Excerpts from
Tranquillity Ocean
By Søren Jessen
The dwarf says nothing but laughs coarsely and harshly. The stumps of his rotten teeth glisten with saliva in the gleam of the camping lantern on the table between us, which sends out a cold, glaring light into every nook and cranny of the little hut we are in.
"It's nothing to laugh at," I snap. I am not afraid of the dwarf anymore. I am just angry. Angry that he is sitting there laughing, when I need him to help me – or, at least, to take my story seriously.
He throws back his head and continues to laugh, as if he has not heard me. It sounds eerie and artificial. Like canned laughter running amuck.
Suddenly, he stops. His head, which is altogether too big for his small body, turns with a sudden start. He stares directly into my eyes with an angry, searching look, which rekindles my apprehension of him. Fearful, I sidle back a bit.
”My dear girl,” he says with exaggerated civility. "I am laughing, because what you have just said makes no sense whatsoever. If you could hear yourself, you wouldn't understand a word of it. You would break out in laughter, just as I have done. You would sit there wondering whether someone who has just said what you have said … whether that person was quite right in the head." He shouts these last words, as he thumps himself on his high, altogether too high, forehead.
”Yes, but …” I stop. I want to go on with my incredible story to convince him that I have really experienced the things I claim; but it suddenly hits me that he is probably right. I was just so relieved to have found him – the dwarf (who is, it seems, the only one who can help me) that the words just poured out of me without rhyme or reason.
I heave a sigh. Take a deep breath and slowly release it a couple of times.
”Okay, okay, okay. I ... Then, let me start from the beginning."
The dwarf nods. "Fine," he says, leaning back. "Good idea. But this time, tell the story calmly and quietly with as much detail as possible. Details are always important. Even things you might not think are worth telling – they might turn out to be the most important things of all."
”It will take all night, then," I sigh, throwing up my hand in a gesture of futility.
”I've got nothing else to do," he says.
”Hmmm,” I mumble. "Well, then. Okay, I'll start again, but where should I start?"
”Where you think it all began," he mutters.
Translated by Russell Dees
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