she secretly looks at me.

Who is she? Who is she, this woman who after a little hesitation one day still chose me? And who am I, as she after a somewhat difficult start decided to approach, to put her love on?

I look at her in the mirror, see her lying in my bed, on the left side of the bed. In the mirror I see myself, my thin, pale arms.

I see myself in bed, where I will lie on my side, in the fetal position. Soon I will turn, soon I will turn my body so that I lie facing her, soon I will look at her, meet her eye with mine, soon I may smile pale. I will lift one foot over her, lift myself on elbow, hanging in the room above her. We're going to be two naked bodies under the duvet in my bed. For a moment we will be real and the world out there has disappeared into the big void.

I go out of the mirror, I will take the two or three steps across the floor towards the bed where she is.

I hesitate a bit, decide to go to the window. I want to see the landscape, the high birches and the big oak down by the beach. I hold my breath, too abruptly and unexpectedly I see the big owl flying past. At a distance of only a few meters, the large bird flies past, towards the barn. Right behind her, two magpies flutter after the owl. They bend as the owl steers into the barn room towards its resting place.

I hold my breath, I turn to the bed. I think: There's a woman lying in my bed.

It is completely quiet in the room. In the semi-darkness I can barely hear her breath. It's early morning, it's a gray and dry November morning. She is lying and is quiet. I lie down carefully on the bed and am quiet, apparently. For inside me there are sounds. Inside me there are voices, a chaos of voices. Inside me, these dark shadows dance, these snooty, shapeless creatures that lack a face. I want to stretch out my hand, I want to let my fingers glide over naked skin, let her warmth confirm again and once again that she is here and I am here, that we two are where we are - and that everything else, the dark and the threatening, it is at a distance. It is at a safe distance, and we can both close our eyes and feel the heat, skin to skin.