Tegelön

Well, this is about as dark as it's going to get, he says, while we busy ourselves with clearing off dinner plates and wiping slugs off our abandoned shoes. To the east, the sky lies dark blue, but the western front is lined with orange and pink, and the sea reflects a silver glow. Stockholm hides beyond the pines; all the world is silent. 

We took the boat out in the archipelago, let the water spray on our thin summer dresses. She collects sharp tan lines on her shoulders, and the passing sail boats wave nonchalant shrugs in our general direction. My warm skin itched to dive in, and I jumped off the back of the boat into the cool, still waters between two islands before I had the chance to think twice. It should have been cold, the summer is still so young, but I swam and I swam and every stroke was as delicious as the one before. With every twirl underneath the surface, another dark, mauling month ran off my skin, and I climbed back onto the boat like a newborn, with no recollection of a winter in my bones. 

It is the same story, year after year and yet I never tire. The blissful amnesia, the overpowering conviction that the endless darkness is worth it. That this one moment, where the sun never sets and the air is thick with honeysuckle and birdsong, is enough to make you live a life and win the war. Thirty-one summers and yet each one is the very first. My eyes are wide open. 

I see a Life, and I take it.