It was Midsummer’s Eve, the year 2000, and I found myself among friends — Müller, Polbratt, Widerberg, Jeppson, Sophie, and Helena — the girl who had captured my heart since the early days of middle school. She was, undeniably, the most stunning girl in junior high, and I had hardly ever dared to speak to her. I believe Linda, Müller’s former girlfriend, was there as well. We were at Helena’s house in the countryside of Gribbylund, in Täby.
The party carried the usual, increasingly intense, bohemian air — tinged with the rigidness of a fascist fashion police gathering. What music was right? Who wore the most stylish clothes? Who had the most refined taste? It was all about mocking everything as an ironic expression of utter artistic rebellion, while still somehow maintaining a sense of class — our disdain for the rest of the world enforced by an almost Nazi-like order.
Thor, usually quiet and dignified, became drunk almost immediately and fell asleep with his mouth open on the sofa. It was Müller who placed a lampshade on his head and took countless photographs of him and the others in various poses.
The music being played was Einstürzende Neubauten, Ebba Grön, Imperiet, and covers of Cornelis Vreeswijk from the Flying Dutchman album. Then came croquet under the Midsummer night sky, as we were all dangerously drunk. Müller and Jeppson, always the worst, stumbled around, hurling emotional insults at anything they could think of. The whole scene felt like an immature reenactment of Lars von Trier’s The Idiots, from the Dogme 95 movement.
Eventually, we all calmed down and decided to head to the beach near Skavlöten by Rönningesjön for a midnight skinny dip. Helena and I were the only ones brave enough to venture into the moonlit water together, nude. We started playing with each other, our eyes locking again and again, diving under each other’s legs — yet remaining painfully shy. The others, slightly bored, withdrew as Helena and I dove deep into our own moment — likely owing to Linda’s subtle initiative.
It was very late, a little after three, maybe half past, in the morning, when we walked away together, just as the sun began to rise. The others had long since left. We sat on the roadside, on the warm asphalt. Helena was weeping, close to the fields, telling me about her mother’s passing and her father, who had lost his will to live.
She then told me how she loved the uncompromising contrast between my eyebrows and my shaved head. We returned to her place, where we fell asleep silently, holding each other in her soft bed, listening to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and his Moonlight Shadow.
