Let the Old Dreams Die (55 page)

‘Eternal / Love’ was born out of a feeling that for some reason became acute. I started thinking about the fact that we don’t live forever, however much we love someone. Obvious, of course, but suddenly I saw it so clearly, and I was horrified. We can keep our love burning, but at some point we still have to part. The first sentence in the story just came to me in all its simplicity, then the pieces of the puzzle came one after another. It’s just occurred to me that thematically it’s a kind of epilogue to
Let the Right One In
.

‘Majken’ was special in that it began with a name. I got the name Majken, and it sat there in my head. One day on the way to Arlanda I passed a house with a silver Volkswagen Beetle parked outside, and I knew it was Majken’s car. This then linked up with the idea of ‘Shoplifters of the World, Unite’, and there you go. Perhaps I should also mention that I’ve adapted the security system at the NK department store slightly to suit my purposes.

I started to write ‘The final processing’ mainly to make use of the grandiose final scene I had planned for
Handling the Undead
, but for which there was no room. I planned a short novella of perhaps thirty pages, but it ran away with me. Which is actually quite consistent, because I had originally intended
Handling the Undead
to be a novella as well.

I won’t go through all the stories. That’s enough. There are only five of you still listening to me. I don’t really know what to do to hold your interest until I’ve got the acknowledgements out of the way.

Oh yes, I could tell you about the novella I did the most work on, but it isn’t in this collection because I didn’t manage to finish it. Would that be of any interest?

Actually I think this is the best format for that particular story, because more than any of the others it was based on an
idea
, on the fact that I had such a bloody good idea. And sometimes that can be a problem. The idea is so good it proves impossible to realise.

I should have smelled a rat, because I actually carried this idea around in my head for perhaps eighteen months without it ever poking its nose out and demanding to be
written
. However, in the end I decided to try to put it together, and after a month of dithering between different variations, narrative techniques, tempos and perspectives I gave up. It just wouldn’t work, it was all wrong however I tried.

But what about the idea?

Well, it went like this:

A number of people are locked in a chamber a hundred metres underground. Let’s say it was intended for the long-term storage of nuclear waste, but it has been left to its fate. Why are they locked in? For TV, of course. A large number of cameras document their every movement. What they call a reality show.

Not particularly original? Well, a film called
My Little Eye
came along at the same time.

But I haven’t finished.

The people in the underground chamber are totally isolated. Everything the cameras pick up is stored on a hard drive which is also in the chamber. During the month the group spend in the underground chamber, they have no contact whatsoever with the outside world, and no one can see them. In addition, there is also a
kind of inbuilt reward system. If they can complete certain tasks, they receive alcohol or food or entertainment. A living TV game show. When they return to the surface, the hard drive is brought out and used to edit together a program.

Still not keen? No, me neither. Could easily degenerate into satire. But here’s the thing:

Are you familiar with Schrödinger’s cat?

Briefly, it’s a way of describing quantum mechanics, what is known as wave-particle duality. I won’t go into the science behind the whole thing, because not even the scientists are completely clear about it. But the idea is that a poison gas is released or not released into the box containing the cat. And in the world of quantum mechanics it isn’t just that we don’t know if the cat is alive or dead until we open the box. It’s also that the cat
isn’t
alive or dead, or rather it’s both at the same time, until we open the box.

It’s the observation itself that evokes the choice, determining the fate of the cat. Or, to put it another way: ‘Curiosity killed the cat’.

Back to the story.

The people in the underground chamber have been in a situation not unlike the cat’s. But now they begin to look at the tapes, at the material filmed by the cameras. And at that point reality is changed. They see things on the tapes that don’t correspond with what the participants said when they came out. When the tapes are rewound, they have been altered to match the new reality.

Since I write in this particular genre, it was naturally a terrible course of events that began to unfold. Those who are watching the tapes realise they
must
watch them in order to be able to stop this course of events, while at the same time they know that the very act of watching will cause the events to happen. Curiosity killed the participants.

Good idea, isn’t it?

I thought so, anyway. Until I tried to write it.

Oh well. At least I’ve found
some
use for it here. As a little bonus story for the three of you who are still hanging in there.

That’s all I wanted to say this time. It’ll probably be a while before we hear from each other again. Just one last thing.

I had intended to use a particular quotation as a motto for this collection, but I’m going to use it as the final word instead.

Sometimes I’m asked why I choose to write horror. A journalist pushed the issue so far that in the end I got really tired of it.

‘Why did you choose horror in particular?’

I told him.

‘Why did you locate a vampire in Blackeberg?’

I told him the truth: my idea was very simple. Something terrible arrives in Blackeberg, I wanted to see what would happen. Then came the follow-up question: ‘Why does something terrible arrive in Blackeberg?’

Somewhere around that point I gave up. I had no more variations when it came to answering what was basically the same question.

The following day I listened to Morrissey
Live at Earl’s Court
for the first time. And there, in the break between two songs, he suddenly comes out with something that I think can serve as both the answer to the questions, and the motto for my entire production:

‘I really can’t help it. It’s either this or prison.’

I also have some people to thank. Lots of people to thank.

Thomas Oredsson and Eva Harms Oredsson did the proofreading, and Thomas gave a lovely speech. Eva’s laughter echoed across the neighbourhood in the summer’s evening.

All my stepsons have read the stories. Their names are Nils,
Jonatan and Kristoffer Sjögren and they’re the best in the world, each in his own way. Kristoffer’s Emma is called Berntson, and she can walk any distance you care to mention. She read them too.

Aron Haglund stuck with it. Gave me faith in Majken and sent great lyrics by return.

Jan-Olof Wesström and Bob Hansson haven’t read the stories, but they’re such great guys and good friends that I wanted to say thank you, thank you anyway.

Then there are people who’ve given me factual information:

Frank Watson corrected some photographic errors in ‘Can’t see it! It doesn’t exist!’ in spite of the fact that he happened to share the same name as the main character.

Martin Skånberg and Maria Halla told me a bit about the load-bearing properties of buildings for ‘Village on the hill’.

Kurt Ahrén sat with me in the boathouse working out Latin terms for ‘The final processing’.

The staff at the customs post in Kapellskär told me about their work for ‘Border’.

(If any errors remain it is not their fault, but must be blamed on my lively imagination.)

I wouldn’t want to be without my editor, Elisabeth Watson Straarup, nor Malin Morell at Ordfront. Without them it wouldn’t be so much fun.

And then there’s Mia, of course. Everything is written for her, to be read aloud to her. It burns, flickers, and will never die.

Thanks, all of you.

John Ajvide Lindqvist

PS: Plus you, the very last one, who stuck it out right to the end. Thanks to you too.