Ingemar

I’m standing in the shower thinking about Ingemar.

It’s been a while since I thought about him. I used to think about him all the time. He was an echo of reality in the unreal. He doesn’t exist anymore either, I used to think.

Three years ago he showed up at the gallery opening with artichokes as a gift. That summer we watched Östersund score in stoppage time while Marit, he and I talked about novels. In the fall we played floorball and planned projects, when he got sick. Suddenly sick. Needlessly unfair and unfathomably sick. Two years ago he could still shower and reply to Messenger messages, be guided through a pandemic-empty Nordiska museet and fool around a bit, crossing the line.

Now he can’t, because he only exists as a memory, which is thinning out, because of everything else that just keeps going as if nothing had happened.

There’s war in Ukraine, the soldiers’ children drawing for me, there’s Bank ID for my daughter, there’s overly rich cat food, a plumbing overhaul, pen pals from trains, emptying the dishwasher and filling it again. There’s Seville in December, buying new dishcloths, there’s a packing list for Ingarö, there’s someone in Nässjö asking about Asante Kotoko.

There’s a past that wants to be dwelled on.

There are perfect jump shots in basketball as the ball floats in an arc, walks to Nordea to get hold of that damned little device, there are late nights when the brain feels dried up, and mornings when it’s burst open like a wood anemone. There are hugs in bakery lines, hands tugging hair, selfies that obscure the face. There’s a feeling that awakens when someone wants to breathe you in.

There are children having birthdays, children learning to walk, children saying mama. There’s Bianca Ingrosso and her mother and there’s IJustWanttoBeCool and there are football compilations on YouTube. There are ear canals swelling with noise. There is noise that is someone else’s essence.

All the time, there is no Ingemar, I think in the shower, and I think that I don’t think about that quite often enough, but that this must be how it is, when someone no longer is. And then a little less for each day that everything else is.