Age anxiety and fish trouble - Chapter 6

Wednesday

I wake up reasonably rested. The fever has gone down but it still tightens my neck a bit but I feel that I will be able to work today.

I.m happy because it is Wednesday. Olivia and I then go out for lunch and eat something in town. Most often in a restaurant, but sometimes we eat something in the square.

I go to work and the weather is really nice. I show the sketches about the exhibition to my boss and she is very pleased. My job will now be to put everything together on several boards. It should of course be arranged chronologically so that you can follow the history more easily.

I put the pictures chronologically so that it will be easier to set them up correctly. It takes a while. When I'm halfway done, the big clock on the wall chimes. Time for lunch.

Olivia is standing outside her office and we decide to go up to the main square and eat something from a serving cart. I'm probably going to buy a big hamburger like that if that seller is there today.

Olivia and I talk to each other a bit during the journey up to the square. Once up, I immediately see that yes, the hamburger seller is standing there and I habitually steer the steps towards it.

I'm almost there when I smell a wonderful scent in the air. I sniff in the air and feel the saliva coming. Whatever it is that smells so good, I have to have it. It doesn't come from the hamburger seller anyway. The smell from there strangely makes me recoil.

The scent is so good that I feel like I can't really concentrate on what Olivia is saying. I sniff further to find what smells so divinely good. Olivia is standing behind me saying something but I can't quite hear what it is.

Finally I arrive at where the scent is coming from. It's a blue and white wagon that I don't recognize. A Greek with a rather large beard looks at me with a questioning look.

- Yep. What will it be today then?
- What smells so incredibly good.
- Hmm. It's probably the fried herring. Do you want it?

Herring? It's fish! I feel unsure of what my nose is telling me and what my taste buds are thinking.

-Ohh. Fried herring is incomparably good; Olivia says next to me.
-Uh, yes. I'll take a fried herring with mash and a coke please; I say but feel very unsure if I really want this. If nothing else, I can eat the mash and drink the cola if the herring tastes bad. I give the seller the money. It's cheaper than the hamburger I intended to buy

Olivia also takes a fried herring with mash, but she chooses a Loka to drink instead.

Olivia and I sit down at a bench on the so-called sunny side and start eating. The seagulls scream around us but we don't care.

I take the first bite of the fish and.. it actually tastes good! If someone had said a week earlier that I would like fried herring, I wouldn't have believed them, but both my nose and taste buds tell me the same thing. This is good.

As I sit there with Olivia, a kind of calmness suddenly spreads through my body. It's very hard to explain how, but it almost feels like coming home after a long journey. I've been unconsciously feeling this tense feeling for a while but now it's just gone like that.

When we finish eating, Olivia and I go back to work. I continue to sort the pictures and when the clock shows that it is time to go home, I have just finished with all the pictures. I put them in a big folder so the pictures are protected.

When I get home, I see that I have received a text message from my parents. I don't see them very often. I call them up and it is decided that we will meet on Saturday, I think it will be nice to meet them.

I later call the support of the broadband company about my broken router. There are a few ahead in the queue but I get connected after a while. After a little talk between us, they understand that my router is really broken and they promise to send a new one as soon as possible.

I go into the kitchen and think about what to make for supper. I decide to fry an egg and bacon.

After the meal, I watch a bit of TV, but nothing interests me. Instead, I take out a book and start reading. It's a book by Stephen King and it's exciting.

I have read several chapters and when I look at the clock in the living room it is 11.25 pm. I decide to go to bed. I usually go to bed around 9 or 10 pm. It doesn't take long before I fall asleep.

Thursday

I wake up at 7 o'clock from my mobile phone and get up and take a shower. It doesn't tighten anything around the neck anymore, which is nice. It's time to shave, I think as I stand in the shower.

When I'm done, I get out of the shower and dry myself. Walks up to the mirror and gets a minor shock. No gray hair this time but something strange on both sides of the neck.

It's like four vertical lines in the skin of the neck. It is also on both the right and left side. I raise my hand and feel the lines but it doesn't feel strange in any way.

But what on earth is it?

I try to get hold of the lines but nothing happens. They sit where they sit. I growl at them and pick up the razor and shave. I drag the razorblade over the lines but feel nothing special about them. It doesn't hurt when I run the razorblade over them and there's no blood either so probably nothing to worry too much about.

Maybe some kind of ageism simply.

Something in my subconscious comes up with an answer. Gills.

I shake my head and think it's probably time to see a psychologist. But the scary thing is that it actually resembles gills. But closed if so.

Stop it. Don't even think about it. There isn't any possibility to it.

After shaving and making myself pretty and also putting on a sweater that hides the stretch marks, I go to the kitchen and make breakfast.

There will be eggs and sandwiches with liver pate and Pro viva orange juice and, of course, good tea. It will be a fruit tea with apple cinnamon and raisins. It tastes like Christmas and probably doesn't quite fit now that it's almost summer, but it's very good. I can barely get the sandwiches down. They taste sickening and disgusting somehow.

Before I go to work, I look in the freezer for some food I want. There is quite a lot to choose from, but nothing really feels appealing. In the end, I settle for a young pancake with bacon in it. It will do. I'm thinking I'll buy something more nutritious later at the food market, but not sure what.

I go to work and continue with my project. Soon I will be ready to put up the pictures on the different boards. I put the very oldest ones up first. They are yellow with age. One of the coworkers knocks on my door and asks if I can be a guide today because Daniel is sick and no one else really has time.

I choose to help guide tourists. A lot of people come today and many are curious and ask questions. When I go home for the day, I'm actually a little mentally tired. But the most important thing is that I have helped and that means a lot to me.

I go into our local food market and look around and think about what I really want. The fish section attracts me like a magnet. I stand and choose but in the end I choose a frozen cod. It will do. I pay and go home.

When I get home, I cook the cod and also some potatoes. It's very good and I sit and enjoy the taste in the kitchen. There will be some cod and potatoes left and I put them in a lunchbox for the next day to take to work.

I later listen to a record with the group Electric Light Orchestra. One of my favorite songs is on the record. It's "Can´t Get It Out Of My Head". Such true words sometimes. Right now I have fishes and mermaids in my head and it's actually a bit disturbing.

I take out my Stephen King book that I started reading yesterday and then I sit in my favorite armchair in the living room and read.

It won't be as late as last night unless I go to bed around 10pm. I'm pretty tired but not in a bad way.