Took the ferry with Reim to the fjord islands down by the cruise ships. The ferry was small and captained by a blue-eyed man who smiled and let each person on board one at a time until he threw off his ropes and we moved away. The wind was blowing and the sky was a metal gray with the water choppy and moving up and down in small waves with whitecaps. The salt air stung and we disembarked on the third stop, an island called Lindoya.

We walked along a dirt path surrounded by purple flowered hedges and red and yellow houses. Off to the right was a forest and before that colonies of ducks and an abandoned soccer field. We kept walking until making it to the other side of the small island and there I left Reim looking through seashells and I wandered off along the windy coastline feeling the small drips of rain from the sky. I walked along trying to make all the terrible things inside me go away. I closed my eyes and ran my hands through piles of old snail shells and brought some home in my pocket with a tiger clam shell and some coral. I found an old wooden bridge that led out to a series of large rocks covered in beds of short yellow flowers and walked through them. Orange billed birds shrieked because I was near their nests and at the end of the rock jutting out into the endless sea there was a wooden bench and I sat down, where Reim was off in the distance taking pictures of the island, where small boats moved quickly and drowned by the sound of the ocean.

I sat there trying to let everything melt away. I didn't want to feel like I was. And I think part of me still feels like that. All around me the waves hit against the stones and water droplets splashed onto my face. It was so cold so I had to keep my hands in my pockets and all I could hear was the birds and waves. The sound of the sea seems so powerful, it drowns out the sound of the islands and everyone else. So that any thoughts in my head were dashed to pieces like those waves against rock. It felt wonderful and I watched the white clouds and gray sky move slowly. There was no sunlight and I liked it like that. It felt suiting, as if my temperament was the scenery. My hands smelled like dust, salt, and sand. I kept thinking things over in my head. I counted time, the days that were left. I thought about all the people and they were all fuzzy and blank. All the people I have met here. I talked to myself and could barely hear. So at one point I was shouting out, 'This is where I would like to be if the world was ending.' Here at the edge of the world as Reim called it. 'Which, every step we take it feels like it teeters and out beyond is the abyss of ice and ocean. It is cold in May, it has almost always been cold.' I yelled out that the sky would be on fire and that orange would meet with the gray sea and giant whirlpools would form shooting out forth and touching the fire. The land would swallow everything and the only thing alive but me would be the birds watching as their island becomes pitched in the battle of the ocean swallowing all the land up and the sky burning everything above.

I got up off the bench because I was too cold and getting wet and promised to myself that I would go back. Then went across the bridge and jumped off crossing tide-pools and finding Reim. We continued walking through the lines of summer cottages--tiny houses with colorful siding and satellite dishes pointed towards the sky--where Norwegians go to rest and relax.

I peed against a short stone cliff wall and then we saw more ducks and people walking their dogs. Eventually it started to rain more than drops and we used our umbrellas until we walked back to the Ferry and back to Oslo. Taking the boat back with the blue-eyed captain always smiling. We bought tickets on the boat but we were never asked for them. And I watched the ocean outside of the window completely forgetting about time and wishing I could sit there forever.

Finally near the end towards evening we found ourselves riding back on the train home and all I could think about was how everything inside my head felt dull and quiet.

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i can see how she could mess you up for so long. and maybe...i mean it makes sense, the you still are not okay and probably won't ever be who you were before.