We sat around the Högfors stove, you and I, the ancient iron radiating heat into a chilly May evening. The evening sky still bright outside the old cottage, dust in the air around us.
Death had passed by me, the world felt fragile but I had hope and faith.
"I haven't bought any new clothes since this whole thing started," I said and picked at a loose thread in my old sweater. "It's time for some brand new thrift shop bargains!"
"I might apply for a new job," you said and put more firewood into the stove.
"The fairy tales we read as kids were really scary," one of us said. "And yet they never bothered us! Nobody would let their kids hear them today."
"Money is not everything," I admonished. "I'm not talking money, I'm talking time," you protested.
"You have your own piece of road," I said. "You could establish a road toll."
"I put out the nets, with my nephews," you said, "and we got eighteen perch and ten pike. Even the pike are quite tasty, smoked."
"Should we swap houses?" you said. "If you put a sea over there," I said and pointed out the window.
"We're already swapping stories about our aches and pains," we wailed. "In a few years, it will be all about bowel movements."
I left with three smoked perch and sang an old gospel song loudly on my way home.
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