Inertia by Camilla Grebe

Author:Camilla Grebe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Samuel

I

t is unbearably warm in zombie-Jonas’s room, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

He is perfectly still, almost like a mannequin in the bed.

I also think he looks more gaunt. And his skin has become translucent – the bones and tendons are visible, like groceries in a thin plastic bag. His face is pale and his lips look dry and chapped.

I reach for the lip balm that is next to the vase with the rose on his bedside table.

It’s quite touching. Rachel puts a fresh rose out for zombie-Jonas every morning, even though he has no idea it’s there, even though he is a vegetable who would not have cared if there had been a turd in a bowl on the bedside table.

I lean over him and gently move the greasy white stick over his lips.

He doesn’t react to my touch.

Then I go up to the window and open it, but it is only possible to open it a tiny way before the bars stop it.

When the window frame hits the rusty metal a pair of tree sparrows fly out of the bush that covers the window.

Passer montanus.

Mum could never learn the difference between tree sparrows and house sparrows.

Even though I explained that the tree sparrow has a black marking on its cheek, while the male house sparrow has a black bib.

I leave the window ajar, wipe the sweat off my brow and return to my worn-out sat-in chair.

I have a hard time focusing on reading aloud and consider putting some music on. I usually do that when I get tired of reading, which is often, since the book is so bloody slow. But today there is another reason I can’t concentrate: I am thinking of the text from my mum that I read when I woke up, the one that must have come in sometime last night.

She got the money.

My mum – the world’s most annoying, straight-laced, most anxious person – dug up Igor’s money for me. Even though she can’t so much as litter without being worried about going to hell or something, she went and got the money.

I can barely believe it’s true.

We are going to meet in Stuvskär tomorrow, on Midsummer’s Eve, and then it will be bye-bye zombie-Jonas.

It’ll be so nice to get out of this place, even though I do like Rachel.

And Jonas?

I glance over at him.

He is lying still. His breathing is silent and shallow. The sheet has slid down and reveals his pale, hairless chest that slowly rises.

How can I have an opinion on him? You can neither like him nor dislike him. He sort of just is.

Like the creepy-crawlies and the earwigs under the rock.

I look down at the book in my lap. The pages are yellowed and wrinkled from moisture, as if it has been kept outdoors for a long time. I turn the pages and inhale the smell of damp paper and mould. At the back of the book, on the inside of the cover, I see something.

I turn until I get to the last page and inspect it.

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