Interlude

When No One’s Looking

Sometimes one’s got to just wonder. Wonder about those things we leave behind. When we shut the door to a room, switch off the lights. Do the things we leave just wait there, idle? Does life come to a stop when we don’t look? We don’t quite know, do we? Most of the time we don’t think about it if, in the end, we find everything where it was, where we left it. 

Like what happened after Thorinn and Magnus left that night? Someone punched a hole into the world out there in the middle of nowhere. The two men weren’t the only ones who saw it, surely. Someone on the other side had found it too. Had looked through long before they did. Had taken little peeks from time to time. At first, there was nothing. The only thing you could see was snow, endless fields of snow. 

One day, out of nowhere: voices. Deep, grunting. Perhaps this was the right place after all. Perhaps. 

How scared they were, when they finally saw. Even from the darkness, from the blackness they could sense it. That they were being seen. Being watched. And maybe they would never know how close they had gotten. Had the hole just been a little bigger and had they come just a little closer. 

No matter. 

Now, once more, there was nobody. There was silence. Just the bustling of the wind and the vastness of the land. Just this hole. And if you pulled on the frayed edges long enough, and you pushed a little on the right spots, then reality would, just like paper, give in just a little more. Just a little. Bit by bit. 

Strange. The things that happen when no one’s looking.

When no one’s looking

Sometimes one’s got to just wonder. Wonder about those things we leave behind. When we shut the door to a room or to our house, switch off the lights. Do the things we leave just wait there, idle? Does life come to a stop when we don’t look? We don’t quite know, do we? Most of the time we don’t think about it if, in the end, we find everything where it was whenever we switch the lights back on. 

Like what happened after Thorinn and Magnus left that night? Someone punched a hole into the world out there in the middle of nowhere. The two men weren’t the only ones who saw it, surely. Someone on the other side had found it too. Had looked through long before they did. Had taken little peeks from time to time. At first, there was nothing. The only thing you could see was snow, endless fields of snow. 

One day, out of nowhere: voices. Deep, grunting. Perhaps this was the right place after all. Perhaps. 

How scared they were, when they finally saw. Even from the darkness, from the blackness they could sense it. That they were being seen. Being watched. And maybe they would never know how close they had gotten. Had the hole just been a little bigger and had they come just a little closer. 

No matter. 

Now, once more, there was nobody. There was silence. Just the bustling of the wind and the vastness of the land. Just this hole, this papercut. And if you pulled on the frayed edges long enough, and you pushed a little on the right spots, then reality would, just like paper, give in just a little more. Just a little. Bit by bit. 

Strange. The things that happened when no one was looking.