”Hello, sir.”
”Yea?”
”Uhm. I’m here to see Pam.”
“My daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You the kid?”
“Uhm…”
“I mean the kid she’s been sneaking off with. The … No, let me think. The Williams boy, right?”
Author: Tobias Haglund
The Boat Song by Tobias Haglund
“Dad! Dad! Are we there yet? Are we?”
“No.”
“But we’ve been driving for-EVER!”
“Quiet back there!”
Frida held her breath. Jack looked up in the rear-view mirror. “What are you doing?” He turned to Hanna. “What is she doing?”
Hanna turned around. “Are you holding your breath to be quiet?” Frida nodded her head enthusiastically. Hanna held out her hand and gave Frida a high-five. “I’m also going to hold my breath. We can’t disturb Jack!”
“Alright, ladies. I get it. Should I turn on the radio? Will some music make you happy, honey?”
…at an age of seventy-five. We celebrate his memory with a song Robert Broberg crafted in 1967. Here it is. The classic; ‘The Boat Song’.
One of the sailboats said, to the other that, you are lovely,
we should be boarding in hand, courting far from land,
sailing off unmanned, like only sailboats can,
Bada-bam-bam-bam-bam, bada-bam-bam-bam-bam…
A Writing Piece by Tobias Haglund
Tobias sat down, put his cup of cinnamon coffee beside the keyboard and stretched out his fingers. He moved his neck from side to side making a cracking sound and spoke to himself, but only in his own head.
“Alright, here we go!”
The first couple of sentences were clunky, it took him a while to get into the rhythm. Very much like the first couple of steps of jogging. Not that he ever jogged, whom is he fooling? But the analogy could stay. For now. Maybe he’ll come back to it, like a revisit of- No. No more analogies. On with the story. A setting and a problem. What did he want to say? Ah, he remembered. His girlfriend told him about a tourist guide who literally got into a fist fight with another tourist guide. Oh, but he didn’t like that last sentence. Why didn’t he just write ‘a story about two tourist guides who fought’? Well, it was necessary to part the two since one of them initiated the fight, that’s why.
Spring-Summer Diary by Tobias Haglund
4.3..
Beef, potatoes, gravy, fork and knife to the left, glass to the right. The volume set to eleven and the table lamp lit, not the standalone lamp.
4.6..
Switched detergent!!!
4.8..
Bianca’s visit was cancelled so I had to throw away the pies. Also if I’m being honest to myself I don’t like pies.
4.9..
A raccoon family found the pies. The two trash cans were open and garbage all over our driveway when he left for work. I need to learn! How can I be so stupid!? My shirt’s ruined now of course. A shower will clean my face, but my shirt is ruined. The gray-brownish liquid. It’s in my hair! I need a shower.
Flanders Fields by Tobias Haglund
Jack drives and I give direction. He stops at a smaller war grave cemetery in the countryside around Ypres. Large trees grow here and there, two by the entrance. He puts his hand on one of them and looks up along the trunk. He caresses the bark and repeats it on the other tree. Once in a while a car drives by, bird song comes from the tree tops and if you listen carefully you can hear the canal behind the bunker. We pass a few graves on the way to the bunker. Despite the daylight the inside darkens quickly, after only a few meters. Four small rooms, too small for Jack to stand up. He strokes the smooth mold. I also do. He closes his eyes towards the inner wall and breathes in and out. In and out. I step outside. A small brook flows below, not deep at all and it probably risks freezing every winter. Jack still kneels in the darkness. I call for him and he gets to his feet. He stops by the bulletin board outside. In Flanders Fields. Jack reads the poem by John McCrae and stands silent in front of it for a minute. He looks out over the thousands of poppies and says:
A Night In Vienna by Tobias Haglund
Overlooking the Staatsoper, the Rathaus, the Parlament and the Burgtheater Johann ticked his finger up and down. The lighting made a group of freshmen look as if they flickered underneath an ethereal golden waterfall. They danced and laughed on the market place, took pictures and were allowed to be free. A girl with blond hair in a white dress caught Johann’s attention. The others talked while she almost tiptoed away. He lowered his finger but stopped it from rising again. Her smile. Mesmerising. He stamped his feet on the wooden floor, watched her move around a street lamp. Graceful and delicate. She’s smiling still. And she came around to the other side, his side, the dress and the hair moved like a C Major played by a violin. Back to C, but from where? Not some place dangerous, some place of comfort and trust. Of the golden waterfall and the blend between baroque and renaissance architecture. Was she even real? Could she disappear at any moment if he just closed his eyes? He raised his finger and closed his eyes. She was gone. And so was the group of students.
Before Hitting The Ground by Tobias Haglund
”Did you know Leonardo da Vinci was a farmer’s son?”
“No.”
“He was. Born out of wedlock by a mother who was a farmer. You can imagine how it must have looked. Fifteen century Italy, born and raised by a single mother, yet he still managed to accomplish those many great things. It really is a great argument that every social class should be given a chance, right?”
“Right.”
“The next Leonardo da Vinci might be raised right now by a single mother.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Look. If you don’t want-”
“I want to. Let’s just talk for a while first.” Kevin sat down on the bed. “Would you? Would you please say something. Just… I wanna hear you talk. It soothes me.”
Continue reading “Before Hitting The Ground by Tobias Haglund”
Tobias Haglund in conversation with Adam West
”Sit down, my good friend, sit down.” Adam gave Tobias a stout. “There you go. Something imperial to take your mind off of things.”
“Thank you, kind sir. My mind has been racing, that’s for sure.” Tobias took a big enough sip for it to be called a chug, but he did it in such a gentlemanlike way it remained a sip. “Mind if I share with you what burdens me?”
“I’m all… wait -” Adam chugged a stout and slumped down. “Ears.”
“I’m a Swede, as you know, and therefore when I write English, prone to make mistakes. Some are because it’s a second language and some are genuine mistakes. Let’s start with the latter. Take for instance the word mistake. In Swedish a miss is always spelled with two S. Even when writing mistakes-”
“I’m sensing a pun here…”
Continue reading “Tobias Haglund in conversation with Adam West”
Sadistic Justice by Tobias Haglund
In a damp cellar the mould mixed with the scent of urine coming from his rags. A drop of sweat still dangled at the tip of his black hair from an excruciatingly painful hour as the hatchway closed. He was strong, the strongest, but he had never endured that level of pain. Moss and mice were signs of hope, or at least hope of life in the dark.
Conspirator. Traitor. Your house shall burn and your name will be dragged in the mud.
And they dragged his face in mud. Along the wooden planks and the stone. From one side of the long wall to the next. Two hard punches to the back of his head threw him into the stone. He lost teeth. A man stamped him in the lumbar region, which was the reason he couldn’t stand up.
Mr. Peta by Tobias Haglund
“Mr. Peta. A broad’s waitin’ for ya.”
“The red dress with blonde hair? Yea? Did you offer her somethin’ to drink? I got a feeling she’s gonna need it.”
I acted surprised when I saw her. The news coverage pretty much summed up what the meeting would be about. Socialite inherited fortune after bloody breakfast accident.
“Hello Mr. Peta.”
“It’s Mr. Peter.”
“The secretary-”
“She can’t speak. What can I do you for?”
I sat down and shoved old newspapers with half-finished crossword puzzles to the side. I didn’t want her to know I couldn’t finish what I had started. I offered her a glass of bourbon smokier than a factory working ballet dancer.
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