No rest

This one's a darling. I wrote it sort of stream of conciousness-style, just writing exactly what I thought at the time. It might be a zombie story, or not. From 2010.

Cold. Wet. Where am I? I can’t see, and it feels like I’ve been here for months. Perhaps it’s just days. Or seconds. Time doesn’t quite seem to pass when you’re locked up with only yourself to keep you company. How long have I been here, like this? I can’t tell. I have no idea anymore about anything. I don’t even know how it started. All I remember is a past sense of peace, of belonging and now… This flesh. The flesh and the vile thing that is pounding inside my chest. How soft everything feels. The blood rushing through my veins. If I push my two hands together long enough they become warm. Water comes out of the surface of my skin, the tiniest little drops from the pores, but I can still feel them all to well. It feels like I am drowning. My body is so frail and if a put a hand towards my head then all that separates me from touching my brain is skin and a thin slice of bone, some membranes. It is disgusting. Over time I have started to feel even weaker, like I can no longer stand. Every time I rise I feel like I will fall and there is this horrific, twisting ache somewhere close to the middle of my body. The worst thing, however, is the pounding. I can not escape. I run, I scream and it still doesn’t go away. I pound back at it and it still doesn’t go disappear. I would focus on something else to make it go away, to not hear it, feel it, if there was only anything else to focus on. All there is, me and my decaying body and my lost sanity.

I was asleep for centuries and this is how I awoke.

A flash. Everything is suddenly so bright and parts of me that I forgot I had start to hurt. The air in the room turns white and I turn away and cover my eyes with what I think is my arm. Something sends tingles trough my nerves and makes me twitch. I feel a sensation that is so new and yet so familiar. Touch, the sensation of another persons hand on my shoulder. I try to brush it off.

“Hey, girl”, somebody says. “I won’t hurt you. I’ve been waiting for this for a really long time.”

The voice is dark and low and it soothers me. Suddenly the light is not as bright anymore. I can see. In front of me is a man and he is holding out a blanket towards me. I suddenly realise that I am naked, so I grab it and use it to hide myself. In horror I realise that my hands are nearly dried out, cracking. Yellow. I try to shout but all that comes out of my mouth is a raspy groan.

“Don’t worry”, the man says. “We’ll fix it. You need more fluids. We just have to get you cleaned off first.”

He carries me up a couple of stairs and we enter a room full of strange machines. The man puts me inside one of them and presses a button and a flood of water falls down on me. I shriek and the man tells me not to worry. It is supposed to do this, the machine. The water is warm, but not too warm and I stand there for a while. When I look back at the man, I realise that he is looking away. I do not know if it is out of courtesy or due to the disgust he must feel for my dehydrated naked body. A strange smell is coming from my decayed body and it is unbearable. I look at my hand again and instead of being cracked it is now sticky and swollen and has started to turn into a sickly shade of grey. I am not certain whether this is improvement or not. I take a step towards the man in order to alert him and then I see my own image in the mirror. I would cry if I could. By now, I have regained enough sense to realise that a human being should not look like this. My face looks like it is melting, decomposing, and parts of it has fallen off. The one of my cheeks which is still relatively whole is covered with blisters. I imagine my skin bubbling, boiling. It is a dark yellow mixed with blue and green. I have lost nearly all of my upper lip. I move my eye a bit lower and realise that there is a big hole in my torso, big enough to see my guts. I would vomit if I could. The man realises what I am up to and comes rushing to me with my blanket.

“Don’t look”, he says. “I told you we’ll fix it. Later. I need skin to transplant to you first, and some new organs.”

I don’t understand a word he says but due to my lack of voice I can’t object. He looks as me as if he is trying to figure out what to do and then he sweeps me up in the blanket and carries me to another room. He puts me down on an uncomfortable, green couch and goes into another room. He returns with some woman’s clothing, underwear and a very simple red dress.

“Here you go”, he says. “I hope it’s the right size. I did not take your measurements, it seemed like a improper thing to do.”

He helps me put on the clothes and then smiles at me, like a proud parent.

“You are such a marvellous creation”, he says. “I can’t believe I actually managed to do this.”

I still have no idea what he is talking about, but I have the feeling it is something of greater importance than putting clothes on me.

He lifts me up again, saying my legs won’t be strong enough to keep me stable for several days so I can’t walk. However, I should apparently try to wiggle my toes. It should help, somehow. He carries me down to the kitchen where he proceeds to feed me an ill-tasting liquid.

“We’ll probably need to get your vocal chords replaced. They’re beyond repair”, he says.

“We will accomplish wonders, you and I”, he says.

Let me take your hand, I'm shaking like milk

Ice cream macaron with strawberries

Det här är inte ett inlägg fött ur desperation, det är en distanserad betraktelse

Jag kan inte tala. Jag vet att jag inte kan tala, även fast jag kan. Det bor en annan person inom mig, instängd. Som inte alltid kan ta sig ut och då det blir det ”jag vet inte”. Det är inte alltid det att jag inte vet. Ibland är det att jag inte vet, ibland är orden bara ett försvar. När man säger dem får man inga fler frågor. Tre små ord som ingenting betyder. Jag vill komma nära. Jag har alltid velat komma nära, men det är alldeles för nära för att fungera. Jag sätter gränserna själv och vet inte ens varför jag sätter dem. Samtidigt vet jag. Om ingen kommer nära behåller jag min distans. Om ingen kommer nära slipper jag känna. Min kapacitet att ibland inte känna är den största anledningen till att jag finns kvar här idag. Jag skriver bättre än jag talar. Nu för tiden talar jag väl, förut talade jag som ett brådmoget barn, innan det talade jag inte alls. Jag skriver bättre än jag talar ändå. Jag har vänner som säger att jag är en annan person i skrift. Det oroar mig. Vem är den riktiga mig, i sådana fall? Jag har vänner som säger att mitt skriftliga jag är så kallt, aggressivt, direkt, sarkastiskt. Jag tycker mest att mitt skriftliga jag är besatt, tvångsmässigt. Med andra personer blir jag en annan person. Jag låtsas inte bli någon annan, utan jag blir det på riktigt. Den fnittrande, nöjda, lite osäkra, positiva, knasiga är också jag. Jag kan vara så när jag är ensam med. Fast när jag är ensam märks det knappt för tvångsmässigheten. För det kalla, hårda, aggressiva. Lycka är ingen djupt förankrad egenskap hos mig. Den fladdrar bara på ytan. Jag måste kämpa för att ankra fast den ordentligt. Ibland är allting samma sak och ingen skillnad finns. Ibland uppstår total upplösning, sönderdelning, sönderfall. Jag är lite överallt hela tiden. Jag är många olika saker. Det är så det ska vara, men jag orkar inte. Det kanske är så att allt är samma sak, men bara delar syns. Toppen av ett isberg. Så varför syns inte allt? Varför kan inte hela mig tala? Det bor en annan person inom mig, instängd. Hon kan inte alltid ta sig ut, men ibland kan hon det. Det lätta flyter på ytan och syns för alla. Det jag faktiskt bryr mig om kommer fram när jag litar på dig. Mitt skriftliga jag sidor låses oväntat upp av olika personer som råkar besitta olika kvaliteter som kan locka fram en sida, men bara en i taget. Många har sett något, men ingen har sett allt. Men inget går att pressa fram. Det är viktigt att komma ihåg det. Jag stryps på en gång. Var försiktig. Döm och håna inte, och du ska få se mer än vad du tror. Jag kan vara mitt skriftliga jag öga mot öga med dig då, tillslut. Bland annat. Jag behöver bara tid och en brottningsmatch med min hjärna. Tillslut står jag där, med insidan på utsidan. Många har sett något, men ingen har sett allt. Vill du se allt hjälper det bara om jag skriver till dig. Att ingen tänkt på det. Om livet var delvis skriftligt skulle allt vara mycket lättare.

Puppet

I'm moving all my old short stories to this blog, one by one, and will post them here instead in the future. I wrote this in 2009.

Jack is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying his best to stop the seemingly endless stream of blood coming from his nose. Nosebleed, again? Jack wonders if there is something wrong with his nose. A childhood friend of his had very sensitive veins in his nose, Jack recalls. Every time he as much as touched his nose a little too hard, or if someone else bumped into it, a massive stream of warm red blood would start to flow from it. It would not stop for nearly an hour. Later in his life, Jack’s friend had to go through a medical procedure which involved burning the veins slightly, in order to make the bleeding stop. Jack remembers that his friend’s description of this procedure in class the next day disgusted him greatly. Now Jack is wondering whether he might have a more mild case of the same condition. He decides for himself that he probably does not, but he had been bleeding from his nose every day in an entire week, which really started to worry him. He pokes another piece of paper into his nose in order to soak up the blood, but it keeps on flowing. He pushes the piece of paper in deeper, and suddenly he feels an excruciating pain spread rapidly trough his body. He falls to the ground, passes out and wakes up on the cold stone floor about half an hour later. This settles it, he thinks to himself. I’m going to the darn doctor.

After the visit to the doctor, Jack is feeling even more confused and terrified than he did before. When he told the doctor about the horrible pain he had felt, the doctor wondered if he might have pushed the paper in way to deep, perhaps all the way to his brain. This was of course very unlikely, the doctor pointed out, but he still wanted to examine Jack’s nose to make sure that no damage had come to it. After looking up his nose with a flashlight and a peculiar looking instrument for a while, the doctor suddenly had a rather disturbed look on his face, and he told Jack that he had some sort of outgrowth deep inside his nose which the doctor could not indentify. He had probably pushed the paper too hard into it, which had caused the excruciating pain that caused him to pass out. He was to send him to another doctor, some kind of specialist, in the closest few days since this appeared to be a rather acute matter.

Now Jack is sitting in his car on the way back home, fearing that he has some kind of strange cancer.

The next day did not bring much clarity to the situation. Due to his recently acquired fear of strange diseases and a pain that he may or may not be feeling from the strange outgrowth (he is not perfectly sure, it could all be placebo), he had called in sick early in the morning. Right now, Jack is standing in front of the bathroom mirror again, trying to see the dreadful, disgusting thing that apparently existed inside of his nose. He is holding his head in the most awkward positions and waving a flashlight about in order to see the inside of his nose properly. Then he notices it, and cringes with disgust. Deep inside his nose there is a nearly half-moon-shaped formation, that seems to be made of pink flesh and has large visible veins running all over it, not much unlike spider web. Jack swears to himself. Well, of course it hurts, he thinks. I have some sort of monstrous tumour in my nose. He suddenly thinks it might be a good idea to try and poke it in order to see if it falls of, and doing so he once again falls to the bathroom floor, fainted. Jack awakes, and thinks to himself not to ever try and poke this thing again. The pain that comes out of it is not of this world. It is as if all of his body hurts, even though the outgrowth is only a tiny bulb inside his nose. Jacks ponders to himself, and finds that this thing probably has nerves running from it to all parts of his body, that it is connected and intertwined with every single part of him, and that by trying to get rid of it himself he might seriously screw up his nerve system. He decides to leave it be. However, Jack also makes an interesting observation. The pain seems to be at its strongest in the outgrowth, which means that it is made out of his own flesh and blood. And furthermore, the pain in it highly resembles what most people would call a headache, even though it is not technically inside his head. At the same time, his actual brain is merely suffering the same kind of pain that the rest of his body does. This fact confuses Jack greatly, but he decides to ignore it for now and tell the specialist doctor about it later on.

Jack spends the afternoon thinking about his childhood. He remembers that he always felt very left out, like as if he could not understand the other children. He had always had to study other people a lot in order to be able to appear normal to them. The only people who actually wanted to hang out with him were geeks, like his childhood friend with the nosebleed. His childhood friend who he now is sure he does not have the same condition as. He starts imagining that he is actually a different species, one with a strange nerve system centred in its nose. An alien, perhaps. Perhaps he can do extraordinary things. Or perhaps he just read too much science fiction as a child. Jack starts to get annoyed with himself, and decides to go to sleep.

The next visit, four days after the first one, determines that the outgrowth is definitely not cancer. The specialist had taken a small sample of the outgrowth, but this had caused a pain so strong that Jack had never felt anything like it before in his life. It felt like someone took a piece of him, a piece very vital for his function, and it hurt about as much as you imagine it would if someone spontaneously ripped your leg off. Jack passes out, and the greatly worried specialist called the IR. Now Jack awakes, sitting on a hospital bed with needles in the bends of his arms. The specialist is telling him that he apparently has some kind of until now unheard of parasite in his nose, and every time it is hurt it releases alien hormones in his body causing the excruciating pain he feels. It must be removed as soon as possible, and the hospital is currently flying in a specialist team from Belgium. Jack is still feeling awfully hurt and very nauseous, and that strange feeling of a missing body part has not yet left him. Weak and scared out of his mind he is leaning back against the bed. Jack is asking the specialist if there is a chance that he might die. The specialist looks at him with a very serious face and says: “I’m afraid there is.”

It’s time for surgery and Jack is pumped full of drugs and his supposed to drift away, but for some reason he dos not. His head is perfectly clear, although he can not speak nor move. He is very frightened, and feels like as if he is going to vomit due to the pain caused by the surgeons trying to cut the outgrowth from his flesh. Suddenly, the pain easies as he feels himself separate from the organism and finally he feels a freedom he has never felt before. He is cold, hungry, tired and in a great deal of pain, but there is nothing stuck on him anymore. Suddenly, a sense of alarm strikes him. He can not se. He could before, but now his sight is gone. As he tries to move his limbs, he feels that he no more has them. He is tiny, solid and round. Trying not to panic, Jack is trying to speak. Upon hearing hissing sounds come out of what is probably supposed to be his mouth, he is losing his clarity of mind. Screaming loudly, Jack hears the following words: “It is screaming! It is screaming! What kind of dreadful creature is this! For Christ’s sake, kill it! Who cares about the scientists studying it, it might kill you! It’s dangerous! Look what it’s done to poor Jack! He is already dead!”

Upon hearing this, Jack is experiencing the greatest confusion he has ever felt in his twenty-four years long life. He is trying to puzzle the pieces together, wriggling his round little body in panic. Then, there is nothing.

Tavelklänningar/Dresses with painting prints

Jag älskar tavelklänningar. Det är lite som om en naken brud sprang in på ett museum, hittade en tavla att skyla sig med och ba kom på: "Men guuuu va snyggt, den här kan jag ha som balklänning!".



I love dresses with painting prints. They sort of feel like as if some naked chick ran into a museum, found a painting to cover up with, and then goes "OMG so pretty, I can use this as an evening dress!" (This sounds a lot more fun in Swedish for some reason.)


Anyhow, that's why I'm going to buy one. Or several.

All pictures are from Juliette et Justine.

Day 6 -18

Day 6 – Handwrite your favourite lyric and take a picture.


I'm just doing what the challenge tells me to.
And if the challenge told you to jump off a cliff, would you do that too?
Err, probably not.

These are my favorite lyrics, I guess. Sex Gang Children's "Arms of Cicero". I haven't written the last part because I cannot for the sake of my life figure out what Andi sings there. If you can, please help me.

As huge a fan as I am of their sound on Song and Legend, this song has some pretty fantastic lyrics that I can't get out of my head. I mean, the lyrics on Song and Legend are awesome too, but this... This is mindfuck. And still so beautiful. Lyrics like this with a Song and Legend sound, though... If something like that existed, I'd probably burst out in tears of joy or something.

Also, on another note... Why do SO MANY goth songs contain the words walk away?
I mean this, Play Dead, SoM, even gothy new wave band Sys of Choi... Is walking away just a super goth thing to do, or what?

I'm also really fond of everything that Chrissie McGee of Bone Orchard has ever written. Can you tell I like slightly surreal stuff?
And as you can see, my handwriting is weird.

Day 7 – Ten of your favourite goth bands.
Just goth ones? Just ten? Okay, I'll try only putting bands that have made a large portion of goth music here. It might border into postpunk anyhow, 'cause that's how I roll.

Bone Orchard

Shall I Carry the Budgie Woman?

Stopping at the mouth
With leather corks
Reviving dead friendships
In a vegetable patch

As mentioned above in 6. I love love love them. Mancre! is fantastic too, probably would have posted it if I could find it on youtube.

Strike, storm the pause!
Like this is it, with daggers drawn
Stabbing like this, below the heart
With straining nylon ribs
Of dampened cellophane
A knife for a knife
She's kind as a rule
She wears me like a garther

Hell, I could quote the whole song. Or I would if I could, I can't make out a word a few seconds after this ends. Come to think of it, if I could make out the words, perhaps these would be my favourite lyrics. Someone with better hearing, please help me?

Sex Gang Children

State of Mind

Yes. Dear god yes. Beautiful and slightly chaotic.

Blood and Roses
(Okay, I know they're not *super* goth, but also peace punk, blah blah punk, what have you. I'm no genre expert, don't throw rocks at me. I just felt I needed to put them here. Don't say they've never made a goth song, or I will hide outside your window and play "Necromantra" for you every time you try to sleep for the next year or so.)

The Tower Falls

These are pretty new to me, only listened to them for a year or so... But I've had all of their songs on repeat many many times and I never seem to get tired of them. Awesome guitarr, awesome lyrics, a slight Aleister Crowley obsession.

The Virgin Prunes
(Also not *super* goth, please cease the rock-throwing.)

Twenty Tens

They are long time favourites of mine, I've loved them since I was 14 and I keep liking them more and more for each year.

13th Chime

Cuts of Love

These are lovely.

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Israel

The first band I ever loved. Heheheh.

Look Back In Anger

Flowers


Ausgang

This is Where I Was Meant to Fall


The Dancing Did

Badger boys


Danielle Dax
(Also not *super* goth most of the time, but the video below totally is.)

Pariah

Gosh, I love her music. And her hair used to be so amazing.

Day 8 – What's your worst and best experience with non-Goths?
Well, since I don't only hang out with goths, both some of my best and some of my worst experiences has been with people who can't fucking stand goth music. I've fallen in love with non-goths, had fantastic friendships with non-goths, had acts of unexpected kindness done to me by non-goths, been lied to and betrayed by non-goths, been cheated on by non-goths, been bullied for many, many years to the point of total breakdown by non-goths.

Oh, I'm just messing with you. I realise that this means "what are the best/worst things that happened with non-goths due to you being a goth", I just have a disturbing sense of humour. And none of these things happened to me because I was a goth.

The best... I dunno. People telling me how cool I look. And variations on that. People giving me stuff (I've gotten earrings, necklaces, puzzles...). People holding up doors for me. People just seem to have a nicer attitude towards me when I look goth. Hahah, no, really! When I dress down and try to look "normal", shady guys grab my ass and I get cat-called. When I dress cutesy, people become assholes-of-doom, or at least stop me everywhere by grabbing my shoulders only to ask me really stupid questions. You'd think it'd be the other way around, no? But it isn't. People respect me when I have teased hair, red lips and winklepickers. God knows why.

The worst... Noone has ever done anything really bad to me because of the whole goth thing. People have acted like assholes when I've dressed all cute and colorful, but when I look like a goth.... Noone acts rude towards me, or any ruder than they would to any other young female at least. No idea of why. I guess swedes just love goths?

Day 9 – What genre of music do you dislike?
Err... I'm not sure I dislike any genre. There are plenty of genres I don't like, but it's not dislike, it's this neutral can't-be-bothered-ness. I guess I dislike schlager?

Day 10 – What do you hate and love about the subculture?
What I love:
The music, first and foremost! Duh. It's beautiful. The only other kind of music I like as much is postpunk. And if you say that goth and postpunk are the same thing, I will bite your nose 'til it bleeds, then lecture you to hell and back. They are indeed similiar, but not the same thing. As I have tried explain to many a drunk goth or synthpop or industrial fan at parties. (And by industrial fan I don't mean a device that fans, which is used in industries, but a person who likes industrial music.)
I've met some really awesome people due to a shared interest in this kind of music too, which is awesome.
I love the way most people in the subculture, even posers, assholes and total newbies, tend to have incredibly awesome hair. The world need more awesome hair.
That the goths who don't fall into the categories mentioned below in "what I hate" are usually really nice and have an excellent sense of humour and know to make fun of themselves.
That the genre never fucking dies. It can go horrible, then great, then horrible again, but it never disappears. It is incredibly stubborn, no? I like stubborn things.

What I "hate" (Such a strong word!):
Misconceptions in the media. All the "goth-specialist" culture critics who wouldn't know real goth music if it bit them in the ass.
Posers who tell me I'm not goth for not having a deathhawk.
How some people are really arrogant and still so sensitive about the subculture. How they act all "gother than thou", but can't tolerate being questioned themselves. How they go up to anyone with teased hair and accuse them of being a hipster who probably has never even heard the Banshees, but then has no idea about the actual history of goth music themselves. True story bro.
Lack of diversity in visuals. Deathrockers are super pretty, I can't stress this enough, but it's not for everyone and the way everyone seems to be wearing ripped tights intead of shirts and pants, underbust corsets, contrasting neon colors and have meter-high deathhawks in this country is making people think that this is all that goth is, and that anything unlike it is "not troo". Also, I want to see teased hair in other styles than deathhawks. Please, be creative. Make me happy.
Also, bad modern "deffrawk" bands that sound like electropop gone wrong. Ugh.

Day 11 – Is Goth a lifestyle for you?
In a way it is. I mean, the music is a pretty big part of my life, I listen to it pretty much every day. Also, I really like the aesthetics, not just with clothes, but with art, interior decorating... (I'm not talking frilly *gothic* aesthetics here though, but rawer, more surreal ones. Think of the cover art to "Pornography".) It's like there's always a little piece of the subculture with me all the time. OMG I sound like the biggest dork ever.

However, it's not all I like nor all I do.

Day 12 – What's your gothic inspiration?
Music-wise, see 7. Duh.

Fashion wise, I get inspiration from looking at clothes in stores, people's outfits, makeing stuff up on my own... My favourite way of shopping is going into a second hand store, finding something incredibly ugly, deciding to put it on to see how stupid it will look, falling in love with the damned thing and realising it looks awesome on me and instantly coming up with 15 different outfits that go with it. That's how I get most of my fashion-ideas.

Also, this tumblr makes me to horrible, wonderful things to my hair: http://nowthisisgothic.tumblr.com/

Day 13 – What was your first band t-shirt?
A The Cure t-shirt. I actually don't own that many band t-shirts.

Day 14 – What was your best and worst DIY disaster.
I don't DIY much. I've only altered straps and sleeves and the like, and it's always gone well.

Day 15 – Your favourite or most expensive item in your wardrobe.
The most expenive one is my Innocent World winter coat. (Though mine is black.)


But we're talking goth compatible stuff here, no? (Although wearing my IW coat with trad goth stuff due to lack of a warmer winter coat has earned me many a compliment, strangely enough.)
That would make it this corset from Morgana Femme Couture:


My favourite however cost me like $15 so expensive really does not equal favourite haha. It's this skirt:


Day 16 – What's the most casual you've ever dressed?
I dress casual all the time. Black pants or pencil skirt, black top, leatherjacket, zero makeup = me 4-5 days a week. I don't know where this nonsense about goths being super dressy all the time comes from?

Day 17 – Your favourite Goth brand.
I don't like most "goth brands". Their stuff is usually terrible of both quality and design, and honestly not even particulary goth looking. I thrift a lot and possibly alter stuff a bit. And I buy from independent designers. The only goth brand I care for at all is Alice Auaa. 30% of their stuff is tacky as hell, 30% is complete utter brilliance and 40% too uglypretty not to like.

Day 18 – Worst hair experience.
Ehh... I don't know. I guess when my hair refuses to stand up where it's supposed to? Or combing out teased hair? I've never really had a super bad hair experience.

Night sky

Don't send me flowers

I knew the coffin maker

This hair took like two hours to style... But it was totally worth it.

On not writing outfit rundowns

There is a reason why I don't write outfit rundowns in my blog posts. I don't want my outfit posts to be shopping lists. I want them to function merely as inspiration. I want them to give people new ideas, not a tip about where to buy that new blouse or dress.

I often see people buy exactly the same things as people they follow on the internet. I try not to do it myself, but it's quite irresistable. "That dress looks so good on her, so it'd probably look good on me too", blah blah, so on. And when you know exactly where to get it, why not?

But that's awfully uncreative. And I don't really want that.

Also, I often forget where I buy things, or buy them second hand, so outfit rundowns of mine rarely make sense.

Blue roses and butterflies