Fiction: There’s a Party in Our Bathroom (But We’re Not Invited)

By Axel Görnebrand

 

I have my forehead pressed against the cold window. I can still see our tracks in the snow between the bar and the apartment house. 

Finland is a bleak country. No one should live here. There’s too much taiga here. There’s a limit to how many pine trees you can see in a lifetime before they make you feel sick. 

“You look sleepy. Are you coming to bed?”

She’s standing next to the stove in her underwear and a top that just about reaches her belly button. She knows I'm not sleepy. It’s just one of those games we play to make our lives feel more normal. Before long, I’ll be out here again. She knows it. 

“One second.”

She goes back to the bedroom. I join her shortly after. I slip under the covers and I search for her body. 

“Hold me as tight as you can.” 

I kiss the back of her neck. A few strands of hair tickle the tip of my nose. 

“I’m here now.”

A minute, maybe two, passes. She starts trembling. 

“I’m scared.” 

I feel her tears rolling down my forearm. I wipe them off on the bedsheet. 

“What do you hear?”

“It’s coming from the bathroom.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a party. People are talking.”

“Try not to listen to it. I’m here.”

“It’s loud.”

“It’s okay.”

“Can you put on the music?”

I turn to my phone on the nightstand. I put on the music, loud enough for it to drown out the party noise. 

I hold her tight until she’s fallen asleep. Then I leave the bed and I go back out into the living room. I go over to the window again, curious as to whether our footprints are still visible out there in the snow.

They’re not. 

I sit down on the couch. I sit there, in the quiet and the calm. Supposedly, there’s a party going on in the bathroom, but I can't hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

Axel Görnebrand is a Swede living in Linz, Austria. He writes in English. Twitter (X) @Agornebrand